Murderous Cops and Systematic Racism

Time and again, I see complaints by black activists, blacktivists if you will, about how “racist” society is against black people.  BLM exists seemingly to 1) complain about the deaths of black criminals and 2) complain whenever people are concerned about the death of a white person.  These two things intersect most clearly in police brutality and I thought three cases worth speaking about: the killing of George Floyd by Derek Chauvin, the killing of Justine Damond by Mohamed Noor, and the killing of Ashley Babbitt by Michael Byrd.  These are the killing of a black man by a white man and two white women killed by black men.  Interestingly, the white man faces 22.5 years in prison, Noor was recently able to get his conviction overturned, and I don’t believe Byrd was ever even charged.

So, what happened with the George Floyd case?  A black man with an extensive criminal record was detained by a cop and died in custody, possibly due to Chauvin’s placement of his knee on Floyd’s back and/or neck.  Floyd tested positive for drugs in his system which I do not believe was used in the legal defense though it certainly could have contributed, if not caused, his death.  The reason for the police interaction?  At least in part, it was because Floyd attempted to use a fake $20 bill.  Also, despite BLM complaining that white people cared about Floyd’s death less than the deaths of whites at the hands of cops, the BLM folks never seem to be able to recognize that their reaction to a co-ethnic being murdered (riots and violence) are far more intense than the white reaction to a co-ethnic being murdered (Facebook posts and the occasional person with a sign).

What about with Justine Damond?  This was an Australian woman who was shot by a Somali cop, so there isn’t really much ambiguity there in the cause of death.  What about the reason for the police interaction?  If you start reading AP’s coverage of it, you would think she was killed because she was doing something nefarious but was “immediately portrayed as the innocent victim she was, a peaceful woman who was trying to help someone else by calling 911 to report a possible rape in the alley behind her home.” So, what was she, really?  Well, AP doesn’t contradict that narrative, so implicitly it seems to acknowledge that indeed, she was simply an innocent woman who got shot by a black cop after reporting a possible rape. Additionally, Noor was apparently “fast-tracked” to be on active duty and red flags didn’t stop his career.

What about Ashli Babbitt?  The most neutral way to put it is that she was at the Capitol Protest on January 6^th and a police officer, overly agitated by the situation, shot her while she was in close proximity to other civilians and other capitol police officers (and when I say close proximity, I mean it would have been very easy for the shooter to have hit one of the cops instead).  Interestingly, the mainstream media reports her as an “insurrectionist” who got what was coming to her.  How she is an insurrectionist is unclear, as she was unarmed and used no violence (unless you wish to stretch the definition so much that her attempted pushing and/or potential to break said door constitutes “violence”). 

In any event, she was part of a group of people who were excited and caused negligible to minimal property damage in D.C.  Oddly, BLM riots have caused an estimated billions of dollars of property damage throughout the nation, yet they were not called insurrectionists, but I don’t wish to get too off topic. 

The only murder connected with the January 6^th protest was that of Babbitt (apparently there was also a drug overdose and three people who reportedly died of natural causes).  How did the media treat her death? They glossed over the fact that she’d served in the military 14 years, instead focusing on the fact that she believed in conspiracy theories and then jumped through hoops to pretend that her death was justified.  Here’s the thing about that: even if the cop thought that he was “in danger,” the danger he posed to the officers (and other people) by taking the shot was far greater than the potential threat she could have posed.  You don’t have to be a veteran to know that if his shot missed, he could have easily been a cop killer that day.  If you watch the video, it seems the other officers believed they themselves were the targets of the shot.  I wonder if he would have been prosecuted for that death, or if she would have been blamed?

Babbit’s murderer had the audacity to say he  “saved countless lives.”  Not that he believed at the time he was going to save countless lives.  At least that could be argued as a heat of the moment bad judgment or perspective issue.  No.  He seems to genuinely think that shooting an unarmed woman who was standing extremely close to both other unarmed people and to capitol police officers saved countless people. 

So, when a black cop kills a white woman, he gets off, but when a white cop kills a black guy, he gets the book thrown at him?  And blacktivists are saying the system is racist against blacks?  Well, they’re right, but for the wrong reason.  The system is racist against blacks in the sense that it doesn’t treat them like adults with agency.

This is part of a bigger problem in America (and the West) today which is the focus on “racism” and “racial justice” with entirely effect-based solutions (trying to handle the effects) rather than cause-based solutions (trying to get to the root cause of issues).  At least a few decades ago, people wanted cause-based solutions to these supposed ills.  Everyone knew then, and knows now, blacks are convicted for more crimes proportional to population than whites.  A cause-based solution would be trying to figure out: 1) if blacks are committing more crimes (they are), 2) if so, what are the causes of their committing more crimes, and 3) how do we address those causes to lower their crime rate?  An effect-based solution is simply to arrest fewer blacks and more whites.  We’ve seen that already in various cities that have gotten rid of certain laws due to disparate impact (blacks are punished for these crimes more than whites proportional to population).  If you acknowledge that blacks are arrested and convicted for almost all crimes disproportionately, you would think the error in logic of abolishing laws with disparate impact would be obvious.  Should we decriminalize murder and rape simply because blacks are convicted of it at a higher rate than whites?

Shifting gears slightly, we’re seeing that racism (whether allegedly using a slur or simply being racist) is being criminalized.  You can see this most simply in the sense that a crime being labeled a “hate crime” makes it more serious, but it’s more than that.  The system of power is being used, as America gets browner, to fixate on “racial justice” which essentially means punishing white people for being white. 

We’re seeing this up and down the halls of power.  For instance, Georgetown law professor, Paul Butler, advocates blacks use jury nullification to get guilty black people found not guilty.  What’s amazing is he faced no punishment for advocating subversion of the legal system.  Jury nullification is one of the bigger taboos in law generally and you would think that advocating it in a discriminatory way would certainly get a person in trouble, but not if you’re black.  Now you may want to cry “tenure” but compare this other story about Georgetown professors: one was fired for simply lamenting that her poorer students tended to be black.  She said “I hate to say this…a lot of my lower ones are blacks. Happens almost every semester.”  That clip only shows a snippet of the conversation, but it seems to be a professor trying to figure out how to reverse that trend and asking another colleague for guidance.  Oh, and the professor on the call with her was put on leave, I suppose for guilt by association.

Yet, of course, the main problem of our time is not the fact that blacks commit more crimes than whites proportional to population, and in some cases numerically.  No, it’s on how “racist” our society is against blacks.  Maybe if we get rid of all the statues, all the laws with disparate outcomes, all the proficiency tests, and all standards of any kind, we’ll have equality?

Somehow, I doubt it.