Jason…It takes literally 5 seconds of independent thought to wonder if maybe the relative proportions of blacks and whites in this country is significant to this? ya think?
Whites 61%
Blacks 12%
Clearly this is not the final answer..but it would appear there are five times as many whites as blacks.. so one would expect if everything else was “simple” with no bias that the number of shootings for each would reflect the same relative proportions. Stay with me Jason… so 31 whites shot in 2017 would mean (31/5) a little more than 6 unarmed blacks would have been shot during the same year. I believe the number austin cited was several times higher than that. Which on the surface… would suggest unarmed blacks are shot several times more often than unarmed whites by police officers.
Let me be very clear that I don’t propose that this settles anything… because honestly the next question would be to look into how often each race interacts with the police etc.
So my point is that this is complicated.. and anyone who actually cares to think about this for literally 10 seconds realizes that stats like you and austin are using are meaningless when it comes to characterizing the actual situation unless all you are trying to do is cast your bias in the best possible light.. honesty be damned. What do you all call this? Fake news?, bullshit?
And the irony of his methods is hilarious… so clearly part of the point of his message is that the media is NOT to be believed.. they all lie.. fake news blah blah.. yet he happily cites a washington post database (as do you) to pull stats from IF they can be twisted to support his bias.
Jason.. you can have a political blog on medium, it doesn’t make you, or me and certainly doesn’t make Austin any less the purveyor of bullshit just because they have a blog and they used to be a staffer on the hill. Remember he never really mentions what hills he is talking about… and even on THE hill in washington some of those staffers are there to get someone coffee.
Question the world Jason… and be wary of those who tell you WHAT to think as opposed to those who tell you how to think.
