I’m not so sure about the position anymore. There is a book called ‘Suspect Citizens’ that I read which goes into some of the details about how the police treat black people.

The book uses a huge sample size, analyzing around 20-million traffic stops and shows that blacks are almost twice as likely to be pulled over by the police even though whites more on average. The study also showed that blacks are much more likely to get searched during routine stops even though they are LESS likely to have illegal contraband.

Some of this information calls what I’ve written here into question as there is a significant chance the data is skewed if indeed cops are pulling over and searching black people more often. It becomes a problem of causation. In other words, perhaps black people statistically commit more crimes because they are more closely scrutinized by the police. This would be a vicious cycle indeed and requires more thought on my part.

*Note that I’m not going to delete this piece but I did think, knowing what I know now, that it is important I come back and add this clarifying comment.