I saw this (non religious) video on Facebook and it made me angry

[ShaMan]

Today I saw a black man return some cash to a white man who dropped it. What should I do?

what do you mean?

Do we only discuss what to do when the races fight in disunity?

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

To be arrested does not automatically lead to incarceration. Only a trial by jury or a guilty plea leads to imprisionment. therefore encarceration is not a direct result of profiling.

Is it completely incomprehensible to you that jurors may profile a defendant as completely as does an arresting officer?

A cop sees a young black man on the street and thinks, 'Young black men commit a large percentage of the crime in this area, I'd better come up with a reason to take him in, just in case he's done something.'

A juror sees a young black man in a witness box and thinks, 'I read that a lot of young black men are in prison for this sort of thing, so I'd better vote "guilty" just in case he did it.'

How is what the cop does 'profiling' but what the juror does is not? I'm sure we'd all like to live in a society where defendants are judged solely on the basis of the evidence presented, and not on the defendant's skin colour (or age or religion or gender...) but that's not the way the world wags. People are human, with human foibles and the human potential to judge partially (as opposed to impartially).

If you believe for the briefest instant that there are not innocent people in prison who are there due to the colour of their skin, then you're living in a delusional fantasy of great enough scope to make the collected fairy tales of CS Lewis seem like a travelogue by comparison.

Boru

[Drich]

what do you mean?

Do we only discuss what to do when the races fight in disunity?

Why was their a need for segergation in the first place? Why not simply say you saw one man give another man money he had dropped? To point out the man who returned the money was black is to point out this is not charactisitc of a black man..

For example do you say a father loves his son, or do you also make the distinction if said father happened to be black?

Race is only ever mentioned as a means to segregate. Even in your illustration. Otherwise why not identify one mans act as just a man giving another his money back?

---

The point of me doing this thread and identifying the falsehoods this video was built on, was to show the manufactured disunity that you all seemed to be geared jump on, why the real thing get protected and defended.

---

To be arrested does not automatically lead to incarceration. Only a trial by jury or a guilty plea leads to imprisionment. therefore encarceration is not a direct result of profiling.

Is it completely incomprehensible to you that jurors may profile a defendant as completely as does an arresting officer?

A cop sees a young black man on the street and thinks, 'Young black men commit a large percentage of the crime in this area, I'd better come up with a reason to take him in, just in case he's done something.'

A juror sees a young black man in a witness box and thinks, 'I read that a lot of young black men are in prison for this sort of thing, so I'd better vote "guilty" just in case he did it.'

How is what the cop does 'profiling' but what the juror does is not? I'm sure we'd all like to live in a society where defendants are judged solely on the basis of the evidence presented, and not on the defendant's skin colour (or age or religion or gender...) but that's not the way the world wags. People are human, with human foibles and the human potential to judge partially (as opposed to impartially).

If you believe for the briefest instant that there are not innocent people in prison who are there due to the colour of their skin, then you're living in a delusional fantasy of great enough scope to make the collected fairy tales of CS Lewis seem like a travelogue by comparison.

Boru

Have you ever sat on a real jury before?

When profiling cops rarly have the perspective of back ground info. At a real trial (not the tv kind) the state actually provides evidence to a person's guilt, and the defense provides an excuse or evidence to the contrary. (Very methodical very complete, beyond a shadow of a doubt) Again in this country profiling ends with evidence.. (It ironic that I of all people am using the evidence arguement to beat back emotion based arguements.)

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

[/quote]Have you ever sat on a real jury before?

Twice. Once for fraud, once for attempted murder.

When profiling cops rarly have the perspective of back ground info. At a real trial (not the tv kind) the state actually provides evidence to a person's guilt, and the defense provides an excuse or evidence to the contrary.

With you so far.

(Very methodical very complete, beyond a shadow of a doubt)

Wrong. The standard is beyond a reasonable doubt.

Again in this country profiling ends with evidence..

That would be wonderful if it were true. Again, are you seriously maintaining that no one has EVER been convicted wrongly, based on skin colour or some other equally irrelevant factor, evidence notwithstanding?

(It ironic that I of all people am using the evidence arguement to beat back emotion based arguements.)[quote]

I don't presume to speak for the other posters here, but I am not making an emotion-based argument. I agree with you to the extent that the majority of jurors do their best to reach an unbiased verdict based on the evidence and arguments presented to them.

But your insinuation that juries never bring back guilty verdicts irrespective of the evidence before them simply beggars belief (to be fair, I've also no doubt that some people have been acquitted due to their skin colour, evidence aside).

You seem to want to ascribe to juries and magistrates a nobility of spirit and an impartiality that, while laudable when it exists, is by no means universal.

Boru

addendum: I fucked up the quote tags and can't be arsed to fix them.

[Drich]

I was going to go line by line, but let me just sum up everything with a big 'nut-uh.'

Because if you can't be bother to clean up your own mess...