mekkaokereke

mekkaokereke, 1 year ago

But let's dig into that and unpack the racism a little.

Drugs are easiest to understand. At this point everyone should know that white Americans do more drugs than Black Americans. They also do more hard drugs. We don't consider Drs. offices to be high crime, and yet, opioids.

Black neighborhoods only seem like they have more drug use, because of how we've decided to define crimes around drug use, and how we choose to enforce.

mekkaokereke, 1 year ago

If I tell you that Mexican drug cartels are criminal organizations that illegally sell drugs and cause tens of thousands of deaths, you agree.

But if I tell you that the Sacklers criminally sold enough opioids that their actions killed more US citizens than Mexican cartel wars killed Mexican citizens you will have to run and fact check that, even though you know someone that dealt with opioid addiction.

Enough people overdosed that the life expectancy of US citizens dropped. No jail time!🤷🏿‍♂️

mekkaokereke, 1 year ago

The war on drugs allows micro-dosing and dispensaries, but criminalizes possession for poor Black folk.

Pretty much any test you can do shows that drug use by white folk is about the same, or in some cohorts, many times more, than Black folk. Yes, even crack cocaine in the 80s. White folk did more crack than Black folk.

There's a false narrative that white folk did powder cocaine and Black folk did crack, and that's why more Black folk are in jail for drugs. It's not true. Poor folk did crack.

mekkaokereke, 1 year ago

But what about theft? If you park your car in a high crime area, you're likely to get your windows smashed!

But, most theft in this country, is wage theft. Mostly rich white business owners, stealing wages from poor Black and brown service workers. Between $8B and $15B a year. Yes I said "billion!" Yes I said "a year!"

mekkaokereke, 1 year ago

But we don't define wage theft by employers as a crime the same way as we define an employee stealing from the cash register, or a homeless person smashing a window. You don't go to jail for wage theft.

Again, this is an arbitrary decision around how we choose to define crime.

We could very easily decide that intentionally stealing more than $1000 from an employee is now a felony! Just like intentionally stealing $1000 from an employer is a felony. But you know that we won't.

mekkaokereke, 1 year ago

Civil asset forfeiture is cops taking cash and other property from folk who are too poor to mount a defense against the theft. Most victims are never charged with a crime. Victims of this theft are disproportionately Black. ~$2B in 2016.

Civil asset forfeiture is not a crime. It's literally done by the cops! 😀

mekkaokereke, 1 year ago

If I say I was driving back from Tijuana Mexico, and Mexican police pulled me over and took $1,000 from me, you will say "Mexican police are corrupt!" and maybe follow up with some racist statements.

But if a Black US driver is driving in Florida, police can just take $10,000 from her in broad daylight, without even bothering to accuse her of a crime.

It's very risky for poor Black folk to do any cash based transaction in the US. Not because they might get robbed by criminals, but by the cops.

mekkaokereke, 1 year ago

I'm not kidding. If you sell your Honda Civic hatchback on Craigslist for cash, cops can take that. If you cash your paycheck, cops can take that. You would need a lawyer that you can't afford, just to get your own money back. Cops stole more stuff from citizens in 2015, than all burglaries in the US combined.

https://washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/11/23/cops-took-more-stuff-from-people-than-burglars-did-last-year/

So the 2 forms of theft with mostly Black victims, that make up the vast majority of theft, are not even considered crimes.

Our definition of theft is arbitrary.

mekkaokereke, 1 year ago

OK, but what about murder? Clearly there are more murders committed in "high crime" areas?

Again, it depends on our definition of murder and even our definition of location. If I stand on block A, and shoot someone across the street on block B, where did the crime occur? A or B?

Do we define murder as where the body fell? Or where the shooter pulled the trigger? Victim focused? Or killer focused?

mekkaokereke, 1 year ago

This distinction becomes important once we explore how we have arbitrarily decided to define murder.

Shooting folk? Murder!
Operating unsafe factory? Maybe?

Lying about public health data during a pandemic? Not murder!

Grifting supplies needed by FEMA? Not murder!

Cops shooting unarmed folk in the back? Not murder!

So the forms of victimization disproportionately suffered by poor Black folk, don't even register as murder. 🙂🙃

mekkaokereke, 1 year ago

Even in the highest gun crime cities in the US, there are a very small number of shooters doing most of the killing. Typically fewer than 50 killers in a city of millions.

But we consider entire cities "high crime" because of them, because they rack up astronomical bodycounts.

🤔But... By astronomical we mean 500 to 1000 murders a year, 80% of which will likely be committed by this pod of killers, most of the victims young, Black, male.

mekkaokereke, 1 year ago

But we don't consider intentional negligence leading to 10K or 100K deaths, as creating a high crime neighborhood.

Of all the things that police do with their billions of dollars of budget, the one thing they don't do well at all, and the one thing that some residents of supposedly high crime communities (AKA, Black communities) would actually want them to do, is stop these pods.

