2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Exactly How Often Do Police Shoot Unarmed Black Men? [View all]Igel
(35,293 posts)What's needed isn't just "how many?" but "at what rate compared to other groups?"
An earlier "context matters" post is also relevant. Otherwise we are forced into a "just the raw numbers matter, and under no circumstance should a black men ever be shot by police"--which presumably allows others to be shot. Unless we think that under no circumstances should police result to deadly force. I don't think that when whites are involved, or Latinos, or blacks, or Asians. You can't compare raw numbers, and without a comparison we can't tell if what's happening is excessive--we can suspect, we can allege, we can imagine, but those don't rise to the level of "knowledge"; and without context you can get a relatively small number of of horrible incidents skewing the data and its perception.