The Democrat Thread

[StrangeSox]

No i get the concept just fine but thanks! Racism is a belief. A system does not have a belief.

Systems are created and run by people. Beliefs and prejudices and actions aggregate.

 

I don't see how you can offer a coherent alternative explanation to the reality.

[Jenksismyhero]

Systems are created and run by people. Beliefs and prejudices and actions aggregate.

 

I don't see how you can offer a coherent alternative explanation to the reality.

 

So then what you denied yesterday is true - the police, prosecutors and juries that convict minorities more than whites do so because they're racist, at least a little bit.

 

My alternate theory is that the criminal justice system is not racist and does not treat others differently, it's the circumstances of those minorities that creates the results. Minorities are more likely to be in gangs, more likely to be poor, etc., so it makes logical sense that they would commit more crime. We're not talking about people implementing racist sentencing policies (crack v cocaine) or cops using racial profiling (which still happens, but doesn't account for the large differences in the numbers). We're talking about general crime statistics across the country.

 

 

 

[StrangeSox]

So then what you denied yesterday is true - the police, prosecutors and juries that convict minorities more than whites do so because they're racist, at least a little bit.

 

Everyone has prejudices.

 

edit: but even policies that have no racial animus, explicitly or implicitly, in their crafting can have disparate racial impact and have a racially prejudiced outcome.

 

My alternate theory is that the criminal justice system is not racist and does not treat others differently, it's the circumstances of those minorities that creates the results. Minorities are more likely to be in gangs, more likely to be poor, etc., so it makes logical sense that they would commit more crime. We're not talking about people implementing racist sentencing policies (crack v cocaine) or cops using racial profiling (which still happens, but doesn't account for the large differences in the numbers). We're talking about general crime statistics across the country.

 

But there's not evidence that minorities actually commit more crimes than non-minorities. You can control for economic status and you still get massive disparities. This really shows up in sentencing for similar crimes. Or that report I posted a page or two ago about how minority children are disciplined differently and more likely to be pushed towards the criminal justice system.

 

Your alternate theory just doesn't match reality.

 

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142412...3789858002.html

 

Prison sentences of black men were nearly 20% longer than those of white men for similar crimes in recent years, an analysis by the U.S. Sentencing Commission found.

 

That racial gap has widened since the Supreme Court restored judicial discretion in sentencing in 2005, according to the Sentencing Commission's findings, which were submitted to Congress last month and released publicly this week.

Edited May 7, 2013 by StrangeSox

[Jenksismyhero]

Everyone has prejudices.

 

edit: but even policies that have no racial animus, explicitly or implicitly, in their crafting can have disparate racial impact and have a racially prejudiced outcome.

 

Ok fine, but that's not the same as saying our system is racist anymore than me claiming that the NFL is racist because it has more blacks than whites.

 

 

But there's not evidence that minorities actually commit more crimes than non-minorities. You can control for economic status and you still get massive disparities. This really shows up in sentencing for similar crimes. Or that report I posted a page or two ago about how minority children are disciplined differently and more likely to be pushed towards the criminal justice system.

 

Your alternate theory just doesn't match reality.

 

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142412...3789858002.html

 

 

What do you mean there is no evidence that minorities commit more crime? There is plenty of evidence of that.

 

Midyear 2010 Incarceration rates by race and gender per 100,000 US residents of the same race and gender.[44]

Ethnicity Male Female Total

White non-Hispanic 678 91 -

Black non-Hispanic 4,347 260 -

Hispanic of any race 1,775 133 -

All inmates 1,352 126 732

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration...e_United_States

 

I'm not saying because they're a minority they commit more crime. Obviously it has to do with other social factors, including their financial situation.

 

And the WSJ article is interesting, but they didn't link to the study. Did they account for prior arrests/prison time? I'm sure that would affect sentencing for the same crime between two people of a different race.

Edited May 7, 2013 by Jenksismybitch

[StrangeSox]

Ok fine, but that's not the same as saying our system is racist anymore than me claiming that the NFL is racist because it has more blacks than whites.

