Quote of the Day
We’ve reached a fascinating point in American public discourse where we’re expected to believe that if one group has more encounters with the police than another, the only possible explanation is racism. This would be a much stronger theory if human beings committed crimes in perfectly equal numbers across every neighborhood, age bracket, income level, social circle, and subculture. In case you have not noticed: They don’t.
Police respond to crime.
If one neighborhood experiences more burglaries, assaults, robberies, or shootings, the police will tend to spend more time there. This is not an especially controversial observation. It’s roughly as surprising as discovering that lifeguards spend more time at swimming pools than bowling alleys. Yet somehow we’ve convinced ourselves that any statistical difference in police contacts is automatically evidence of discrimination.
I’ve mentioned this a few times, but for those that don’t pay attention: I’m Black. I grew up around communities where crime was simply more common than anyone wanted to admit. That doesn’t mean everyone there was a criminal. (Far from it.) Most people were decent folks trying to live their lives. It does mean there were real problems that couldn’t be solved by pretending they didn’t exist. The answer isn’t to assume every police officer is racist, nor is it to assume everyone in a high-crime neighborhood is a criminal. Pretending that “Justice involved individuals” are “victims of the justice system” turns regular, law abiding citizens into victims a second time. In case I have to spell it out for you, this is bad. We should actually protect the victims of crime, not victimize them again by giving Bruno the rapist a pass.
The answer is much less dramatic and therefore much less popular:
Treat people as individuals.
Sensurround @ShamashAran
Posted on X June 29, 2026
Emphasis added.
It seems so simple, but apparently most people have their brains wired for group identities. Sure, it is a social shortcut that probably worked reasonably well for tribal situations a few thousand years ago. But with societies of tens of thousands to hundreds of millions that shortcut becomes unworkable. You end up with terrible injustices.
I acknowledge that most stereotypes have some validity. But I will vigorously defend the assertion that statistics do not apply to individuals.
The whole theory of broken windows policing stands in opposition to this. In NYC under Giuliani and more so with Bloomberg, violations of the 4A were weaponized to destroy the 2A. You cannot support this quote (or the BoR) and broken windows policing at the same time.
What do you think “broken windows policing” is?
To my knowledge, “broken windows policing” means that enforcing small crimes like vandalism (the literal “broken windows”), graffiti, shoplifting, vagrancy and littering has a follow-on effect of reducing robbery, assault, battery, rape and murder. Reciprocally, it is a theory that if you let the small stuff slide without the consequences established in law, you get more of the big stuff.
It doesn’t imply any necessary infringements of the 4A. That’s more of a progressive-authoritarian thing, which is entirely in character for New York City or Chicago.
Richard is grumbling about “stop and frisk.”
Correct. And that is a 4A violation.
.NYC considers the 2A irrelevant. As a prosecutor Giuliani used the laws as they were and carried that into the Mayor’s offiice.
He claims to have been red pilled on the 2A by the aftermath of 9/11 (or perhaps by the reality of conservative politics on the national stage.)
It’s also the case that experienced cops a);can often recognize when someone is a) carrying a weapon and b) often know that a specific individual is a felon and therefore not allowed to do a).Furthermore, using firearms to commit assault tends to be concentrated in relatively small social ans geographical circles.
Abusive gun stops undoubtedly happened but judicious use of them isn’t necessarily a bad idea
NYC police got special training that other cops don’t get. In the rest of the country the rule is assume everyone is armed (some legally).
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Critical theory has completely taken over the left, and critical theory holds that institutional power is responsible for every difference in outcome.
The left is incapable of thinking of anyone as an individual because of it.
“It seems so simple, but apparently most people have their brains wired for group identities. Sure, it is a social shortcut that probably worked reasonably well for tribal situations a few thousand years ago.”
For most purposes, it worked reasonably well until even a couple of hundred years ago, and probably less.
Even just base racism worked passably well until some time around there, at least for many things – *culture* was inherently and almost unavoidably tied to “race” (at least to the older understanding of the term, where “Irish” and “English” were different racial groups, for example), simply from the lack of traveling and relative insularity of groups.
That’s not to say it didn’t produce bad results, of course. It did! But assuming “the other” did things differently than you in all kinds of ways that you didn’t know… was a pretty good thing, as it was more likely to keep you alive. That it also produced some BAD things (but mostly for “the other”) didn’t make it a bad survival method.
Today, with so much greater travel, “race” has largely become unhelpful as a shorthand for culture… except in cultural groups that enforce racism. See how black Americans treat other black Americans that won’t toe the line, for instance. Indian culture also has a strong negative reaction to other Indians that aren’t part of their culture. The “Old South” enforced that more generally, of course – both to blacks and whites (white people who violated segregation were treated quite badly, for instance… up to lynching them, in some cases – yes, plenty of white people got lynched, too, but that’s inconvenient for the narrative today).
Edit: just to clarify, I am *VERY MUCH* in favor of treating each person as an individual. It solves a LOT of problems… but it is, unfortunately, more work than most people are willing to do, at least consistently and at scale.
Great, in theory. Mostly pretty good in practice, when you are allowed to do so.
