00:00:00
I'm going to go get some data I'm going
00:00:02
to go show that the police are biased
00:00:04
but we didn't find any racial bias in
00:00:06
police shootings now that was really
00:00:09
surprising to me because I expected to
00:00:10
see it the little known fact is I had
00:00:12
eight full-time Ras that it took to do
00:00:15
this over nearly a year when I found the
00:00:17
surprising result I hired eight fresh
00:00:19
ones and redid it to make sure they came
00:00:22
up with the same exact answer and I
00:00:24
thought it was robust and I went to go
00:00:26
give it and my God all hell broke loose
00:00:28
it was posted for minutes when I got my
00:00:31
first email this is full and I wrote
00:00:33
back how' you read it that fast what's
00:00:36
going on everybody welcome back to the
00:00:37
channel hope all is good wherever you
00:00:39
are in this video we're going to watch
00:00:41
an interview with Roland fry he is one
00:00:43
of the most celebrated economists in the
00:00:44
world the man is brilliant he's the
00:00:46
author of more than 50 papers including
00:00:48
the one he's going to be talking about
00:00:50
in this clip here the racial difference
00:00:51
between police shootings this is a great
00:00:53
clip of him talking about how he wanted
00:00:55
to write this paper on police abuse
00:00:57
towards the black community and his data
00:01:00
and and his findings and his research
00:01:02
showed the complete opposite let's get
00:01:05
into the video when you came on my radar
00:01:08
it was for a paper that you wrote in
00:01:10
2016 here was the title of it an
00:01:12
empirical analysis of racial differences
00:01:15
in Police use of
00:01:17
force maybe there's been a more
00:01:19
controversial paper since then I would
00:01:21
argue it's probably the most
00:01:21
controversial of your career so far tell
00:01:24
us about that study and you you've
00:01:26
called the results the most surprising
00:01:28
of your career why is
00:01:31
that can
00:01:32
we change the language of controversy I
00:01:36
mean do you mean
00:01:38
interesting people are always like
00:01:40
you're so controversial I don't want to
00:01:42
be right like I'm just showing you the
00:01:44
data the data are telling you a weird
00:01:46
story that's not my fault I'd like some
00:01:48
nice popular data it just didn't work
00:01:50
out that
00:01:51
way um look I saw what was going on with
00:01:54
Michael Brown and um some of the early
00:01:58
um viral videos of police
00:02:01
violence I want to do
00:02:04
something but protesting is just not my
00:02:08
jam I'm not saying that people shouldn't
00:02:10
protest go for it but seemed hot outside
00:02:13
I just didn't want to do it and so um I
00:02:16
thought I want to do
00:02:18
something um and only thing I know how
00:02:20
to do is I'm one of the world's biggest
00:02:21
data nerds so I said this is going to be
00:02:23
the easiest paper I ever
00:02:26
write I'm going to go get some data I'm
00:02:29
going to go show that the police are
00:02:32
biased finally people are going to like
00:02:35
me and my grandmother's going to go you
00:02:38
showed that the police don't like black
00:02:40
people really what are you doing up
00:02:41
there right like this was this was I had
00:02:43
it all laid out and then I had dinner
00:02:45
with a a colleague of mine and I was
00:02:48
telling him about my plan and he says
00:02:50
you know Roland um when you work on
00:02:52
schools and other stuff like that you
00:02:54
really just are in the schools and so
00:02:56
it's weird for me strange that you would
00:02:59
just download load police data and not
00:03:01
understand more about the police he says
00:03:03
I wonder what the police are maximizing
00:03:06
a very econ kind of thing to ask I
00:03:09
wonder what the police are maximizing
00:03:11
and it dawned on me in that moment I
00:03:13
didn't know nor did I think I cared so I
00:03:17
said okay fine I didn't give him Credit
00:03:20
in the moment but I laughed and said you
00:03:21
know what I'm going to do I'm going to
00:03:23
go figure out what police
00:03:25
maximize so I set up Ride Along alongs
00:03:27
in Camden Phil pH Adelphia Houston some
00:03:32
places in Massachusetts to ride along
00:03:34
with the police now back to 1991 I don't