 

Yes, it is the same as saying there's systemic racism, and every time you try to make the pro-sports comparison, it demonstrates that you're missing the core concept. Could be because I'm doing a poor job of explaining it.

 

What do you mean there is no evidence that blacks commit more crimes? There is plenty of evidence of that.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration...e_United_States

 

I'm not saying because they're black they commit more crime. Obviously it has to do with other social factors, including their financial situation.

 

This is pretty circular. Disparate incarceration rates are a symptom of the systemic racism. What laws we craft and how and where we choose to investigate and enforce them are part-and-parcel. Drug use is pretty much equal across race and class, and yet the criminal prosecution and incarceration rates are highly disparate.

 

And the WSJ article is interesting, but they didn't link to the study. Did they account for prior arrests/prison time? I'm sure that would affect sentencing for the same crime between two people of a different race.

 

I think this is it:

http://www.ussc.gov/Research/Research_Proj...Study/chap4.pdf

[StrangeSox]

This report from the Aspen Institute goes over what I've been calling systemic racism but is also referred to as institutional or structural racism if you're curious to read what this subject is about.

 

http://www.aspeninstitute.org/sites/defaul...ral_racism2.pdf

[Jenksismyhero]

I think this is it:

http://www.ussc.gov/Research/Research_Proj...Study/chap4.pdf

 

Looks like they did use criminal history as a factor, though interestingly the disparity in sentencing only applies when the subjects are male and the offense is a drug offense.

 

[StrangeSox]

Which represents a pretty substantial portion of our incarcerations, right?

 

Locking up so many young men has all sorts of deleterious effects on the community and helps perpetuate the cycle.

[Jenksismyhero]

This report from the Aspen Institute goes over what I've been calling systemic racism but is also referred to as institutional or structural racism if you're curious to read what this subject is about.

 

http://www.aspeninstitute.org/sites/defaul...ral_racism2.pdf

 

Yeah, I mean that's no different than what you're talking about - the results are unequal so it's due to racist policies. If you grow up in Englewood or Austin, yeah, your life compared to whites living in Burr Ridge is going to be different. You have no property value, the jobs aren't great, you have crime problems, etc. But that's not because society and policy in 2013 is racist, it's because society was racist decades ago and put minorities in a hole that is difficult to climb out of. If a bank doesn't want to loan money to someone living in Englewood or Austin, is it because they're black or is it because of the situation around them? The study you linked to would include that decision in the "structural racism" that keeps minorities down even though the decision or policy itself is not racist at all.

 

[Jenksismyhero]

Which represents a pretty substantial portion of our incarcerations, right?

 

Locking up so many young men has all sorts of deleterious effects on the community and helps perpetuate the cycle.

 

Well sure, but again, I don't see how that's tied to a system that is racist. From the same study:

 

Do these findings confirm the discrimination hypothesis? While any unexplained

differences in the likelihood of incarceration or in the lengths of prison terms imposed on minority

and majority offenders is cause for examination, there is reason to doubt that these racial and ethnic

effects reflect deep-seated prejudices or stereotypes among judges. Most noteworthy is that the

effects, which are found only for some offense types and for males, are also unstable over time.

Separate year-by-year analyses, presented in Figure 4.7, reveals that significant differences in the

likelihood of imprisonment are found in only two of the last five years for Black offenders, and four

of the last five for Hispanic offenders.

 

As shown in Figure 4.8, the effects on sentence length are more persistent, but disappear for

both Black and Hispanic offenders in the most recent year for which data are available. Offense-to offense and year-to-year fluctuations in racial and ethnic effects are difficult to reconcile with theories of enduring stereotypes, powerlessness, or overt discrimination affecting sentencing of

minorities under the guidelines.

 

It's really difficult for me to accept the notion that the system is racist when the people that run the system are shown to be not racist. That's why I liken it to the NFL or NBA. Why aren't we calling NFL execs racist or the NFL scouting system racist for not looking at more white athletes? Because at the end of the day their decisions are race-neutral even though the results are clearly not.

