How often is police brutality an issue? And how often is it exclusivley white cops and a black vicitm?

Here's the issue summed up as briefly as I can: Try to imagine yourself basing your treatment of another human being based solely on the color of their skin. Understand how absurd that sounds to you if you're a normal thinking person and keep that in mind before you go assuming that it's motivation for others.

" Research on police brutality against ethnic groups is increasing, particularly in Latino communities. Findings suggest a pattern of abuse, often without evidence of a crime and without appropriate review of police action. It is suggested that abuse will abate only when police departments operate openly and undergo public scrutiny. (MSE)"
-Roberto Rodriquez who conducted a story on i believe for a local news outlet.

"A P-I analysis found that africanb-americans are arrested for the crime of obstructing an officer eight times as whites often as when population is taking into account. Analysis, which examined six of Seattle municipal court records also found that almost half of these cases are dropped before trial."
-Taking from a seattle newspaper. Heres the whole link Blacks are arrested on 'contempt of cop' charge at higher rate

Even my own step brother has gotten pulled over numerous times without any legitimate reason for it.
I can't imagine myself doing it, but apparently some people can judge others simply on skin color. A lot of it likely has to do with stereotypes of black people tv ,and on the radio by many hip-hop artists who many people take too literally.

Try going up to kids my age and asking their reaction on racism. Black people who act intelligently are called "White" or "man, hes a white-black kid". Many white kids who grow up in the surburbs that i know our terrified of even taking a city bus.

It doesn't help that they got rid of the law that said cops had to patrol in the city they live in. Now you get cops who live in white neighborhoods coming into these "bad" neighborhoods not knowing how to conduct themselves.

What they need to do is make the cops do some community service or spend some time with families of the people they're falsely arresting.

I think your predilection for grandeur has made some of your statements false. And by "think" I mean, I know. You think that the 300 year span of American slavery was the most widespread use of slaves... ever? Is that... a joke? Or just turning a blind eye to history for the sheer fun of it? America was not the first to do any of those things you mentioned... I wish I had the energy to write a fully fleshed response right now, unfortunately that is not the case. But... for starters - and this is basic knowledge that I thought EVERYONE knew about - just look at slavery in ancient Egypt. Simply reading an article on that particular era would disprove your American slavery being unique spiel. Slavery has been around since ~1760 BC... I just can't believe that you believe the things that you are saying. I feel like you heard it somewhere and adopted the sense of logic without doing any real research.

I'm a Peace Studies/International Studies major at the University of Missouri, so slavery (among other atrocities) is something I have to read about all the time. I hope to be an International Human Rights Lawyer one of these days (sigh, it'll be awhile), so this is one of those subjects I am pretty passionate about - I say this not to brag or elevate myself, but merely to save you time on writing out the history of slavery to me like you started to do up there... also it's kind of ridiculous to see that kind of misconception coming out of someone who seems to be intelligent.

You really think that America was the only country whose economical strength was founded on free labor? Come on now...

This may sound dumb, but i heard on discovery channel that egypt never actually had slaves.

heres the quote:
"The Pyramids were not built by slaves, the 'fact' is, contrary to popular 'myth', Egypt never had slaves, they didn't need them... they had the Nile River which provided them with enough water and resources that the communities flourished and provided them with enough free time to build the Pyramids without slaves"

My teacher also told me they were fed good meat, something they wouldn't normally feed to slaves?

I doubt either beleif can be proven entirely, but this sounds plausible :-)

Wiki says the same:

"Due to Biblical descriptions, the definitions of slavery in Ancient Egypt are hotly debated. Archaeological discoveries by Mark Lehner and Zahi Hawass lead some to claim that the workers who built the pyramids were not enslaved. [5] As practiced in ancient Egypt, slavery was likely more akin to slavery in the medieval world rather than trans-Atlantic slavery: Persons generally became enslaved in ancient Egypt by virtue of being captives (or prisoners) of war, committing criminal or other indecent acts, or indebtedness. Slaves in ancient Egypt could be sold, inherited or offered as gifts, but they could sometimes achieve social rank and take other contracts. Hence under Greek, Roman and Ancient Egyptian slavery there was no segregation between slave and society, it was non-racial and slaves could be upwardly mobile."

