Telling black people to 'be nice to cops' to prevent being murdered is evil as hell

[gollygee]

120. It's ridiculous

The assumption is that black people aren't polite, which is probably not the case in most instances. Black people know their lives are in danger around the police.

And then there's no death penalty in our country without even the benefit of a trial for being rude.

And I have no doubt I could be as rude as I wanted to be without any penalty at all.

I've read about something relevant - it's a way that racism is self-perpetuating. White people get pulled over and are rude and act entitled, like the police shouldn't be pulling them over. Like how dare they question them and waste their time over nothing. And the emotional response by the police is generally that they wonder if they were right to pull them over. They second guess themselves and are less likely to pull over or question white people as often.

But black people are understandably nervous when they're pulled over, and are usually over-the-top polite because they are often the victims of violence or unfair fines when they're pulled over. This hopefully helps them live through the interaction, but in another way ends up working against them - the police come away from it feeling like the motorists knew they did something wrong and that's why they were so polite. They ignore the threat of violence black people face, and the emotional response by the police is that they were so polite because they were hiding something - like if they knew they hadn't done something wrong, they would have been upset for being pulled over. This makes the police feel like they did the right thing pulling them over, and they are likely to pull over or question black people more often. (They're also more likely to call out the K-9 to do a drug search, they're more likely to call for reinforcements, etc.)

So it basically reinforces people's racism, and makes racism self-perpetuating. I read about that like a year ago and I wish I remembered more details.

So black people are in a no-win situation. If they're rude, they get shot. If they're polite, they make the police feel like they did the right thing pulling them over for no good reason.

And this is on top of the whole "blaming the victim" issue.

The whole system is screwed up. We need to change things at a more fundamental level than "politeness." We need to get back to standards and rights. We need to change police officer training, leadership structures, how recruits are chosen, etc. We need to standardize reasons for pulling people over, when people get a ticket vs. a warning, etc. It's a huge issue, and "politeness" is a red herring.