Black Lives Matter Movement/Protests

My opponent argues that there are actually more poor white people in America and that black people still commit a disproportionately higher percentage of crime in America. He dismisses the fact that a much smaller percentage of white people are poor. In most white communities there is a larger diversity of incomes and the poor make up a small percentage of the community causing less competition for low skill sources of income. However there are a few areas that are majority white and have a high percentage of people living below the poverty line. To help identify the reason for the disparity between murder rates in poor white communities verses poor black communities I would point to the environment in which these communities are located. You can not compare poor people living in the Appalachian Mountains to poor people living in the slums of Detroit. The areas where there are high percentages of poor white people are less densely populated reducing conflict for resources. The high crime areas of the inner city are much more densely populated causing more competition for the same sparse sources of income. Throughout this debate I have argued that it is the concentrated poverty in America's inner cities that creates the conditions for increased crime rates and that due to segregation and discriminatory housing policies the inner cities are mostly made up of black people. (http://nhi.org...). Black people are not inherently more violent or prone to criminal activity then white people. It's that there is not a lot of white people in high crime areas not that black people cause high crime areas. This is not a black problem. This is an American problem. "Black on black" crime is really just crime in a hyper segregated society. My opponent repeatedly cites the statistic that 90% of the murders in which the victim was black the person committing the murder was also black. But what he doesn't say is that 84% of murders in which the victim was white the person committing the murder was also white. All these statistics say is that white people tend to live in communities that are majority white and black people tend to live in communities that are majority black and if someone was to commit a murder the chances are the victim would be of the majority race of the community where the murder occurred. (https://ucr.fbi.gov...). My opponent says "White's biggest threat for crime in the U.S. are blacks". This is not what the data from his source or my source shows. Whites are far more likely to be victimized by other whites in both murder and violent crimes excluding murder. This is dangerously toxic misinformation that is only making the situation worse. If we want to improve race relations we have to be honest and objective and work together. These misleading statistics and false facts are only muddying the water and slowing down progress. This is a complex issue. There is a lot of history and a lot of contributing factors behind the tragic amount of crime in too many black communities in America today. We can't talk about "black on black" crime honestly without talking about some of the the contributing factors that cause this crime. And poverty certainly plays an outsized role in being the primary motivation for the types of crimes that we are talking about. There wouldn't be a lot of people stealing cars or robbing convenience stores if they weren't desperate for money. There wouldn't be a lot of people standing on the corner selling drugs if they had a good job to go to. The violence that we speak of rises up out of these types of crimes. People in these impoverished inner city communities need to make a living and when they can't find jobs or the only jobs they can find are minimum wage that can't support their families then they need to supplement their income by other means. That creates a situation where you have a higher percentage of people in these communities of concentrated poverty looking to supplement their income in ways that aren't always legal like for example selling bootleg CDs and DVDs (Alton Sterling) or loose cigarettes (Eric Garner). When you have more people operating outside the law it creates more competition for the illegal market and when you are surrounded by people who are desperate for money, who might try to rob you, you have to protect your business and when you can't rely on the police for protection you have either rely on a gang for protection or you have to make sure you can protect yourself and that often requires carrying a weapon. In a situation with all these guns and the need to rely on yourself for protection it maximizes the possibility that a dispute can quickly escalate into a tragic loss of life. This is a human behavior that you can witness anywhere on the planet and if you want to solve this problem you have to look to the source. You can't just throw out statistics and expect to draw an intelligent conclusion without knowing the background behind those statistics and too often statistics are perverted in an attempt to justify racist ideologies and it is a disservice to this country. My opponent tries to justify police shootings by saying "there are split second decisions that go through a police officer's head in a life threatening situation. When a suspect refuses to show his/her hands there is potential that they have a weapon. When a suspect resists arrest, there is potential for the arrestee to have a weapon" "These men and women who serve ARE civilians. They simply put on a uniform. They have families and children whome they love dearly." According to Merriam-Webster a civilian is "one not on active duty in the armed services or not on a police or firefighting force" (http://www.merriam-webster.com...). Not showing your hands and resisting arrest is not a reason to get shot. Reaching for your wallet is not a reason to get shot. Playing with a toy gun is not a reason to get shot. A police officer getting scared and making the wrong split second decision is not an excuse to shoot someone. I understand they want to go home to their families but this is the job they signed up for. It is a dangerous and highly stressful job. If they can not handle the pressure then maybe they should think about getting a different job. But we absolutely can not have police officers with itchy trigger fingers going around killing civilians. My opponent says that racial profiling is a problem but it is not a big deal because only half of the NYPD is white so this must mean that blacks and Hispanics must be guilty of racial profiling as well. Just because black people can be racist against there own kind does not mean that we don't need to solve this problem. We need to discourage racism committed by all races and against all races. He then goes on to cite a recent working paper published by a Harvard professor that uncovered no racial bias in police shootings. However the data used for this part of the study came from only one city and relied on police reports. (http://scholar.harvard.edu...). I find any study on criminal activity that relies on criminals to confess there crimes inherently flawed. If we relied only on confessions to convict murderers I would expect a lot of murderers to escape justice. The study did find however that blacks are far more likely to experience non-lethal force at the hands of law enforcement. Black suspects were far more likely to experience being pushed to the ground or into a wall, an officer drawing and pointing his weapon at them, or an officer using a baton or pepper spray on them. (http://scholar.harvard.edu...). This disparity in use of force compounds the mistrust that many black communities have toward law enforcement. There have also been numerous studies to contradict the findings that blacks are not more likely to experience lethal force at the hands of law enforcement. (http://www.vanityfair.com...). Again this is just a distraction from the problem that police are too quick to use force regardless of what race the victim is and we need stricter national guidelines for when you are allowed to use different levels of force. We need more accountability and transparency when investigating use of force by an outside independent investigator. We need community oversight because the cops are there to serve the community. It is the community that pays their salaries and it is the community they should be accountable to. We need outside independent prosecutors that will maintain the integrity of the prosecution and prosecute to the fullest extent of the law. My opponent is not denying the problem. He says "Of course there is oppression against blacks and of course there are violent hate crimes that cops commit." "I do agree that racial profiling is indeed a problem" "I did not deny the corruption of cops completely" "If there is a case of a police officer breaking the law, I believe no matter what race you are, they should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law" but for some reason he is against protesting these problems. He is against trying to solve these problems. He tries to distract us with other problems we could solve instead. That's like saying he is against the NRA because they only focus on gun rights and say nothing about abortion rights. Black Lives Matter was formed to bring much needed attention to police misconduct and the need for criminal justice reform. Just because there are other problems that need attention doesn't mean their purpose is any less worthy. If we do not come together and honestly try to solve this problem it will only continue to get worse