[StrangeSox]

Yeah, I mean that's no different than what you're talking about - the results are unequal so it's due to racist policies. If you grow up in Englewood or Austin, yeah, your life compared to whites living in Burr Ridge is going to be different. You have no property value, the jobs aren't great, you have crime problems, etc. But that's not because society and policy in 2013 is racist, it's because society was racist decades ago and put minorities in a hole that is difficult to climb out of. If a bank doesn't want to loan money to someone living in Englewood or Austin, is it because they're black or is it because of the situation around them? The study you linked to would include that decision in the "structural racism" that keeps minorities down even though the decision or policy itself is not racist at all.

 

That is structural racism, and yes, decisions or policies themselves don't have to be racist on their face to contribute to it. When the system keeps turning out racially disparate results...

 

e.g. black unemployment is higher than white unemployment across all educational attainment levels. How is that explained other than structural racism? Resumes of people with stereotypical black names get far less responses than identical resumes with stereotypical white names; what explanation other than structural racism?

Edited May 7, 2013 by StrangeSox

[Balta1701]

It's really difficult for me to accept the notion that the system is racist when the people that run the system are shown to be not racist. That's why I liken it to the NFL or NBA. Why aren't we calling NFL execs racist or the NFL scouting system racist for not looking at more white athletes? Because at the end of the day their decisions are race-neutral even though the results are clearly not.

Frankly I think NFL execs get called racist all the time. Look at the coach hiring process last year.

[StrangeSox]

Frontline on the great retirement caper:

Watch The Retirement Gamble on PBS. See more from FRONTLINE.

Finally got around to watching this. Pretty depressing.

 

The part about the fees was pretty incredible. Investment companies get anywhere from 1/3 to 2/3 of your money over time while taking essentially no risk. Also started me digging into all of my accounts this morning, switching some things around.

Edited May 8, 2013 by StrangeSox

[StrangeSox]

Relevant to the criminal justice system discussion:

 

http://prospect.org/article/house-takes-ma...arceration-task

 

There is very good reason for the formation of the committee. The rates of incarceration in this country are staggering. The United States imprisons more people per capita than any country in the world—not only far more than any comparable liberal democracy, but more than the world's authoritarian regimes as well. Even worse, this mass incarceration reflects and exacerbates racial and economic inequalities. As scholars such as Michelle Alexander and Becky Pettit have shown in chilling detail, mass incarceration has taken a massive toll on racial minorities. One in every 36 Hispanic men over the age of 18—and one in 15 African-American males over the age of 18—are in prison. In many states, convicted felons continue to be formally sanctioned by the state, losing the right to vote or to join certain professions. The informal effects of having a felony conviction are even greater; particularly in a buyer's market for labor, the economic prospects of convicted felons attempting to get a job and put their lives in order are generally bleak.

[bmags]

on NPR this morning, apparently LAPD brought 70 police in riot gear to a party of black students at USC. 6 were arrested. They were responding to noise complaints, the students had registered the party with campus officials and had been checking student id's at door. No guns, weapons or drugs were present.

 

Across the street a party of white students went unharmed.

 

But since there are no racists, we can only justify this by saying they were using some formula, or that the neighbors felt threatened and needed to be prepared.

[farmteam]

Minnesota House voting on marriage equality today. By this time next week Minnesota could be the 12th state!

 

EDIT: link

Edited May 9, 2013 by farmteam

[StrangeSox]

Minnesota House voting on marriage equality today. By this time next week Minnesota could be the 12th state!

 

EDIT: link

Delaware was the 11th just last week.

[bmags]

Shame that it has died so fast in Illinois.

[farmteam]

Debating heading over to St. Paul to check out the demonstrations....

[StrangeSox]

Elizabeth Smart didn't run because she “felt so dirty and so filthy”

 

Smart spoke at a Johns Hopkins human trafficking forum, saying she was raised in a religious household and recalled a school teacher who spoke once about abstinence and compared sex to chewing gum.

 

“I thought, ‘Oh, my gosh, I’m that chewed up piece of gum, nobody re-chews a piece of gum, you throw it away.’ And that’s how easy it is to feel like you know longer have worth, you know longer have value,” Smart said. “Why would it even be worth screaming out? Why would it even make a difference if you are rescued? Your life still has no value.”