00:03:37
like the police very
00:03:39
much I don't what had been your
00:03:41
experience with the police I had been
00:03:43
roughed up by the police I've had guns
00:03:45
pulled on me mind you they pulled me
00:03:47
over and I decided it would be a good
00:03:49
idea to get out of the car and walk
00:03:53
away the details are important probably
00:03:57
[Laughter]
00:04:00
but in any event they I didn't like
00:04:03
their customer service and so
00:04:06
um I just didn't like police they came
00:04:08
they took half my family away granted
00:04:10
they were selling a lot of drugs but
00:04:12
again not the greatest customer
00:04:15
service so I was biased against the
00:04:17
police I'm not that's obvious I went and
00:04:21
um I don't think I've received a better
00:04:23
education since my grandmother taught me
00:04:25
to
00:04:26
read it's a hard job and I know that
00:04:30
sounds obvious sitting on the
00:04:32
stage it's a really hard job
00:04:35
uh I am a terrible police officer uh
00:04:40
after 4 hours everyone looked like a
00:04:42
criminal to
00:04:46
me I don't know if I I don't know if I
00:04:48
was hangry I don't know what it was but
00:04:50
I'm telling you I am serious they were
00:04:53
like you could never be a cop because I
00:04:56
was like hey let's pull over that kid's
00:04:57
got a basketball I don't like it
00:05:03
I I participated in in these weapons
00:05:06
training thing not real weapons relax
00:05:07
but like um these weapons trainings
00:05:09
where there's simulations and some guy
00:05:12
like I'm in a building the guy walks out
00:05:14
he's got a baby I shoot the guy right in
00:05:15
the head and they're like what was about
00:05:16
the baby I said sorry I didn't see the
00:05:18
baby I was a bad police officer but what
00:05:21
I really
00:05:22
did serious I I um I realized the job is
00:05:27
really hard it was the
00:05:30
end of a 12-hour shift in
00:05:33
Camden and we get a call for a potential
00:05:36
overdose in a
00:05:38
Rous it's an abandoned building we bust
00:05:41
in uh a person dies within six feet of
00:05:47
me
00:05:49
and it shook me up a little bit and so I
00:05:53
looked at the guys I was with and I said
00:05:56
yo how about beers on me
00:06:00
and they said 'what do you mean beers
00:06:01
are on you I said I don't know I don't
00:06:03
know how to say it in do you want me to
00:06:05
speak in Greek I mean I don't know it's
00:06:06
uh beers are on me we should leave here
00:06:09
let the paramedics take over we should
00:06:11
go and they said we got to go back to
00:06:14
work and I said but we just saw somebody
00:06:18
die and the police chief overheard me
00:06:20
and he he was incredulous he says Roland
00:06:23
if I gave everybody a break every time
00:06:25
someone died I wouldn't no one would
00:06:26
cover the
00:06:27
shifts and I was like wow
00:06:31
it is a hard job and so through these
00:06:35
experiences long story short I collected
00:06:37
a lot of
00:06:39
data and those experiences helped me
00:06:41
understand what types of data to collect
00:06:44
um we collected millions of observations
00:06:46
on uh everyday use of force that wasn't
00:06:49
lethal we collected thousands of
00:06:52
observations on lethal force and the key
00:06:55
question I alluded to it earlier in a
00:06:56
bit of a joke but the key question is
00:07:00
not just um this arbitrary silly
00:07:05
snapshots that some journalist not named
00:07:08
Barry do a lot which is black people are
00:07:12
133% of the population and they are 50%
00:07:15
of the police
00:07:16
shootings I'm I'm sorry about that but I
00:07:19
don't know what that has to do with the
00:07:21
question right and and it was in this
00:07:24
moment in 2016 that I
00:07:26
realized people lose their minds when
00:07:29
they don't like the
00:07:30
result right and so what my paper showed
00:07:33
you'll see tomorrow uh like some of you
00:07:35
uh was that yes we saw some bias in the
00:07:38
lowlevel uses of force every day pushing
00:07:40
up against cars and things like that
00:07:42
people sent to like that result but we
00:07:44
didn't find any
00:07:46
um uh racial bias and police shootings
00:07:51
now that was really surprising to me
00:07:53
because I expected to see
00:07:56
it the little known fact is I had eight
00:07:58
