https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/17/...-sentences-for-blacks-and-whites.html?mcubz=0 To be frank as a white male. I was pretty blind to this kind of stuff growing up. Researching absolutely helps me personally and it opens up my perspective on why minorities may feel a certain way towards our culture. How are judges not thrown in jail for these convictions? This is obviously one state example, but it clearly happens everywhere.
The judicial system has its problems. There is a fair amount of abuse and corruption and elitism. Our judicial system heavily favors the wealthy and poor people are the victims with minorities taking the brunt of the abuse. Minorities are cannon fodder for politicians and the judicial system to brag about the massive amounts of incarceration and their war on 'whatever'. What I dislike about articles like these is its easy to paint a racial victim card but does little to identify the problem. Other representations that should be presented is wealth gap and jail time. Also it should represent those who take plea agreements vs those who go to trial. This article makes it sound like the State of Florida has some kind of Nazi agenda to round up as many black people as possible and put them in jail for as long as possible. The reality is the lawyers and prosecutors are out on the golf course deciding plea bargins and their fates in exchange for favors. "Mr Prosecuter, my privileged white male client is paying me $100,000 to get him off. Give him deferred adjudication and I will convince my other 5 underprivileged black male clients to take extended jail time even though the evidence is not very strong against them". Its a pay to play system.
Yes, when the minorities are the victim it is becasue of a wealth gap (which of course wouldn't because of any kind of racism involved), yet when it's something like crime statistics it is because of race and no mention of wealth gap as a reason then.
"White judges in Florida sentence black defendants to 20 percent more time on average for third-degree felonies. Blacks who wear the robe give more balanced punishments"
Because those differences are easily explained by the differences in wealth between the 2 groups. For example, take 2 people pulled over and arrested for DUI Person 1 has the money to afford the 15 or 20 grand it would cost to have the best DUI attorney make the charge go away completely. Person 2 can't afford that quality of attorney and gets the book thrown at them. When it comes to the legal system, if you have the money, you can usually avoid doing time or at least get a much more favorable sentence. If OJ had a court appointed attorney instead of the "dream team", he wouldn't have got away with murdering 2 people. Also, if we go back to those 2 people above, the guy that made the DUI go away won't have it affect his insurance, won't have his license taken away, won't have thousands in court costs, won't potentially have to do jail time, won't have probation, and won't have the conviction hurt his future job prospects like will likely happen to the person that can't afford the best legal representation. In short, it's not the racism boogie man.
Yes, it certainly does. If minorities are sentenced more evenly from black judges, and unevenly from white judges, then it would appear that the wealth gap wouldn't explain it all away like you are trying to portray.
It really doesn't, when you talk about black judges in Florida, you are talking about a very small sample, something like 60 judges out of 1000. The fact that their numbers look different than the larger sample isn't really that noteworthy. You could take any random 60 judges out of that 1000 and potentially paint a completely different picture.
I would argue that you try REALLY hard to push the boogie man or racism instead of opening your eyes and seeing the reality that money talks. I'm not sure what you hope to accomplish by blaming everything on racism, but more power to you I guess. I mean, it's pretty much the end of the conversation when you go the boogie man route.
They would rather turn a blind eye to systematic corruption that favors the wealthy than give up their racial boogieman.
I'm not sure it's even corruption, it's just the natural discrepancy between those who can afford the best and those who can't afford anything. If the only car I can afford is a Ford Fiesta then my car is going to suck compared to the guy with a Bentley.
This is the bigot's tactic, use secondary demographics to explain and hide behind their bigotry. It's embarrassing frankly.
So you think the ONLY issue here is wealth? Why do you so strongly believe that bias doesn't even play a part? And that there could not be any possible racial issue here?
Only? no. just like its not the entire state of florida being a bunch of racist KKK looking to incarcerate the entire black population. I think I clearly stated minorities (not just blacks) are easy pickings for those in power to inflate their incarceration numbers and make it look like they are doing an awesome job.
Of course not only. It's a ridiculous position. You think that people who feel and know there are bias and racial issue would discount the wealth issue. That's not true either and it's also a ridiculous position. People have their own weight on what's the bigger issue, and it's when other seem to completely reject that that they defend it strongly. That may look like that's all they care about, but it doesn't mean that. On the article itself, I see nothing Nazi about it. It show there is a huge problem and that in itself should open eyes and is valuable. What you think is the cause(s) and how to deal with them aren't necessary, and probably impossible for this type of article to go through.
Perhaps not only, but pretty close to only. If you'd look at the sentencing of any racial group broken down by wealth you'd find similar results. On average, those who are poor get harsher sentences than those who are more wealthy. It's truly odd that you can't admit what really should be obvious.
