Draft talk:Race and police brutality in the United States

Anecdotes
How does a list of cherry-picked anecdotes demonstrate anything in a country of 300 million people? Statistician (talk) 12:38, 31 December 2020 (UTC)
 * -- Goatspeed. 18:05, 31 December 2020 (UTC)
 * National-level data also shows that police brutality disporportionately affects Black people and other POC. In fact, why don't you try finding some and adding it to the stats section? It would save me some work! Face-wink.svg Quantumgeek333 (talk) 19:16, 31 December 2020 (UTC)
 * To be fair, they're right in a way. There's loads of well normalized peer reviewed data showing a consistent pattern of police overtargeting and overkilling of black americans, along with other research showing that there's no correlation between that excessive force and crime rates in any way.  That kind of strong observational evidence absolutely should be in the article somewhere.  ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 02:11, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

What the other problem is
The problems of race and police violence have been around for a long time. I am convinced that racism plays a role in understanding how the two concepts are related. Looking at the data, it seems that black American men are 2.5 times more likely to be killed by police than are white Americans, although many more white Americans than black Americans are killed by police. However, simply calling for an end to racism is not an effective strategy. If it were, all manner of crimes could be reduced by announcing that such transgressions should cease. Police use of Force policies must change.

The poverty rate for native born and naturalized white Americans is identical and stands at 9.6%. The poverty rate for native born black Americans is 25.1% (11.8% for naturalized blacks). This shows that on average a native born American black is 2.6 times more likely to be poor than a white American. In the end, police brutality remains a real problem, whether the cause is poverty or is directly due to racism.Ariel31459 (talk) 02:01, 1 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Yeah, absolutely! I'm approaching writing the article from a structural perspective. I'm going to do some more analysis in the "why" section, too. Quantumgeek333 (talk) 02:35, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

This draft
Couldn't it just be fused with the article we already have on police brutality? Twodots (talk) 02:12, 1 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I think there's so much info specific to police brutality in the US (protests, victims, stats, etc) that it deserves its own article. It was also pretty well-demanded in the to-do list. Quantumgeek333 (talk) 02:35, 1 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Alrighty. Carry on, then. Twodots (talk) 02:37, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

Trayvon Martin
Not sure that fits with the others, since Zimmerman was decidedly not a police officer. It was a horrible situation in its own right, but not a problem with the police. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい ) 05:26, 1 January 2021 (UTC)
 * It fits in with the general theme. Perhaps the title of this article should be changed to "Race and the criminal justice system in the United States." — Oxyaena Harass  09:46, 1 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Ah, fuck, I forgot about that—I was just listing names when I wrote those categories. I’d like to keep the focus on police brutality, or at least law enforcement in general, so I’ll take that one out. Quantumgeek333 (talk) 15:35, 1 January 2021 (UTC)
 * It's more the issue of the police not charging Zimmerman with anything until after marches and demands for justice occurred when they knew exactly who the killer was and already had him in custody that night. The police shouldn't need an entire movement to be founded just to get them to do their jobs.  As for the trial, well, the whole case was an ugly case but ugly cases are exactly the ones that deserve to see the inside of a courtroom; it's the obvious ones that should be plead down or dropped entirely.  I don't know if the jury made the wrong decision, Zimmerman probably committed 3rd degree murder but we don't know for certain, but if Zimmerman had been charged immediately and eventually found not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt without all the media attention, "random man acquitted in murder trial of unknown kid" would never have made national news.  Plus, the legal system fuq'd it up by not including some sort of "reckless endangerment" or other lesser but easier-to-prove charge.  Heck, Zimmerman himself probably wishes he got charged immediately instead of becoming a national figure and having to live the rest of his life with people literally trying to murder him. CoryUsar (talk) 21:57, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

history
the history section is a little short on history. the notable victims are all with one exception are all firmly within the blm era, and exception rodney king goes back only to the 90s.

this is not a recent phenomena. the black panther party was founded as a response to police brutality (and their treatment by the police goes waaay beyond simple brutality) in the 60s, but it started long before that, from the reconstruction era through jim crow, through the civil rights era to now.

we cant talk about police brutality with only a focus on the present. it tells us very little without the necessary context of its roots and growth explaining how and why the us is what it is today an the hurdles it faces in remedying the situation.

its also a little inaccurate to be titled as it is when there is only one race - african americans - that is discussed. AMassiveGay (talk) 21:32, 27 January 2021 (UTC)


 * It's a work-in-progress. I'll get to adding less current-stuff and non-Black victims. I've not been feeling great or motivated to edit recently. Quantumgeek333 (talk) 01:15, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

A content warning?
Seriously? 21:47, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Thought it was better safe than sorry, considering that I talk about people being held in chokeholds or otherwise dying. I'm used to providing CWs for all sorts of stuff. Would you say that this doesn't deserve a content warning (at least in its current state)? Quantumgeek333 (talk) 01:15, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I just feel like the content of the article should be fairly obvious based on the article content. Same reason the Holocaust article doesn't have a content warning. 01:16, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Fair enough. Quantumgeek333 (talk) 01:18, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

I'm back, motherfuckers
The semester is over, which means now I have time to work on this again! Quantumgeek333 (talk) 01:42, 5 June 2021 (UTC)
 * You might want to consider merging this draft into Police brutality rather than creating a separate mainspace page. Bongolian (talk) 16:43, 11 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Welcome back! 19:36, 11 June 2022 (UTC)