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1. dahfiz+(OP)[view] [source] 2020-06-11 01:43:01
> What matters now is impact, not intent. If excessive police stops disproportionately affect black drivers those stops are racist, and the people performing the stops are racist.

I'm not quite sure how I feel about this. Impact can reveal underlying issues but is not necessarily racist in and of itself.

Consider the policy of "draw 100,000 names out of a hat and search those people for drugs". It is very unlikely that the demographic of those arrested as a result perfectly matches the demographic of the nation as a while, but I think it is hard to argue discrimination or prejudice here, because there is not even an opportunity for a human to have exercised discrimination.

Fishing stops like the OP posted try to be like this policy - a random dragnet. The issue, of course, is that the randomness is implemented by a racist police force. Black people are "randomly" stopped disproportionately, and treated harsher during the stop. So the disproportionate result is plausibly explained by racist intent.

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