full-time raas that it took to do this
00:08:02
over nearly a
00:08:03
year when I found the surprising result
00:08:07
I hired eight fresh ones and redid it to
00:08:10
make
00:08:12
sure they came up with the same exact
00:08:14
answer and I thought it was robust and I
00:08:16
went to go give it and my God all hell
00:08:19
broke
00:08:20
loose tell tell us about that what was
00:08:22
the re I mean well your former paper
00:08:24
published The Thing uh published a
00:08:26
report about it and it was a
00:08:30
104 page dense academic economics paper
00:08:36
with 150 page appendix
00:08:39
okay it was posted for four minutes when
00:08:42
I got my first email this is full of
00:08:45
doesn't make any sense and I wrote
00:08:48
back how'd you read it that
00:08:50
fast that's amazing you are a
00:08:56
genius people lost their minds I mean it
00:08:59
was like colleagues of mine were going
00:09:01
well I don't believe these results he's
00:09:02
using regressions I'm like well what the
00:09:04
hell else we been using I mean we've
00:09:06
been using them
00:09:07
for ever that's what you
00:09:12
use and I had colleagues take me into to
00:09:16
the side and
00:09:18
say don't publish
00:09:20
this you'll ruin your
00:09:23
career I said what are you talking about
00:09:26
I said what's wrong with it do you
00:09:28
believe the first part
00:09:30
yes do you believe the second
00:09:33
part well it's the issue is they just
00:09:36
don't fit
00:09:38
together we like the first one but you
00:09:40
should publish the second one another
00:09:42
time I said let me ask this if the
00:09:45
second part about the police shootings
00:09:47
this is a literal
00:09:48
conversation I said to them if the
00:09:50
second part uh showed bias do you think
00:09:55
I would should publish it then and they
00:09:57
say yeah then it would make sense
00:10:00
and I Saidi guarantee you I'll publish
00:10:02
it we'll see what
00:10:04
happens so it was it was you know I I
00:10:07
lived under under um police protection
00:10:11
for about 30 or 40 days I had a 7 Day
00:10:16
old daughter at the time I remember
00:10:19
going and shopping for because you know
00:10:20
when you have a newborn you think you
00:10:21
have enough diapers you don't so I I was
00:10:24
going to the grocery store to get
00:10:25
diapers with the armed guard it was
00:10:27
crazy it was really truly crazy um and
00:10:32
uh yeah it was it was a really
00:10:34
phenomenal
00:10:36
experience there a lot of people many
00:10:39
people and this has been a realization
00:10:42
for me over the past few years of my own
00:10:44
life who faced with that exact decision
00:10:47
point would make the opposite choice I
00:10:51
think the majority of people actually
00:10:53
would make the opposite choice they
00:10:56
would think I'm going to preserve my
00:10:58
career my professional status my
00:11:01
Prestige you were the golden I mean you
00:11:03
were a Golden Boy at that point I'm
00:11:05
going to preserve my popularity my
00:11:07
ability to get along with my colleagues
00:11:09
someone nice to sit next to me in the
00:11:11
cafeteria like every incentive to use an
00:11:15
economics term would be pushing you to
00:11:16
make that choice what is it inside of
00:11:20
you what can everyone here learn about
00:11:23
what allowed you to make the opposite
00:11:25
choice to make the choice that would
00:11:28
force you to suffer all of the
00:11:30
consequences you would come to suffer
00:11:31
some a direct result and some adjacent
00:11:33
to
00:11:34
it I don't covet what they
00:11:38
covet and I tell my undergraduates every
00:11:41
year in the final lecture of my
00:11:43
undergraduate classes each one of
00:11:46
them the key to Harvard
00:11:49
is get a great
00:11:53
education without letting this place
00:11:55
change
00:11:56
you it's really important it can be
00:12:00
corrupting so not every incentive was
00:12:03
pushing in that direction because every
00:12:05
day I have to look myself in the mirror
00:12:07
and say what are you here
00:12:09
for what did you leave
00:12:11
behind I did not grow up wanting to go
00:12:14
to Harvard I didn't I really
00:12:19
didn't um I wanted to do something
00:12:25
and I like many others in here want to
00:12:29
acknowledge that have suffered a lot of
00:12:31