That might have been used by some idiots as a kind of moral pretext to justify it, but at the essence this is not what slavery is about. Slavery is not ideological, it is functional. The real motivation for slavery is not race, it is cheap labour. It just so happened that the cheapest place for American traders to get slaves was West Africa.

More to the point, though, slavery was never considered morally abhorrent in those times. It was a pretty normal, conventional part of the majority of human societies, particularly in many African societies. Of course, the African natives who sold those prisoners into slavery to Europeans must not have found it morally problematic either. It was a pretty normal transaction.

I think negative attitudes towards blacks was largely the result of slavery, not the motivation for it. American slave traders did not think to themselves "let's get slaves from Africa, since those people are inferior and worth less than us so it's alright". They just did it because it was the most profitable enterprise available to them. It was the social circumstance of black people existing only as slaves in a majority white country that led to a widespread view of them as an inferior race and an underclass.

Another example of widespread slavery of black people is the case of Abyssinian slaves in the Arabian peninsula back one and a half or so thousand years ago. The Arabs didn't keep them as slaves because they were black. It was merely easy to buy slaves from East Africa.

This is a great point.

It's very to easy to assume slavery was a racist practice, and it was, but race is\was by no means the primary motivation, as I've always said, it's money.

If there was no need for slave labor, indentured races would not have faced such horrid mistreatment.

Ignorance is no excuse, but it is a more plausible motivation then racism.


Matious I find it very arrogant (although, I don't feel it's your intention) that you can suppose so many people are willing to base their motivations on skin color. I think you're underestimating people. People can distinguish between stereotypes presented and portrayed by hip-hop artists and people they interact in their personal and professional life.

Your examples are simply the ignorance of youth, not racism. A lot of my friends had what would be considered prejudice views in our youth, it's not something they acted on, it was simply an opinion or viewpoint that had not evolved yet. Are culture emphasizes equality and diversity, they will mature, they will adapt. And it's not the skin color of people in the "bad" neighborhoods that scares or disorients police, it's the mentality of poor desperate people and the access to drugs and weapons.

You have to look past the surface to get a real scope of what motivates people.

Just to throw in (from my ap us class last year) Early Settlers tried to use Native Americans first as slaves (African Slaves were too expensive) but they weren't good laborers and eventually they bought slaves from Africa.

I think skin color is just one of many things that people are afraid of the inner-cities for. Wealthier people tend to be afraid of the poorer masses.

First of all, this is from wiki. While wiki may be good for giving you an idea of ... well anything really... it is hardly a source for substantial facts. Secondly, just like it says IN the wiki article. This topic is one of those ongoing debates that noone seems to know an answer to because of the lack of information. That article quoted is one of the many, many claims on the issue. Any archaeologist with a degree and a hand he can write with can make an academic claim. But even this claim is weak in merit, just look at the logical counterpoint that could be made about the slaves in ancient Egypt. They could be sold... inhereited, etc, etc and could sometimes could be upwardly mobile... achieve social rank (?).

I believe that the "sometimes" is misleading. Sometimes tends to hint at often. But, the more correct way to put it is, "It could have been possible for a slave to... etc etc". The word "could" is also something that should strike you as important. Sure, a slave COULD achieve all of this uberslavery goodness - yeah, sure it was POSSIBLE. But was it probable? I think not.

Also the no-segregation between slaves and society is highly suspect. Do you think that the head of the juris coven would be walking next to slaves on the street? Buying bread at the same prices at the same vendors? That statement and its vagueries are exactly why wiki is unreliable when it comes to circles of academia.

Richard made some good points about slavery as functionality as opposed to the ideaology. Whereas slavery and the attached versions of racism et al really become another part of the philosophical argument of Hume ( to be specific ) "Whatever begins to exist must have a cause of existence". The cause of slavery was need for copious amounts cheap/free labor, and then the existence of these people as slaves - thusly, being lower than members of society - gave cause to the racism... - you can see how this can go on forever.

Examples of Racism in America

Barack Obama has his largest leading in Presidential exit polling since he and Mccain became the two candidates listed as choices.

Oprah Winfrey is the highest grossing TV star in the country

Will Smith is the Highest grossing film star in the country

Tiger Woods is the top grossing athlete in the country

African-Americans made the highest jump in average annual salary of any ethnic group in the country in 2007.

America is so racist.