 

The Salt Lake City woman was kidnapped at age 14 from her bedroom. She was freed nine months later when she was found walking with her captor on a suburban street in March 2003. The Associated Press doesn’t usually publish the names of accusers or victims in sexual-assault cases unless they agree to be named or identify themselves publicly, as Smart has done.

 

Hooray abstinence-only rhetoric that tells people they're worthless if they're not chaste-until-marriage!

[StrangeSox]

Enron's Jeff Skilling poised to get 10 years taken off of his sentence

 

“In a case of this nature, even though it involved the significant and monumental collapse of a company, 14 years is probably enough,” DeVita, of Day Pitney LLP in New York, said in a phone interview. “For someone like Mr. Skilling, the likelihood of recidivism is nil -- 14 years is more than enough to deter someone from doing that again.”

 

When Skilling was sentenced in October 2006, Lake gave him the minimum term under nonbinding federal guidelines, which called for as long as 30 years in prison.

 

In 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court heard Skilling’s appeal and agreed that his conviction was based in part on an invalid legal theory known as the “theft of honest services.”

 

The U.S. Court of Appeals in New Orleans reviewed his case in 2011 and determined there was enough other trial evidence to convict Skilling without the flawed theory. The appellate court upheld the verdicts against Skilling and ordered Lake to recalculate his sentence, having earlier found that sentencing guidelines were misapplied in his case.

 

 

 

[StrangeSox]

Attorney Who Advised Kiera Be Charged With Felony, Drops Charges In White Teen’s Fatal Case Days Later

 

Kiera Wilmot, 16, is by all known accounts an excellent student with impeccable behavior. She is also — now — a marked woman who will be tried as an adult for discharging a weapon on school grounds in what was allegedly a bungled science experiment,” reports WSTB.com.

 

On the morning of Monday, April 20, Wilmot mixed some household chemicals inside of an 8 oz. bottle of water. The top flew off the bottle and a cloud of smoke erupted.

 

There was no damage caused and no one was injured, but Wilmot is still being tried as an adult on charges of “possession/discharge of a weapon on school grounds and discharging a destructive device.”

 

Small-scale science experiment that harmed no one and nothing? CHARGE HER AS AN ADULT WITH A FELONY!

 

Shoot your brother dead with a BB gun? Tragic accident, so sad.

 

When asked how these charges will affect Kiera’s life, Attorney Guster said:

“As a criminal defense lawyer, I have seen many cases where Black children have been arrested in the same situation where White children would not be arrested and have their parents called to pick them up and take them home. This incident is very similar.

 

“At the most severe point, Kiera could have been made to go to detention if she did something wrong but definitely not arrested for a science experiment.

“However, she was arrested and charged with adult felonies, which means the arrest will follow her for the remainder of her life.

 

“Even if the case is dismissed, background checks will still see the arrest, which could prevent this stellar student from attending the college of her choice, living in the apartment complex that she chooses, or getting the job she is qualified for.”

[Jenksismyhero]

hopefully he gets fired. what an idiot.

[StrangeSox]

From Time, 1941:

 

[StrangeSox]

Calling last year's deadly attack in Benghazi, Libya the "most egregious cover-up in American history," Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) predicted Thursday that President Barack Obama will soon face calls of impeachment.

 

“Of all the great cover-ups in history — the Pentagon papers, the Iran-Contra, Watergate and all the rest of them — this … is going to go down as the most serious, the most egregious cover-up in American history,” Inhofe said during an appearance on The Rusty Humphries Show.

 

Inhofe then said he's pleased that Benghazi has returned to the public consciousness.

 

“People may be starting to use the I-word before too long,” Inhofe later said.

 

When the host asked if he was referring to "impeachment," the ranking member on the Senate Armed Services Committee confirmed that he was.

 

http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entr...enghazi?ref=fpb

 

 

I remain baffled. What the hell is even allegedly being "covered up" here? This is just the Clinton-era never-ending series of faux-scandal after faux-scandal. White Water! Vince Foster! Lewinski! Fast and Furious! BENGHAZZZZZIIIIII!!!