>"race is a social construct" seems strange.

It merely means that race is something that doesn't exist outside of the social conventions of a society, an identity pasted onto oneself or someone else based on superficial and meaningless biological attributes.

Racism can be physically dangerous if 'race' is associated with ethics (be it high or low), such as in this database. But mainly, racism is just stupid (i.e. it obfuscates the real issues).

To think of 'race' as a meaningful category in research underpinning policy mostly proves to an outsider how ingrained racism is in the US.

Just because race doesn't exist outside of social conventions doesn't mean it isn't a relevant factor. In fact, it's explicitly not irrelevant for things within our society, such as the conduct of our police force. For better (or in this case worse), race is a very relevant factor in our society currently.

You cannot simultaneously claim that racism is a social construct and it has no relevance in analyzing social behaviors. I doubt anyone here disagrees with you on the biological reality of race and how it has far more to do with social convention than anything else. But that _does not_ mean it can be discounted in this kind of analysis.

> You cannot simultaneously claim that racism is a social construct

Where do I claim that racism is a social construct? I said 'race' (not racism).

> It merely means that race is something that doesn't exist outside of the social conventions of a society, an identity pasted onto oneself or someone else based on superficial and meaningless biological attributes.

With this in mind, are police not agents working on behalf of a society? Funded largely (if not solely) by members of that society?

You don't have to look much further than "blue lives matter" to see that police in America are almost looked at as a psuedo-race.

> racism is just stupid (i.e. it obfuscates the real issues).

A lot of people think Racism in policing is the real issue. A core one. What do you think the real issues that are being obfuscated are?

Agree racism in policing is a real and core issue. Racism in other walks of life is a real problem too, for example in journalism or social studies: i.e. when any kind of (un)ethical behavior is directly linked to 'race', either expressly or insidiously implied which was my point. The obfuscation that takes place here is that the cause of police violence is reduced down to 2 factors (race and individuals), at the expense of such things as actual racism, individual drug abuse, a propensity in police stations to pick that same sturdy officer for difficult and potentially dangerous situations, general militarization of the police, a culture steeped in violence, and a cultural tendency to see crime (any problem really) as something you solve by bombing it out of existence. Etc.