DATA PROVES BLACKS’ BIAS AGAINST THE POLICE IS FALSE!
Disclaimer: Good Day, Readers. WealthBuildingPowers blog is a financial literacy/competency blog and does not provide specific investment recommendations.
Do the Police Use More Deadly Force Against Black People?
“Bias is a natural inclination for or against an idea, object, group, or individual. It is often learned and highly dependent on socioeconomic status, race, ethnicity, educational background, gender expression, gender identity, and religion.”
I have certain biases against the Police based on past personal experiences.
We All Have Biases
Years ago, I was driving to a work site with a peer, Robin. We were chatting, and suddenly, I noticed a Police car behind me had its lights on. Like most drivers, I kept up with traffic and assumed I may have been speeding. When the officer walks to my window, he bends and looks in the passenger seat and asks Robin if she is all right. We are both surprised by the question, but Robin does not immediately reply. The officer repeats the question.
It dawns on her that the reason he is asking is that she is a white woman, and I am a black man. {Maybe I would not have been stopped if she had been in the back seat! Driving Miss Robin.}
Robin replies, ” I am fine; he is my boss. She was angry. I, on the other hand, had no intention of displaying anger to a large Police Officer with a gun. The officer asked for my driver’s license and registration. I informed the officer where both documents were and asked if I could retrieve them. He agrees, takes my documents, and goes to his car to run a criminal check on me. It’s good that I am a book geek, as my daughter loves telling me, and not a criminal! A few minutes later, he returned my materials and said we were free to depart. Surprisingly, there was no ticket.
Because of experiences like this and what I hear on the news, I believed a study of 2016 Police Forces would show the use of more deadly force, a polite way of saying they shot more innocent black people than other races. Others with public profiles are biased against the Police, including President Barack Obama, Jessie Jackson, Rev Al, etc., which seems to reinforce this bias.
Based on growing up in the segregated South, I saw racial discrimination by the Police routinely on the news and was doubtful it had stopped entirely. Keep reading to see what the 2015 data shows.
Based on 2016 Data, I Am Glad to Be Proven Wrong
When a Harvard Professor analyzed thousands of reports, I expected to see the Police use deadly force more on black people. My biases said this had to be true.
Dr Roland G. Fryer Jr, a Harvard Economist Professor, himself biased against the Police, decided to study this assumption. He published his summary of data carefully analyzed by eight graduate students for twelve months, not once but twice, for two years of analysis.
To Listen To A Short Interview With Dr Fryer, Click Below
How do I contact Roland Fryer? Email: rfryer@fas.harvard.edu.
Summary from An Interview With Dr Fryer
He incorrectly believed the data would show a bias against black people.
- Dr. Fryer did ride along with the Police in Camden, Philadelphia, Houston, and Massachusetts.
- He quickly recognized the Police had a hard job. “After four hours, everyone looked like a criminal.”
- One drive along, they get a call for a potential overdose in a row house. It’s an abandoned building. The person died within six feet of me. It shook me a little bit, so I looked at the guys I was with and said, “Yo, how about beers on me.” They said, “What do you mean by beers on you?” “We should leave here; let the paramedics take over, and we should go.” They said, “We got to go back to work, and I said, but we just saw somebody die.” The police chief overheard me, and he was incredulous. He says, “Roman, I can’t give everybody a break every time someone dies; I wouldn’t have anyone to cover the shifts.” Wow, this was eye-opening. This is what these men and women must deal with.
- We collected millions of observations on the everyday use of force that wasn’t lethal.
- We collected thousands of observations on lethal force.
- The key question I alluded to earlier is black people are 13% of the population, and they are 50% of the police shootings.
- My paper shows that we see some bias in daily low-level uses of force, such as pushing up against cars. People seem to like that result.
- But we didn’t find any racial bias in police shootings. Now, that was surprising to me because I expected to see a slight bias. At that moment, I realized that people lose their minds when they don’t like the result.
- I had eight full-time RA’s, and it took over one year to analyze this data.
- I was so surprised that the data did not confirm my biases that I hired eight fresh RAs and redid the data analysis. And they came up with the same answer.
- I concluded the study was robust and started sharing the results with peers. My God, all hell broke loose!
- It was a 104-page dense academic economics paper with a 150-page appendix.
- Within four minutes of posting, I got my first email: “This is foolish; it doesn’t make any sense.” I wrote back, “How did you read it that fast?” That’s amazing; you are a genius.
- People lost their minds; colleagues of mine were saying: I don’t believe these results. Some colleagues take me to the side and say, “Don’t publish this. You’ll ruin your career “. I said, “What are you talking about? What’s wrong with it? Do you believe the first part?” Yes. “Do you believe the second part? Well, the issue is they just don’t fit together. We like the first one, but you should publish the second one another time.”
- I said, “Let me ask this: If the second part about the police shootings (this is the literal conversation I had with them) showed bias, do you think I should publish it then?” And they said, “Yeah, then it would make sense.”
- I said, “I guarantee you I’ll publish it.”
ASSUME INNOCENCE IS DANG HARD!
One of the best corporate workshops I attended introduced the concept of “Assume Innocence.” Maybe your peer was harsh that morning because she fought with her husband. Assume innocence and move on. Do not take it personally.
The Bell Curve
The bell curve helps remind me most are good people!
A bell curve is a graph depicting the normal distribution, which has a shape reminiscent of a bell. The top of the curve shows the mean, mode, and median of the data collected. Its standard deviation depicts the bell curve’s relative width around the mean.
My college pickup teammates fell into the bell curve.
| Group: Capability/Ranking | Description |
| 1. 20% – Far Right on The Curve | Super Stars |
| 2. 20% | Above Average- Dependable |
| 3. 20% – Median | Average |
| 4. 20% | Below Average – Better Than Nothing |
| 5. 20% – Far Left on The Curve | CRAP- Worse of the Lot |
Everyone recognizes the Group One players, so they are the captains of the two teams and select from the rest of us. Each Captain wants as many of the Group Two players as possible. Next up, they choose from the average players. Finally, the last picks came from Group Five. Guess which group I was usually in unless a GOOD friend was Captain. Let’s do the NBA Announcer Introduction: AND NOW, FROM ROSE HILL, NORTH CAROLINA. THE MAN WHO CONSISTENTLY IS SELECTED LAST- STYRON POWERS! YEP- I was that black guy who could not jump, dribble, rebound, shoot! Destroyed that myth!
Most groups of people fall into the same categories on the bell curve: Doctors, Engineers, Uber Drivers, and Police Officers.
During my 50 years of driving, less than 20 percent of my Police encounters were with Group 5: Racist/Bad cops. Most of the officers I have encountered were very nice people. So, I try to assume innocence when I stop and see an officer approaching my car.
During the recent attack in New Orleans, Police Officers put their lives on the line and rushed toward harm’s way while pushing civilians away. I respect the Police and assume I will seldom run into an A-hole. When a Police Officer stops you, assume innocence until proven wrong.
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I am a proud nerd (as my beautiful wife and daughter have told me) investment and finance blogger with an NC. State, Chemical Engineering, University Rutgers, MBA and Harvard University, Advanced Management education.
I left a corporate career because I desired to make a difference as a speaker and writer. I was blessed to be coached and mentored by strong women and men in my family and professional life. It is my time to serve and give back.
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