There have been a number of incidents in the news lately where black people have had the police called on them while they were acting normally.
In every discussion there's some variation of the question "How can you tell racial bias has anything to do with this?"
I can't. Not with certainty. I can't look inside of people's minds. They generally don't pop on a Klan hood and shout "I did it because you're black!" and we'll always have incomplete evidence.
However these things seem to happen with a great regularity to people of color. I'm not just speaking of the news items. News stations will air what they think people want to hear about and that will be more patterns of popularity than prevalence.
This is my experience just knowing white people and non-white people. As a white guy, me and most of my white friends have a few, fairly rare set of experiences of being told we "don't belong" somewhere or treated that way. In most of these cases, there's a clear explanation, either circumstances paved the way for a misunderstanding or we were dealing with a mentally unbalanced person.
Friends who are non-white seem to experience "You don't belong here" incidents A LOT more frequently, and without those clear extenuating circumstances that explain the situation. And more of them have stories where things escalated.
There is always a "possible" alternative explanation, but at some point we have to acknowledge that this pattern exists. It's a little maddening for a skeptic or a person of color because you can never be sure in a particular situation, and bit like gaslighting to know that the frequency with which you experience your dignity being assaulted can only be explained by race but you can't absolutely prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt in any particular case.
In every discussion there's some variation of the question "How can you tell racial bias has anything to do with this?"
I can't. Not with certainty. I can't look inside of people's minds. They generally don't pop on a Klan hood and shout "I did it because you're black!" and we'll always have incomplete evidence.
However these things seem to happen with a great regularity to people of color. I'm not just speaking of the news items. News stations will air what they think people want to hear about and that will be more patterns of popularity than prevalence.
This is my experience just knowing white people and non-white people. As a white guy, me and most of my white friends have a few, fairly rare set of experiences of being told we "don't belong" somewhere or treated that way. In most of these cases, there's a clear explanation, either circumstances paved the way for a misunderstanding or we were dealing with a mentally unbalanced person.
Friends who are non-white seem to experience "You don't belong here" incidents A LOT more frequently, and without those clear extenuating circumstances that explain the situation. And more of them have stories where things escalated.
There is always a "possible" alternative explanation, but at some point we have to acknowledge that this pattern exists. It's a little maddening for a skeptic or a person of color because you can never be sure in a particular situation, and bit like gaslighting to know that the frequency with which you experience your dignity being assaulted can only be explained by race but you can't absolutely prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt in any particular case.
via International Skeptics Forum https://ift.tt/2Kg1zWc
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