Does everyone want to live in the US?

[AteRiri]

I was talking to an American friend and he made this blanket statement, "Everyone wants to come here!"

Is this true?

Great post Spamm.

Interesting comment about the footpaths and access to property for roaming in the U.K. It really is a good thing, I agree.

Spamm the UK you describe I don't recognise. In the village I live we look after each other too, and deal with community issues as a community. And while I see guns they are mainly used for shooting birds of clay, not "self protection" or crime.

I think we all need to accept that no country is homogeneous and there are good/bad areas in each.

I live in the city - never seen gun not held by police - and my sister lived in Brixton for years (mugged a few times but never saw a gun). The town where mum lived was one where neighbours dropped in to make sure she was ok, the shopkeepers knew her and the family, everyone knew the local councillor and business owners...

I guess you can't compare apples and oranges and everyones experiences won't be the same. I like US cities but don't really know what living on a sleepy village would be like there.

I lived in Willesden for a while and never saw a gun.
Or felt particularly unsafe. Or heard gunfights.

I'm Black and when I forst came to England 25 years ago, I lived in Gately Rd, Brixton for 6 years and can honestly say I never heard or saw a gun in that time. I was robbed, had my bag snatched, even had a thief sneak into my home and steal my food shopping after just getting home once. I was threatened and harassed. But gun's? No never.

As for being Black and scared to visit the US because you think you're likely to be shot by the police? As User something or other posted. I can assure you, you are massively more likely to be shot by a fellow Black person.

As User something or other posted. I can assure you, you are massively more likely to be shot by a fellow Black person.

I think the fear is more that you would be discriminated against by the police, e.g. stopped and searched for no good reason.

I have no idea whether this would be more common in the US or the UK.

It's certainly much more likely that you would be shot by any group of people in the US, including toddlers. However, we all know that US gun laws are nuts. I don't know how much that impacts on daily life in the US.

As User something or other posted. I can assure you, you are massively more likely to be shot by a fellow Black person.

Is it true, even in relation to the number of black people vs police officers?

For example, this statement was taken from Dailywire:

"4. There were almost 6,000 blacks killed by other blacks in 2015.
By contrast, only 258 blacks were killed by police gunfire that year."

Now, let's assume there are 6 million black people in that population.
And 6000 police officers.

It means among the black population, there was a killing rate of 1/1000.
And among the police population there was a killing rate of 1/20.
Even with 60 000 police officers, it would still be a killing rate of 1/200, which is 5x higher than for the general black population.
So, if you're black you're more likely to be killed if you come across a police officer than if you come across any other black person.

(Note: My numbers are made up, but probably more accurate than saying you're more likely to be killed by a black person than by a police officer. True, but also highly misleading.)

The problem is confounded by the lower education levels, greater poverty and lower employment levels among black populations, particularly in big cities.

I'd welcome some decent statistics, but I'd be prepared to bet that on a stratified population study, comparing socio-economic levels, crime rates and gun crime rates between blacks and whites wouldn't be so different.

www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/police-shootings-year-end/

I'm assuming you've already seen this?

www.dailywire.com/news/7264/5-statistics-you-need-know-about-cops-killing-aaron-bandler

Re: shootings

www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-36826297

In conclusion, there isn't enough data.

In the context of this thread there might have been 1000 fatal shootings by police in the US in 2014. In the UK there are about 1 or 2 a year en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_killings_by_law_enforcement_officers_in_the_United_Kingdom

However, the US is a big place and I suspect the shootings aren't spread evenly.

Re: the link you posted Tropezienne, The 'All lives matter' meme has a political angle that tries to downplay the effect of racism. Racism is still alive and well in the UK and the US, but racists currently seem to be taking full advantage of opportunities for cross border co-operation.

Thanks for the links.
Not sure what you've taken from them, though.

I don't find a problem with the first.
The second is the type but not the same I looked at earlier, and that does tend to use different statistics.

Neither presents an analysis according to socio-economic strata, just race.

And it would be interesting to know if prejudice (even of black in relation to black) plays a factor in the "highly charged" situations.
It doesn't seem to be such a problem in the UK.

I didn't say there are no racists in existence in The US or the UK. I'm saying that to fear being shot by the Police because you are black is ridiculous and that you are much more likely, whether you are white or black, to be killed by a black person, than the Police.

In the US that is...

And you are more likely to be shot by a white person than the police or a black person. You are also more likely to be shot by a child in the US than police in the UK.

However, whether or not you are more likely to be shot by a black person than the police isn't relevant to the point that discrimination clearly exists in the US police force and that is worrying when they have and use guns.

Whether that is a big enough problem to be a reason not to live in the US is another matter.

I'm saying that to fear being shot by the Police because you are black is ridiculous and that you are much more likely, whether you are white or black, to be killed by a black person, than the Police.

