In the past couple years, police violence against Blacks has enraged people of good will. Videos record in shocking detail how white officers acted badly with Black suspects. The conclusion is that overall, systematically, white police are killing Black people without justification.
Sam Harris made a podcast that casts doubt on this and tells a very different story. Here is the transcript: https://samharris.org/can-pull-back-brink. The podcast came out last June, and I read the transcript shortly after. I didn't choose to blog about it then. I go for long periods choosing not to blog about anything, but now I feel motivated to do so.
Sam Harris is not some creature of the right. He is generally in line with liberal values: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Harris.
It is a long podcast, so I will be simplifying a great deal. In the first half he describes how racism is a serious problem in so many ways, and how he hopes it can be lessened. He is harshly critical of police who react violently to peaceful protesters but stand by when stores are being looted.
The point that seemed most important to me is that viral videos that enrage people are a very poor basis for understanding the big picture. They may have ignited a Black Lives Matter movement, and this may result in improvements for Blacks, but they were not themselves evidence of racism against Blacks by police. One tiny fact: there are similar videos of whites being killed by police, though not as many and they do not get the same publicity. You can imagine someone posting one might be viciously attacked as a racist.
There are roughly 10 million arrests in the US each year, and approximately 1,000 civilians killed by police. A great many of these are clearly justified, as when a suspect has a gun that they are using or likely to use. At the other extreme, a few are just plain murders by the police, as in a couple of the viral videos where a suspect is running away. But these are extraordinarily rare and it's not even clear they are motivated by racism. The incidents where suspects are suffocated appear to be the result of poor training and understanding of the danger of their procedure, not any police desire to kill the suspect.
Harris notes that many of these incidents start with a suspect resisting arrest. He says that even if suspects are unarmed, there is the real potential that they will take control of the officer's weapon. It's not easy to subdue people who are bigger and stronger than you are, and police are not trained to do it. This sets the context for a few of those 10 million arrests leading to unjustified police killings of civilians. Yet Black and Hispanic officers are more likely to kill Black suspects than white officers are.
Harris is surprised that the "woke" left watching videos seem untroubled by clear evidence that the suspects are resisting arrest. He notes that even if a person is being arrested unjustly, resisting is a very dangerous way to register protest. Officers are not at all crazy to fear for their lives.
Much is made of how police arrest Blacks at a higher rate than whites. He notes that 90% of murders in the US are committed by Blacks, usually on other Blacks. They also commit other crimes at a much higher rate. So if they are arresting them at a higher rate, it is no evidence of racism.
When police are being investigated in the wake of a viral video of their force, their morale goes down and they are of course much more cautious, not wanting to risk being the next one in a video. As a result, Black-on-Black crime goes up. The same thing is likely happening on a national scale.
Harris notes that even if we made enormous progress in all areas, such as purging demonstrably racist police, hiring more Black and Hispanic officers, and implementing improved training, there will still be the occasional video of a white officer unjustifiably killing a Black suspect. In 10 million arrests, things will go wrong. Some white officer will panic or react inappropriately. It's bound to happen. So just as the viral videos are a poor way of identifying real police shortcomings, they will be a poor way to measure real improvements.
Harris is also deeply concerned that investigative journalists who should know better are not challenging this narrative at all, because their jobs are at stake. The leftist public has decided what the right answer is, and any attempt to look at inconvenient facts risks a serious backlash. Management will minimize the damage to their organization by firing the journalist.
Now, I don't assume that Harris correct in what he writes. What I do feel confident of is that the way to get clearer on the issue is to present other, better facts. It is not to call him a racist or tell him he has no business discussing the issue since he is a white person. If people have any rebuttals I hope they will share them.
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