losses in my
00:12:33
life my grandmother's no longer here my
00:12:36
father is dead I don't know where my
00:12:39
mother is I have they're all gone every
00:12:43
single cousin is gone my favorite cousin
00:12:46
when he the day he got released out of
00:12:48
prison after 25 years someone walked up
00:12:50
behind him and shot him directly in the
00:12:54
head so I have to make this journey
00:12:59
worth
00:13:00
it I am here because I want to solve
00:13:04
problems I am here because I have seen
00:13:09
so much talent in these neighborhoods
00:13:11
and I know they know when they
00:13:14
see
00:13:16
it so I'm not going to lie to
00:13:19
them I wouldn't be able to show my face
00:13:22
in these places if I told lies to them
00:13:25
like oh I he this result from you the
00:13:28
thing about it is if you do a result
00:13:31
what has happened with the actual police
00:13:34
departments is
00:13:36
that because they actually believe the
00:13:40
results and they're willing to reform on
00:13:42
the lower level uses of force because
00:13:45
someone told the truth about the
00:13:48
others
00:13:50
and you know
00:13:54
it's The Importance of Being thought of
00:13:56
someone of being an actual truth tell is
00:13:59
so so very important maybe not in the
00:14:02
moment um but I
00:14:07
don't I didn't go to Harvard to have
00:14:09
chardonay at 10:30 in the morning I just
00:14:11
don't want to it's not my
00:14:13
thing and it's okay if it's someone
00:14:15
else's thing it's just not my thing um I
00:14:18
came here came there I went there to
00:14:20
make a difference truly I know that
00:14:22
sounds naive to many of you but I as I
00:14:25
tell my students remember when you came
00:14:27
to Harvard you had lofty dreams of
00:14:29
change in the
00:14:32
world it wasn't downside risk
00:14:36
protection right everybody everybody I
00:14:39
know who I've seen walk through that
00:14:42
those Ivy
00:14:43
doors rocks the boat until they get in
00:14:46
the boat and then they say steady
00:14:50
now I rock the boat until I got in the
00:14:53
boat and I said let's see how fast we
00:14:55
can
00:14:56
go and I've fallen out the boat got run
00:14:59
over by the boat it's it is what it is
00:15:02
but you got to be for
00:15:04
something right and so I I I mean I
00:15:07
actually don't understand those other
00:15:09
people I don't know what they're
00:15:10
maximizing this is the man that should
00:15:12
have been the president at Harvard not
00:15:14
that whack job woke lady that they ended
00:15:16
up with if the media covered the
00:15:18
shootings of white people the same way
00:15:20
they cover the shootings of black people
00:15:22
you would think that there was a crisis
00:15:23
of police attacking whites like a war on
00:15:25
whites but right now what we have is a
00:15:28
war on cops because of the media and the
00:15:30
way they portray them and this false
00:15:33
racial narrative Roland talks about the
00:15:35
Michael Brown uh Ferguson shooting and
00:15:38
the false hands up don't shoot narrative
00:15:40
that happened that triggered riots this
00:15:43
was in what 2014 across the country and
00:15:45
in 2015 and 2016 we saw the largest
00:15:48
2-year increase in homicides in 50 years
00:15:51
that was because cops were not getting
00:15:52
out of their cars they were becoming
00:15:54
passive and merely reacting to Crime
00:15:57
after the fact rather rather than trying
00:15:59
to intervene in they see suspicious
00:16:02
Behavior or something of the sorts and
00:16:04
so you had a situation where crime in
00:16:06
the inner city and inner city
00:16:07
neighborhoods took another 2,000 black
00:16:10
lives in 2015 and again in 2016
00:16:12
following the deaths of George Floyd
00:16:14
what was what was George Floyd's death
00:16:15
2020 that caused even more brutal even
00:16:17
more archaic destruction riots across
00:16:20
the country attacks on Law Enforcement
00:16:22
Officers destruction of police property
00:16:24
destruction of the very symbol of Law
00:16:26
and Order that we have in the country
00:16:28
the court houses police precincts police
00:16:31
cars businesses were torched to the
00:16:34
ground 2020 saw the largest percentage
00:16:36
increase in homicides in a nation's
00:16:39
history and in 2021 was even worse than