But what do you do when, as the original poster and UnknownSailor notes, some people take different arrest rates or different acceptance rates into programs as proof of racism because they can’t NOT see everyone as primarily a group member?
And, what to do when groups stubbornly refuse to reciprocate, and exercise very strong in-group preference, to the great detriment of those who treat others as individuals on their merits? Or when groups actively enforce in-group preference, like Muslims targeting apostates for shunning, acid-attacks, or murder? What to do when the H1B in a leadership position will only promote or hire co-ethnics either because they want to or they know if they don’t they’ll catch a lot of blow-back from their co-ethnics; or those for whom everyone not of their group is goyim to be ruthlessly exploited and they mutually cover for each other; or the immigrants who strongly encourage each other to exploit / defraud the welfare or government systems (*cough* Somali Learing Centers *cough*), or continue practicing and covering for each other’s sick cultural practices (*cough* Afghan bacha bazi *cough*), or cultures that are totally OK with cheating and the only shame is getting caught (most of the far east and south Asia); or groups who think it’s totally OK to target for grooming and gang rape of white girls (*cough* Rotherham, et al *cough*)? Or when a person you treat as an individual has a cartel / mob / gang backing him up who will go after you and yours?
Historically, segregation or expulsion/ethnic cleansing was the approach, or some form of forcing them to “police their own,” with extra-judicial violence used to back up that requirement. They may not have had the words for it, but most people intuitively know that multi-culturalism can’t work…. but we keep demanding it, is spite of its virtual impossibility. Do you have a better solution, when enforcing laws on people as individuals will get you accused or prosecuted or killed for racism / sexism / anti-Semitism / islamophobia / whatever?
To summarize: I’d agree that dealing with people as individuals is the best way to go through life. But that’s a cultural norm more or less unique to western civilization that is essentially incompatible with multiculturalism, and many / most cultures in the world.
So the question arises, how do you deal with groups located within your borders who persistently refuse to reciprocate (or are unable to for some reason) that treatment in any meaningful way, to your culture’s significant detriment?
This is the sort of thing I am talking about. How would you address this clear abuse of your countrymen? https://x.com/cutoffs_io/status/2074448765486878955
Libertarianism fails in part for the same reasons as socialism: it doesn’t take into account human nature, the vast majority of people in the world have a very strong in-group preference.
The corollary that always gets left out is TREAT GROUPS LIKE GROUPS. This is why avoiding the bad part of town makes sense; you know most of the individuals in it are harmless, but you also know that as a group, they are more dangerous than you are willing to risk. This is why we can, should, and must place heavy restrictions on immigration from Islamic societies and prohibit any Muslim from immigrating (with potential exceptions for certain highly unusual individuals). We know how dangerous they are *as a group*. Their religion and culture (group behaviors) are inherently hostile to ours; it’s logical, ethical, and necessary to treat the group in accordance with the group’s behavior. Meanwhile, we also know that individuals vary, so we accord everyone the courtesy and respect warranted by their individual behavior.
Racism is just another convenient buzzword the evil left uses…and their moronic sycophantic followers believe in…to justify their ongoing agenda to destroy freedom. If someone calls you “racist”…BE PROUD. It means you actually STAND for something…something GOOD.
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*Banned in Britian* I’m guessing.
Treating people as individuals is only ever considered by Whites. Everybody else knows better. Tribalism is alive and well, because a tribe will kick the snot out of any individual.
Treating people as individuals works until you learn that one in three black men is a convicted felon. At some point, treating people as individuals is mildly suicidal.
So… should all males with black skin be put in prison at birth? Or maybe just wait until they become teenagers, right?
Why not treat people equally, according to their actual personal behavior, and not by the color of their skin, or their genitalia, or lack thereof?
Exactly.
As I noted above, traditionally, segregation or expulsion/war was the solution. Compare the modern black murder rate to the lynching rate from the end of the civil war to the civil-rights and integration era. Or, for that matter, compare the rate of marriage / nuclear families, overall crime rates, rates of dependence of welfare (broadly defined), etc.
Just looking at the numbers, are you safer in a black-culture neighborhood or a white-culture neighborhood? Oh, right, you long for your bunker in 80% white Idaho because it’s safer and sane…. But that’s voluntary, you say. Yes. True. But moving to a “nice” neighborhood is what just about everyone who can afford to do, does, even non-whites, and oddly enough “nice” is highly correlated with certain demographics. Not everyone can afford to self-segregate for their family’s safety, and even then (Randy Weaver) the government won’t always let you.
I don’t get your point. And what do those murder and other rates have to do with treating people as individuals?
You asked (rhetorically?) if the alternative to treating people as individuals was jail. I pointed out the historic alternatives to people who as a group are not playing nice with your group is segregation / expulsion. You implicitly acknowledge the problem groups by publicly declaring your are planning on self-segregating from them via moving to a very nearly all white area.
So the question is, leaving philosophical considerations of “nice” or “should” aside, how much better or worse off are various cultural/ethnic groups, as a practical matter, when they are segregated / separated / expelled vs not?
Logical fallacy: Appeal to extremes.
5 yards, loss of down.
What you mean, “we,” paleface?
The only person who used “we” in this post was black skinned. So, I’m a little confused by the Lone Ranger and Tonto joke.