And I was pointing out the problems with such a statement, which is misleading because there are way more black people than police.

However, whether or not you are more likely to be shot by a black person than the police isn't relevant to the point that discrimination clearly exists in the US police force First, where's your evidence of all this 'discrimination'? Secondly - you are much more likely, (whatever your colour) to be a victim of black gun crime there's no 'or not' about it. And, yes that is very relevant indeed. Its easy for people to criticise and make moral pronouncements about how terrible and racist you think the Police in the US are - but they, (Black White and Hispanic) do an incredibly dangerous job. In a nation where over 50% of the murder rate is down to black men who make up just 6.5% of the pop', and the ubiquity of guns, it isn't surprising that the Police are going to be incredibly wary, jumpy and alert to the threat that they presume, black men pose. There have been terrible, unjustified killings in the past of innocent Black and White people. Some caught on camera, but thankfully very few indeed. Bad police have been prosecuted and jailed for it.

Imagine being a Police officer in the US and having to be the first through the door having to execute an arrest warrant of killers and drug dealers in some terrible housing project where there are so many guns and killings an everyday occurrence? Its very easy and safe to make judgments about how racist and terrible they are. But they put their lives on the line daily to lock up violent criminals who wouldn't think twice about taking people's lives and do just that, all the time.

You can see for yourself the stat's on crime and race by Googling the FBI homicide report for 2016, available online. Plus read Criminologist Dr Richard Johnston of the University of Toledo extensive research.

tropezienne, you don't have the reliable data you think you have. From the BBC link:

"Official data on the number of people killed by the police turns out to be remarkably unreliable.
"We can't have an informed discussion, because we don't have data," FBI Director James Comey said in the House of Representatives in October.
"People have data about who went to a movie last weekend, or how many books were sold, or how many cases of the flu walked into an emergency room. And I cannot tell you how many people were shot by police in the United States last month, last year, or anything about the demographics. And that's a very bad place to be."
He had previously said it was "unacceptable" that the leading sources of this information were newspapers, the Washington Post and the Guardian.

Although the FBI does gather some data on fatal shootings, police forces are not obliged to provide it, and only some of them do. This led the Washington Post to start tracking civilian deaths itself after the shooting of Michael Brown by police in Ferguson in August 2014, by monitoring reports in the media."

Of course the police have a very difficult job, but it's disingenuous to pretend racism doesn't exist. You only have to look as far as the president elect and his 'birther' campaign or Nigel Farage to see that there is political capital in racism.

The shooting of Michael Brown was justified, it turned out and who is pretending racism doesn't exist? Me? I have experienced it first hand.

Individual police officers who have shot and killed unjustifiably, even if they are inspired by racial hatred (and I haven't seen any proof of that have you?), do not prove there is racism in the entire Police force. No matter how good it makes you feel to make huge sweeping statement like that. That's a silly claim. Can you tell us of instance of racism, a specific case? Repeating slogans that sound virtuous dont count.

You are saying that criminologist Dr. Richard R. Johnson research of the data from the FBI and Centers for Disease Control add up to nothing?

I am saying that 'you are more likely to be shot by a black person than a police officer' is irrelevant, and that there aren't accurate figures on police shootings.

Plenty of people on both sides of the Atlantic are heavily invested in the idea that racism and in particular institutional racism is no longer a problem.

Nobody on this thread is saying that all police officers are racist.

You are saying that criminologist Dr. Richard R. Johnson research of the data from the FBI and Centers for Disease Control add up to nothing?

The Director of the FBI is saying it amounts to little.
Dr Johnson may have done a brilliant analysis, based on reports that don't have good let alone exact data.

Having returned to this thread after a few days, my stomach literally turned reading some of the most recent posts. So much that there are people on here that I don't want to even engage with through a screen. God forbid I come across people like this in real life.

As for this:
I can assure you, you are massively more likely to be shot by a fellow Black person.
How is that even relevant? What do civilians, criminal civilians, shooting people have to do with people that are trained and paid to protect shooting people? Please, miss me with the "black on black crime" bullshit.

Re. Spamm

- I have 25 days vacation, as well as public holidays, and 2 days personal holidays ( to use for appointments, etc...), as well as time off for doctor appointments, etc... Same for my colleagues.

Well that sounds okay for you (although still below the UK legal minimum), but the average person in full time employment is the US gets ten days of paid vacation per year - a little more than a third of the legal minimum in the UK.

I currently work in Canada (which, unlike the US, does have a legal minimum for paid vacation, but is still the 3rd worst for any developed country) and one of the thing I really miss from the UK is my former holiday allowance.

Actually sorry, Spamm's will probably not be less than the UK minimum (28 days), given the public holidays.

I lived there for 7.5 years, best 7.5 years of my life. Would move there again tomorrow given the chance. I lived in California and New York, don't know anybody who voted for Trump or own a gun!