11-05-2015, 12:05 AM
I saw this article on Yahoo! and they called it a "Rorschach Test" for racism, in that you can see it either way, and that assessment really does bear scrutiny. I found it interesting.
As for race bait or legitimate concern, it has been shown that blacks are more likely to be stopped by police than any other demographic, walking or driving, so in my mind it is a legitimate concern. In this case, the dashcam really doesn't tell us anything other than the fact that all the parties handled what happened in an acceptable manner. Fortunately no cops were assaulted, and no innocent people were killed.
What really plays into the race factor here is the line of thought that led the police to stop in the first place, and that's something we can never know for sure. Would the police have stopped for a white woman on a jog through the neighborhood? What if the woman wasn't waving her arms and with a hood on? What if it was a dude?
They are all rather impossible to come to an objective conclusion on, barring some sort of data on the history of these stops and the people involved, so people will judge the incident probably on their already formed ideas. People who think that the race issue in America is overblown/non-existent will probably dismiss it as race-baiting. People who think that there is a serious race issue will probably see it as another example of profiling against blacks and a legitimate concern.
As for race bait or legitimate concern, it has been shown that blacks are more likely to be stopped by police than any other demographic, walking or driving, so in my mind it is a legitimate concern. In this case, the dashcam really doesn't tell us anything other than the fact that all the parties handled what happened in an acceptable manner. Fortunately no cops were assaulted, and no innocent people were killed.
What really plays into the race factor here is the line of thought that led the police to stop in the first place, and that's something we can never know for sure. Would the police have stopped for a white woman on a jog through the neighborhood? What if the woman wasn't waving her arms and with a hood on? What if it was a dude?
They are all rather impossible to come to an objective conclusion on, barring some sort of data on the history of these stops and the people involved, so people will judge the incident probably on their already formed ideas. People who think that the race issue in America is overblown/non-existent will probably dismiss it as race-baiting. People who think that there is a serious race issue will probably see it as another example of profiling against blacks and a legitimate concern.