00:16:42
2020 we learned all over again and still
00:16:44
learning today that when you emasculate
00:16:46
law enforcement when you tell them that
00:16:48
they're racist they're going to get the
00:16:49
message that policing is political when
00:16:52
cops are in high crime neighborhoods
00:16:54
trying to save lives that and then
00:16:56
you're going to accuse them of racism
00:16:58
when they are the government institution
00:17:01
they are dedicated to Black lives
00:17:03
mattering they're the ones that save
00:17:05
black lives police officers but they're
00:17:07
doing less because of this and who pays
00:17:09
the price law abiding residents of high
00:17:13
crom communities who are overwhelmingly
00:17:16
black themselves the lesson learned from
00:17:18
what a lot of people call the Ferguson
00:17:20
effect and policing matters the left
00:17:22
doesn't like talking about the real data
00:17:24
on crime and we know this and if you
00:17:27
talk about the real cause of crime I'm
00:17:29
saying that listen cops are not out
00:17:31
there killing black people black people
00:17:32
are out there killing black people more
00:17:33
black people are killed through these
00:17:35
insane driveby shootings than anything
00:17:38
else but if you mention that you're
00:17:40
accused of being a white supremacist
00:17:41
this Phantom police racism that they
00:17:43
like to talk about when there's two
00:17:45
dozen blacks being killed and Drive by
00:17:47
shootings every single day again not by
00:17:49
cops being killed by other blacks you
00:17:52
have kids spraying with bullets
00:17:54
neighborhoods in retaliation for some
00:17:56
imaginary gang gripe or imaginary this
00:17:59
that they would have had to the leftist
00:18:00
media this doesn't matter because it is
00:18:02
disproportionately committed by blacks
00:18:04
if it was committed by a white person
00:18:06
you would for sure hear about it the
00:18:08
same way you don't hear about if you
00:18:10
know a young boy is beaten up by uh a
00:18:13
black gang or something of the sort and
00:18:14
the boy happens to be white you will not
00:18:15
hear about this blacks die of homicides
00:18:18
13 times the rate of white and Hispanics
00:18:22
combined combined 80% of all murders by
00:18:26
guns in the US are gang related crime
00:18:29
but you can't talk about this because
00:18:31
you're labeled a racist if you talk
00:18:33
about the black social breakdown or the
00:18:34
black family breakdown again you're
00:18:36
labeled a
00:18:37
racist I think we've forgotten that if
00:18:40
families fall apart or when they fall
00:18:42
apart police are the ones that are there
00:18:43
keeping communities together and keeping
00:18:45
safety on the streets policing matters
00:18:48
law enforcement matters law enforcement
00:18:50
deters criminal Behavior but the left
00:18:51
will not acknowledge that which is
00:18:53
baffling something I find hilarious and
00:18:55
it's to the extent that like the New
00:18:57
York Times The Washington Post will
00:18:59
never acknowledge really that there's an
00:19:01
increase in homicides in the black
00:19:04
community they just won't mention
00:19:06
it 50 plus small little children black
00:19:10
children little ones are killed almost
00:19:12
every year accidentally by these drive
00:19:14
by shootings the only explanation in the
00:19:17
last few years that the leftist media
00:19:19
has come up with the Washington Post and
00:19:20
CNN MSNBC and I remember this they said
00:19:23
that the increase in homicides was due
00:19:26
to the pandemic that's somehow the
00:19:29
lockdowns had led to the increase in
00:19:31
homicide which is completely phony with
00:19:33
the rest of the industrialized world
00:19:34
like Great Britain Italy Canada France
00:19:37
Japan pick a country you name it
00:19:39
everything went down dramatically during
00:19:41
the pandemic but the leftist media tried
00:19:42
to make people believe that you know the
00:19:44
lockdowns were sometime somehow making
00:19:46
people kill each other more absurd
00:19:48
totally absurd anyways I hope you all
00:19:50
enjoyed this video if you did Smash that
00:19:52
Thumbs Up Button consider subscribing to
00:19:53
the channel help it grow catch you all
00:19:55
in the next video peace out everybody
