Engaged reader and citizen Roch Smith asked me via e-mail:
"What percentage of GPD are African American? Latino?"
And while we are not the official custodians of that information, Jordan Green did get an answer to this very question during a recent spate of reporting.
A "snapshot" of the department obtained by YES! Weekly on May 8 verifies that, of 615 sworn officers in the department, 123 are African American (97 male, 26 female), about 20 percent.
Latinos make up 15 of 615 sworn officers, or 2.5 percent. All are male.
In all, minorities make up 24 percent of the sworn force — that includes blacks, Latinos, Asian-Americans and Native Americans.
Just to put it in perspective, Greensboro itself is 39 percent African American and 6.5 percent Latino. Just over half of us -- 51 percent -- are white.
2 comments:
Brian,
I appreciate your getting those numbers for me.
Here's the thing though, I don't think your "Just to put it in perspective," adds any perceptive. In fact, I think it is a superficial observation that distorts the claims of discrimination and distracts from a serious problem.
The percentages of minority officers in the GPD nearly exactly mirrors the percentage of the population that has the GPD required high school education.
If minorities are underrepresented in the GPD, it appears as if it is because they are underrepresented among high school graduates, not because of discrimination. That's what I'm seeing. Am I missing something?
Post hoc, ergo proctor hoc.
Of course, we know that in any profession the numbers align up exactly with the population, right?
E.g., in order to be a lawyer, one must possess a law degree. Perhaps we should dispense with that formality and simply grant enough licenses to bring the demographics in line.
Roch makes a similar point. At some point, informing the public requires using some common sense.
How many white guys are in the NBA? Asians? Latinos? Oh, not enough? Must be prima facie evidence of racism.
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