Racism: glorified hyperbole in America

[Headache in a Suitcase]

Originally Posted by BigMacPhisto

And probably 90% of the crimes. People need to consider that police are going to be reckless regardless (although there often is a racial undercurrent at play in these shootings). A greater percentage of white deaths than black deaths occur at the hands of police, for example, which is probably a good reason why the community should be focused a wee bit more on the problems among themselves.

But, just out of necessity, black deaths by police happening at about double the expected rate (13% of the population being black) really isn't that surprising when you look at the crime statistics where blacks are way over-represented for every single crime nationwide with the exceptions of gambling and some driving related issues. Of course the police are going to be involved more often in those communities and of course the number of police shootings are going to be above what would be expected. There's more crime period.

I mean, do you want a personal experience? I work part-time security in San Francisco. It's a great gig, frankly. Black men make up about 6% of the population there, but literally make up at least 80% of the people walking the streets downtown at night around 3AM, most of them not even homeless. And it's not conjecture, it's an observation that's stayed true over the half decade I've worked there. You can't tell me there's not a culture issue at play there. Otherwise, you'd just be making a racist assumption that black men are genetically predisposed to walking around urban areas for no reason. Likewise, most of the major crimes I've had to report from seeing men and women assaulted to major property damage, etc. have been done by black males.

Changes need to be made. Even one unnecessary death at the hands of the police is too many, and the ones that reek of downright murder are completely abhorrent. But this is something where the spotlight is often shining a little too bright and people are quick to jump to conclusions, such as having protest rallies immediately when a black guy is shot at a gas station and then, the next day, the Mayor and the videotape come out showing him literally pulling out a gun and firing at an officer. Let's work together with like minds to resolve this problem that's running rampant across police localities across the country without being quick to play the race card.

How very progressive of you

[PhilsFan]

Originally Posted by BigMacPhisto

And probably 90% of the crimes. People need to consider that police are going to be reckless regardless (although there often is a racial undercurrent at play in these shootings). A greater percentage of white deaths than black deaths occur at the hands of police, for example, which is probably a good reason why the community should be focused a wee bit more on the problems among themselves.

But, just out of necessity, black deaths by police happening at about double the expected rate (13% of the population being black) really isn't that surprising when you look at the crime statistics where blacks are way over-represented for every single crime nationwide with the exceptions of gambling and some driving related issues. Of course the police are going to be involved more often in those communities and of course the number of police shootings are going to be above what would be expected. There's more crime period.

I mean, do you want a personal experience? I work part-time security in San Francisco. It's a great gig, frankly. Black men make up about 6% of the population there, but literally make up at least 80% of the people walking the streets downtown at night around 3AM, most of them not even homeless. And it's not conjecture, it's an observation that's stayed true over the half decade I've worked there. You can't tell me there's not a culture issue at play there. Otherwise, you'd just be making a racist assumption that black men are genetically predisposed to walking around urban areas for no reason. Likewise, most of the major crimes I've had to report from seeing men and women assaulted to major property damage, etc. have been done by black males.

Changes need to be made. Even one unnecessary death at the hands of the police is too many, and the ones that reek of downright murder are completely abhorrent. But this is something where the spotlight is often shining a little too bright and people are quick to jump to conclusions, such as having protest rallies immediately when a black guy is shot at a gas station and then, the next day, the Mayor and the videotape come out showing him literally pulling out a gun and firing at an officer. Let's work together with like minds to resolve this problem that's running rampant across police localities across the country without being quick to play the race card.

Certainly it had nothing to do with decades of ramping up penalties for crimes that occur in black communities (marijuana possession)! It's just black people commit a lot of crimes, you got it.

Go vote for Trump, asshole.

[trojanchick99]

Racism exists on the right and on the left. Wow.

Sent from my SM-G920V using U2 Interference mobile app

[BigMacPhisto]

Crime statistics of nearly every category show blacks committing more crimes. I don't see why it's considered racist to point that out. It's reality. Face it.

For example, homicides:

"According to the US Department of Justice, blacks accounted for 52.5% of homicide offenders from 1980 to 2008, with whites 45.3% and "Other" 2.2%. The offending rate for blacks was almost 8 times higher than whites, and the victim rate 6 times higher. Most homicides were intraracial, with 84% of white victims killed by whites, and 93% of black victims killed by blacks"


You were saying Baton Rouge's population is 25% black male. Most crimes are committed by men and Baton Rouge's black male population alone would make up half of men in that city and therefore at least half the crime. Throw in the expected increase in crime among the black community due to factors like poverty and what we see nationwide from city-to-city and you're going to get at least 70% of crimes ranging from murder, etc. being caused by black males in Baton Rouge. I would contend that the very high black population in the area would get you to 90% as most cities don't have half of their males being black (San Francisco, as I mentioned, is 6% black yet the vast majority of murders are black-on-black).


Baton Rouge Advocate newspaper did an article about city murders in 2012. There was a PDF with the police information that others have written about although the PDF itself now seems to be gone. 87 percent of murder victims were black males. 96 percent of the perpetrators of murder, were, drumroll...black.

So yes, my 90% isn't bullshit.

[BigMacPhisto]

Originally Posted by PhilsFan

Certainly it had nothing to do with decades of ramping up penalties for crimes that occur in black communities (marijuana possession)!

So, longer sentences for marijuana mean more murders...even though the murder rates were higher in those sort of high black population cities before marijuana penalties were ramped up.

Stop making stretches. If a group commits a crime at a given rate, they've committed it at that given rate. We can have an honest discussion about underlying issues involved, etc. But at least use reality as a starting point rather than ignoring it because it doesn't conveniently fit your narrative.

