Police Are Not the Problem & Here’s Why

I recently shared to Facebook this Wall Street Journal article by Heather Mac Donald, whose work I’ve admired for years for its remarkable consistency. This was met with a fair amount of respectful acknowledgement of some of the inaccuracies in the statistics presented (which I do appreciate immensely, as anyone with integrity should, particularly as someone who majored in analytics), but primarily littered with unwarranted vitriol; the latter is why I initially had no intention of entertaining the commentary.

But since I am still receiving comments: Fine, I’ll bite.

As one can imagine, I have additionally received a slew of direct messages from folk who told me any combination of the following (nonexhaustive):

• They were entertained by the offense-taking.
• How refreshing the perspective was.
• How bold the timing was.
• To delete the post.
• To expand my mind.
• To get more Black friends.
• Not to have these conversations with Black friends.

I will come out forthrightly and say this: The suggestion to not discuss them with Black people is simultaneously prejudiced and outrightly bigoted. Not only does that assume what their view would/should be, but also denies either party the opportunity to change their mind.

That’s the beauty of freedom of speech: It provides a means whereby ideas society deems egregious can be outcast and replaced with better ones.

The way I’ve interpreted it, telling people who disagree to shut up antithesizes any allyship movement seeking to generate necessary dialogue between themselves and any opposition. I much more appreciate being told respectfully why I may be wrong than to not say anything at all.

Anyway, while I don’t believe I necessarily owe anyone an explanation for my beliefs, it’s been made apparent that my attitude toward this matter has been left too ambiguous for it to be interpreted properly. There have been sufficiently many negative externalities impacting my personal life in my opting not to publicly provide clarity that I am electing to do so now. After all, nuanced issues constitute nuanced takes, so here’s mine.

Systemic racism is one of those conversations that seems to be had in perpetuity in America, but that has reared its ugly head once again as of recently provided the current circumstances. However, I believe its most prevalent root cause has taken the form not of slavery or Jim Crow laws from last century, but of welfare.

Allow me to explain:

It should go without saying that if you don’t follow the “no glove no love” rule, then there could result an unwanted pregnancy. While this is entirely in anyone’s control, African-Americans are its most frequent violators.

However, this is undoubtedly not the sole factor contributing to their single motherhood rate tripling since the civil rights movement. The father is more inclined to expediently leave the mother in knowing that she can just get money from the government, of which she would receive plenty despite the overall long-term ineffectiveness of the program. If that was disincentivized by defunding the welfare state, then the father would feel more of an obligation to stay with the family, and will inevitably raise a child less likely to participate in crime.

Among the other legitimate injustices relevant to this issue is the wrongful conviction of these fathers at disproportionate rates without any means to afford bail. While I will concede to not having considered this previously and too would love to see this be rectified in the near future, I must very necessarily ask this: Is it one in every hundredth man, or one in every hundred thousandth? Magnitude matters when conducting public policy, and I believe we have a more pressing moral obligation to prioritize our sense of personal responsibility before collective system reform.

One of the most common policy arguments made to combat the inequities faced by the Black community is to funnel money into the public school system. However, it’s been shown that this has a negligible effect on quality of education.

If anything, I would encourage more privatization so that more academic institutions compete in a free market and are forced to offer the best quality education at the lowest price. Public schools (universities included) do not have this same incentive as they receive federal subsidies, and without other options the residents of an impoverished area are practically coerced into attending a school determined by their ZIP Code that will remain open regardless of how bad it is.

But I digress…

I’ve spoken plenty already to my more big-picture take, but my stance on the George Floyd incident in particular is as follows:

As Mac Donald did mention, what happened was an act of egregious negligence on the part of both the detainer as well as his fellow negligent bystanders. The former has been rightfully charged with second-degree murder; the latter with abetting it.

However, would Chauvin have committed this crime regardless of Floyd’s race? Feel free to disagree, but I’d like to think he’s a big enough dolt to think so.

Regardless of whether or not that could ever be proven to be true, to what extent is this individual instance a testament to “implicit bias” that supposedly plagues law enforcement?

Generally, I take issue with “implicit bias” arguments because nobody cares to ghost hunt others’ taboo thoughts that never actually manifest themselves into action. This is much of the reason why “diversity training” is so wildly ineffective: People are already capable of stopping their trains of thought in this way. If we couldn’t, we would see far more frequent instances of rape and violence than there actually are. The existing studies behind this have yet to successfully connect unconscious bias to biased behavior to the extent necessary for it to be utilized in a court of law, nor are there any definitively proven ways to alleviate it even if it does exist.

Here is an example of a diagnostic test widely considered to be scientifically validated.

The primary issue lies in its lack of reliability, an extremely important criterion expected to be met in social psychology. Indeed, participants often obtain different results upon reassessment.

People tend not to like being told that they are racist, sexist, etc. — let alone that their unconscious thoughts could potentially manifest into egregious action — when there is insufficient evidence based on their behavior. In knowing full well that the “retraining” programs don’t serve the intended purpose — and in some cases, have the opposite effect — for this reason and are still being used to meld peoples’ thinking to fit a particular cultural agenda is why the entire discipline has lately been recognized as rife with corruption.

And one last thing, for my friends who believe staunchly in gun control:

If you also think the police are typically racist, I recommend picking one.

So there you have it, folks: My own thoughts in my own words.

While this should no longer be the case by now, I still feel it to be necessary that I clarify that nothing I have ever said or with which I have ever associated myself has sought to invalidate any injustice experienced by anyone that can be identified explicitly and specifically; I empathize with the respective plights of anyone legitimately wronged by factors entirely outside their individual control.

Nor have I ever actively tried to be “edgy”. Nevertheless, I have no intention of being made to feel bad for sharing the same opinions held by literally half the country.

And for those (rather bizarrely) asking if I am “going though something” I can assure you that I am well. In fact, I have never been better.

However, I suppose what I have been irked by most is the utterly bigoted disqualification of respectable arguments on the basis of nothing more than one’s position on the intersectionality hierarchy. I say this not from a victimhood complex, but rather from a place of wanting to foster the most respectful and productive discourse possible. I would very much like to remain principled on the notion that everyone’s voice matters, and that nobody should hold back expressing themself on account of their immutable characteristics. This logic would (should) bear the same merit if presented by a Black man.

In all humility, I personally consider it to be a sad state of affairs when I am told exclusively over private message by my acquaintances that I am “brave” for occasionally saying mildly conservative things just because it sticks out like a sore thumb amidst their feeds. These perspectives aren’t as uncommon as one might be made to believe, and should be equally as much a part of the conversation as those shared by the majority of those marching in the streets this week.

I certainly don’t fear the potential for my own mind to change. Nor the risk of offending people, in the same breath, for in order to think you have to risk being offensive.

With that, I welcome feedback, as my logic is seldom flawless. It’s been a year since I started as a Contributing Writer for Medium, and I’ve undoubtedly learned a lot about myself and others. While I may not respond to everyone, I can assure you that I do listen and take your thoughts as they are; I would appreciate you all doing me the same courtesy.