The American police force originally started as a formalized slave patrol to capture runaway slaves [0]. It's well-documented [1]. We can try to argue whether modern policing carries that tradition, but case [2] after documented case [3] keeps bearing out more of the same. It's been the topic of research [4] and pop culture [5].

[0] https://www.nas.org/academic-questions/36/3/did-american-pol...

[1] https://time.com/4779112/police-history-origins/

[2] https://www.britannica.com/biography/Rodney-King

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Floyd

[4] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7331505/

[5] https://genius.com/123154

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janalsncm 9 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Pretty clear issues with this line of reasoning.

One, even if all police in the U.S. did start as slave patrols it is a textbook case of a genetic fallacy.

Two, your article discusses several origins of police forces in the US. In Boston it had nothing to do with slaves because Massachusetts was not a slave state when they created a police system in the 1830s. And since Afroman was raided in Ohio, also never a slave state, it does not make sense to carry over southern slave-catching history into modern police culture.

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ceejayoz 8 hours ago | parent [-]

> In Boston it had nothing to do with slaves because Massachusetts was not a slave state when they created a police system in the 1830s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fugitive_Slave_Act_of_1793

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fugitive_Slave_Act_of_1850

"It required that all escaped slaves, upon capture, be returned to the slave-owner and that officials and citizens of free states had to cooperate."

Boston's police department was founded in 1854.

	▲	janalsncm 7 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> The first publicly funded, organized police force with officers on duty full-time was created in Boston in 1838. This is from your Time.com article. Second, fugitive slave extradition was controversial in northern states and from your Wikipedia article several northern states even passed legislation to protect fugitive slaves. And why would northern states spend their own tax dollars to fund police forces to capture slaves? It doesn’t make sense. They created police for public safety reasons in cities. And even if none of that were true it still does not address the genetic fallacy. Just because some police forces started as slave patrols does not imply that all police today are inherently white supremacist.

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tt24 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> The American police force originally started as a formalized slave patrol to capture runaway slaves

I don't see how this supports the claim

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alpha_squared 11 hours ago | parent [-]

You don't see how an organization founded to enforce a cornerstone of white supremacy may have a statistical likelihood of its members being white supremacists?

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tt24 11 hours ago | parent [-]

No, I don't think that this supports the claim that it's a safe assumption that any given cop is a white supremacist.

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alpha_squared 10 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I've attempted to take your responses as made in good faith twice now, despite evidence to the contrary in other threads. I understand if this topic is uncomfortable for you, either because it challenges your world view or because it feels personally invalidating. It appears as though you're looking for one very specific statistic or logical vulnerability in what others are sharing to refute the overall claim. However, I can only lead you to water.

	▲	tt24 10 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Sorry, just looking for evidence that supports the claim that was made. So far there isn’t any.

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defrost 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Not the claim made.

> Statistically that's a pretty sensible assumption.

was the claim, ie. quite likely, tending toward more often than not.

Versus your phrasing that any given cop is

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ahhhhnoooo 10 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Your post is essential. No one is claiming 100% of cops are white supremacists. One is claiming that it's sensible to assume they are.

If 20% of cops were white supremacists, and I was a minority, it would be sensible to behave as if every encounter had a significant chance of being with someone is looking to ruin my day.

The majority do not need to be unsafe for me to feel unsafe around the community. You have to factor in the potential power they wield (to kill you or take your freedom or seize your assets), combined with the odds that one will do it because they have wrong headed ideas about race.

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tt24 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Is there evidence to support the claim that, more often than not, a given cop is a white supremacist?

	▲	defrost 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> more often than not, Again, that's _not_ the upthread claim made by somebody other than myself, a non-US read along. Still, IIRC the US UCLA has written much on the matter, so perhaps start there if you're interested.