But they won't.

mekkaokereke, 1 year ago

Dallas PD has a budget of ~$500 MM, and has 3,000 officers and around 500 civilian workers. They only have ~15 homicide detectives.

The other 2,985 officers do a lot of policing of "high crime" neighborhoods. Arresting lots of poor Black folk for drugs and other minor crimes.

mekkaokereke, 1 year ago

I'm not going into assault, other than to say: If in 2023 your definition of assault is "Men beating up men that they don't know," then I don't know what to tell you.

If you know that most assault is "Men harming women that they do know," then no explanation needed.

mekkaokereke, 1 year ago

Q: Why do Black folk disrespect the military by kneeling during the anthem?

A: But... most active duty military fully support the kneeling protests? 🙂🙃

You'll understand why that support exists, once you understand the military's true demographics. About 47% of the military is non-white.

There's a stark contrast between most "honor our veterans" PR montages and a non-staged photo of a large group of service personnel. You can't "honor vets" or "support troops" by ignoring half of them.

Real photo of a real military unit showing men and women of multiple colors and backgrounds.

mekkaokereke, 1 year ago

Black service members have served with distinction in every US war, going back to Independence.

Shout out to everyone that's seen the painting of Washington crossing the Delaware, but never noticed the Black guy in the boat! 🙋🏿‍♂️

If serving with honor were a path to being seen as a "real American," Black folk would've achieved that goal long ago.

But I still run into EU immigrants (who just got their green card last year!), telling me that "BLM protesters don't love this country like I do!"🤡

mekkaokereke, 1 year ago

I frequently have to remind my friends in Silicon Valley, that the military is not "more right wing" than Silicon Valley. The military is more inclusive.

There are way more Black employees in the military than in Silicon Valley. Military demographics look closer to real US society, but with Black people being over represented.

If you're standing in a room of 100 VCs in Atherton, vs a room of 100 active duty marines in Camp Pendleton, there are more Trump voters in the Atherton room. 🙂🙃

mekkaokereke, 1 year ago

Black service members who served in wars, were often denied access to the GI Bill when they returned.

So white veterans could get loans for college, or to buy a house. Black veterans could not. This lack of access to affordable education and affordable housing had devastating impacts on Black veteran homelessness.

https://www.npr.org/2022/10/18/1129735948/black-vets-were-excluded-from-gi-bill-benefits-a-bill-in-congress-aims-to-fix-th

Black veterans were also denied access to medical care and benefits. This lack of access to healthcare also drove homelessness.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9XEj1AL9Bsw

mekkaokereke, 1 year ago

I never say "Thank you for your service." That is a nothing statement. Instead, I hire veterans of all genders and colors. 👍🏿

I never say, "Support our troops!" That is meaningless jingoism that supports nothing. Instead, I vote for politicians that will raise service member pay, increase Veterans Association (VA) benefits, decrease VA waiting times, de-stigmatize mental healthcare for active duty and veterans, and YIMBY affordable housing and public transportation. 👍🏿

mekkaokereke, 1 year ago

@rgulick
Black folk are 13% of the US population but:
19% of Active Duty
9% of Officers
6.5% of Generals.

https://carnegieendowment.org/2022/09/06/diversity-in-high-brass-pub-87694

Yes, Black representation thins out as we head to leadership and top brass. Discrimination. Happens.

But do you know of another industry* in the US where 9% of the managers are Black, and 6% of the VPs / Partners are Black?

Compare to tech, venture capital, law, medicine, etc. For reference, ~1% of law firm partners are Black.

(And yes I said industry.😬)

mekkaokereke, 1 year ago

Folks like to make a big deal of the fact that Frederick Douglass is the most photographed person of his century. We talk about his "friendship" with Lincoln, and their many "conversations." But we usually stop there. We don't like to go into what the topic of those conversations was...

Douglass was warning Lincoln that he should pay more attention to reducing racism, and preventing Southern forces from committing war crimes against Black prisoners. And Abe was largely ignoring him.

mekkaokereke, 1 year ago

Most people can accept that Obama's policies were better for most US people than either Bush's policies or Trump's. The data is quite clear.👍🏿

Many people can see that MLK's policies were better for the US people than Lyndon B Johnson's. Johnson had to be dragged to do the right things.

It's much harder for people to see that Frederick Douglass's policies would have been better for the US than Abraham Lincoln's. Because some folk associate mythic infallibility to the US's earliest politicians.🤷🏿‍♂️

Photograph of MLK with Lyndon B Johnson looking in the background.

mekkaokereke, 1 year ago

Once you see it you can't unsee it:
A "civil rights leader," is often what a "political leader" looks like in a system where pervasive racism prevents Black people from achieving the highest office.🤷🏿‍♂️

What civil rights leaders call for today, becomes sound, accepted, proven good policy 20 years in the future, that improves life for all of us.

This goodness or badness compounds year over year. If we had listened to Frederick Douglass about reconstruction, the US would not be so messed up today.