[BigMacPhisto]

Originally Posted by Headache in a Suitcase

How very progressive of you

Indeed. I want police reform just like the rest of the left.

Or did you not actually read my post and instead put on your Social Justice Warrior hat because the fact that blacks commit crimes at a far higher rate than everyone else is too inconvenient?

[BVS]

Originally Posted by BigMacPhisto

Baton Rouge's black male population alone would make up half of black men in that city and therefore at least half the crime.

Fuzzy math...

[BVS]

Originally Posted by BigMacPhisto

So, longer sentences for marijuana mean more murders...even though the murder rates were higher in those sort of high black population cities before marijuana penalties were ramped up.

Think about this for a little bit...

[BigMacPhisto]

Originally Posted by BVS

Fuzzy math...

No, obvious math that would work for any major American city with a black male population that is 50% or more.

Or did you just ignore the fact that 96% of Baton Rouge murders in 2012 were by black perpetrators?

[BigMacPhisto]

Originally Posted by BVS

Think about this for a little bit...

So, you're saying they locked up more would-be murderers?

And of course, that's just stupid as we all know there's been a general decline in violent crime for the last 25 years across all racial groups, so marijuana sentences has nothing to do with it.

[BVS]

Originally Posted by BigMacPhisto

No, obvious math that would work for any major American city with a black male population that is 50% or more.

Or did you just ignore the fact that 96% of Baton Rouge murders in 2012 were by black perpetrators?

Read your sentence:

Baton Rouge's black male population alone would make up half of black men in that city and therefore at least half the crime.

The black male population would make up half the black male population.

[BVS]

Originally Posted by BigMacPhisto

Baton Rouge Advocate newspaper did an article about city murders in 2012. There was a PDF with the police information that others have written about although the PDF itself now seems to be gone. 87 percent of murder victims were black males. 96 percent of the perpetrators of murder, were, drumroll...black.

So yes, my 90% isn't bullshit.

Nice source it's interesting that you use rightwing sources more than the right in here.

'Crime' does not equal 'murder', the claim earlier was 'crime', let's not make this anymore fuzzy than you have.

[BigMacPhisto]

Typo. Obviously meant half of "men" in the city rather than "black men".

I don't even know why people go ape shit over any of this. I agree with all of you on the fact that this shit just needs to change, just don't think the narrative is always correct given all the circumstances. Higher crime rates mean a greater police presence means a greater chance of police caused homicides.

[BigMacPhisto]

Originally Posted by BVS

Nice source it's interesting that you use rightwing sources more than the right in here. .

That's the page that led me to the newspaper. I copied and pasted the wrong link.

Here's the Baton Rouge Advocate newspaper article:

EBR 2012 Homicides: 83 | The Advocate — Baton Rouge, Louisiana

[Headache in a Suitcase]

Your stats are in most cases accurate, and I don't think anyone argues that the crime rates in the black community are higher than other demographics.

But to look at it strictly in terms of demographics would be a huge mistake, something that the self proclaimed progressive champion of the world would know.

It's a poverty issue, not a black issue. Skin color has no bearing over your propensity to commit crime whatsoever. Centuries of socioeconomic policies aimed at keeping you down because of your skin color, on the other hand...

[BigMacPhisto]

Poverty has a higher correlation with crime than race. That's certainly true.

Is there a cultural aspect among members of the black community that make them more likely to commit crimes? Probably given that when you adjust for factor such as poverty you still end up with more black crime. But that's not news and key members of the black community have talked about it for years.

Ending systemic poverty is the solution to a great deal of our problems. Most of it, honestly.

[digitize]

Originally Posted by BigMacPhisto

Poverty has a higher correlation with crime than race. That's certainly true.

Is there a cultural aspect among members of the black community that make them more likely to commit crimes? Probably given that when you adjust for factor such as poverty you still end up with more black crime. But that's not news and key members of the black community have talked about it for years.

Ending systemic poverty is the solution to a great deal of our problems. Most of it, honestly.

I agree with the general point that a focus on poverty is real important. The real tragedy is that Black people in the United States are massively disproportionately stuck in a cycle of economic misery that was, yes, started by centuries of abuse from privileged White people.

I haven't heard of studies controlling for economic well-being that show more crime from Blacks in the US. Could you share? It would certainly surprise me if that were true but I'd like to see what you have.

[BigMacPhisto]

Poverty & Crime - Fundamental Finance

This is a good example. The paper itself mostly makes the contention that poverty has a very high correlation related to crime, but as you can see from some of the data there's still a high relationship between being black and committing crimes.

The amount of poor white Americans, for example, completely overwhelms the amount of poor black ones in sheer numbers yet the group of poor black Americans likely is involved with far more crimes if we're just taking a look at the amount currently in prison.

Now, we could go further into the overall effects of systemic racism, blah blah blah. No doubt that those have an immeasurable impact. There's been similar studies beyond crime such as education that show black students performing worse even when you take into account economic disparity, etc. There's always going to be cultural and societal racism forces at play. Otherwise, are we just going to say that Asians are inherently smarter than everyone else because they perform way better in school?

[PhilsFan]

Crazy how once social media kicked off, we got a bunch of frequent visual evidence of the systemic racism in policing that black people had been talking about for decades.

Crazier still how black people are definitely making it all up and ignoring their culture of crime!

[BVS]

Originally Posted by BigMacPhisto

but as you can see from some of the data there's still a high relationship between being black and committing crimes.

Committing? Or getting arrested and convicted?

White teenagers have a much smaller conviction rate than black teenagers when it comes to marijuana possession. It's not even close, yet the numbers are almost even when it comes to both admitting use.