Diamondeye wrote:
Except that there is no sense of entitelement to advantage or privilege on the part of whites. There is no advantage or privilege.
Except that there very much is. How do you explain the vast difference in execution rates, in conviction rates, and rates of imprisonment. It even presents itself when you look at white and black defendants of similar or equal socioeconomic status.
There is no doubt that racism is still entrenched in our institutions, in our hiring and firing practices, in our schools, and in our justice system.
White people have advantages as a result of the color of their skin. Men have advantages over women, and white men enjoy the most defacto advantage of any other type of person.
Edit -
Let me tell a personal story, from just yesterday, that you might relate to as a peace officer (actually, I dont know if you're a cop anymore or not, so if not, you were, so yeah).
Anyway.
I just got done serving on a jury for a criminal case. The accused was an African American male, approximately 40 years old. He was accused of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. The State had a terrible case. They had a single eyewitness, who (for various reasons) lacked a great deal of credibility. However, they did not call several other persons who had witnessed the crime. His testimony was not only contradicted by his police statements at the time of the incident, but evolved over the course of his time on the stand.
The state had no direct evidence linking the accused to the crime. They had one weapon of the two he was supposedly using. This weapon had his print on it, but the accused had recently been to the house and had lived there within a reasonable amount of time. Anyway, long story short, there was **** all for evidence.
Anyway, I was already well in the camp of Not Guilty (which would be the eventual verdict). However, the prosecution did something during closing statements that nearly had my jaw on the floor. The two prosecutors split the closing argument (one handled the initial argument, the other a rebuttal to the defense). The first woman, in the course of her speech, picked up the weapon and then put on her very bestest black man voice and quoted some hearsay evidence from earlier "An' den I came at 'im wit' a big ol' knife". She may as well have been tapdancing in black face. It was *seriously* offensive.
My guess is that she thought, given that there wasn't a single black person on the Jury, that her little impression might play on racial bias. Or perhaps that's just how this woman thinks black people talk. Who knows? It might *be* how the defendant talked, but the caricature was garish and, frankly, racist. She's a state prosecutor, and she should know better.
Just a personal anecdote, so take it however you like. We found the man not guilty given the states extremely weak case.
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It feels like all the people who want limited government really just want government limited to Republicans.
---The Daily Show