Fact Checking on White/Black Crime

Originally posted by Surtur
I have to ask this though..people don't actually feel that living in poverty is a valid excuse to commit a crime right? I just want it to be clear that poverty might be one cause, but it is not an excuse.

in short, it doesn't matter if it's an "excuse." you could say that the US intervention in iraq doesn't excuse the actions of ISIS. at the same time, you can point out bad policy decisions that were made that lead to the predictable instability from which ISIS arose. it's ultimately less useful to moralize about the actions of criminals than it is to examine how power can be put to better use.

Originally posted by Surtur
I have to ask this though..people don't actually feel that living in poverty is a valid excuse to commit a crime right? I just want it to be clear that poverty might be one cause, but it is not an excuse.

Yes, it's a cause, not an excuse... but at the same time, some people use it as an excuse for not helping those in poverty, which sets up a nice little feedback loop to trap people there, which is also obviously bad.

Originally posted by Bardock42
You can't even tell the difference between "then" and "than".

😂

Originally posted by red g jacks
it is a mix of poverty, urban decay and a thriving gang culture which makes the crime rates so high... basically gangs become the most profitable industry in the hood. as such, they rule over their territory through terror and violence. cooperation with the police is severely punished by gangs, making police work very ineffective and restricted in some communities. you talk about locals not trusting the police... how can you convince a resident of west baltimore to trust that the police will be able to protect them from retribution if they act as an informant/witness? they would be stupid to do so. it's literally impossible to offer any real protection to people in the hood from gangs without systematically wiping out said gangs.

Which again is another problem in that people complain when a cop isn't punished for killing a black guy, but they have no problem with this code of silence that is so prevalent in these communities. A code of silence that has allowed countless killers to go free and continue to roam these streets.

another unique situation with the black community in america is that there was a flight of the black middle class from traditionally black neighborhoods in the post-segregation era. essentially gutting the economic backbone of said communities and leaving the remaining residents with very bleak prospects. this is how communities like harlem and the southside of chicago, which were once thriving black communities and centers of black art and culture, turned into crime ridden ganglands filled with run down housing projects

Actually the southside as a whole isn't some ghetto. Certain areas are and you can tell when you enter these. It's almost like if you're playing a free roaming videogame and you have parts of the city that are safe zones and parts with enemies.

I live near Midway airport. This area is slowly declining, but it's not full of housing projects or anything like that. At least not yet.

Originally posted by red g jacks
it's not a matter of excusing any one criminal act... it's a matter of recognizing cause and effect relationships, and modifying policies to try to get better results

in short, it doesn't matter if it's an "excuse." you could say that the US intervention in iraq doesn't excuse the actions of ISIS. at the same time, you can point out bad policy decisions that were made that lead to the predictable instability from which ISIS arose. it's ultimately less useful to moralize about the actions of criminals than it is to examine how power can be put to better use.

It actually matters a lot if people think poverty is a valid excuse. That is an unhealthy mentality for anyone to have. It doesn't mean we don't recognize the cause and effect of things.

Just because there is no excuse for it doesn't mean we shouldn't try to fix things, but sometimes people(in general, not here) talk about it in a way that suggests they have no choice but to commit crimes and there is actually always a choice. We aren't talking about street urchins stealing a loaf of bread to survive.

The way I see it is that if you're wealthy and have a lot to lose by committing crime, you're less likely to commit crime.

Originally posted by Astner
The way I see it is that if you're wealthy and have a lot to lose by committing crime, you're less likely to commit crime.

Well yes, but on the other hand lack of wealth is never a good reason to do anything illegal. Not to mention that it would still be bad..but it would also be different if there weren't so many murders in these communities and the crimes were strictly people trying to make some money in a way that didn't selfishly cost other people their lives because these people who can't get a job want to try to take the easy way out and take shit from other people who actually worked hard to earn what they have.

Which is kind of why it makes no sense when black people are upset over a white cop doing something and they riot and destroy and steal from places that are most likely owned by other blacks. They will potentially ruin the lives of other blacks(the lives that matter so much) just because they feel a cop was wrong and racist.

Originally posted by Surtur
Which again is another problem in that people complain when a cop isn't punished for killing a black guy, but they have no problem with this code of silence that is so prevalent in these communities. A code of silence that has allowed countless killers to go free and continue to roam these streets.

Actually the southside as a whole isn't some ghetto. Certain areas are and you can tell when you enter these. It's almost like if you're playing a free roaming videogame and you have parts of the city that are safe zones and parts with enemies.

I live near Midway airport. This area is slowly declining, but it's not full of housing projects or anything like that. At least not yet.

i know there is a decent sized black middle class neighborhood in west palm beach... the town i am from, which has not even a fraction of the crime that certain other black parts of town have in that area. i think a stable black middle class goes a long way in bringing down crime in black communities.

It actually matters a lot if people think poverty is a valid excuse. That is an unhealthy mentality for anyone to have. It doesn't mean we don't recognize the cause and effect of things.

Just because there is no excuse for it doesn't mean we shouldn't try to fix things, but sometimes people(in general, not here) talk about it in a way that suggests they have no choice but to commit crimes and there is actually always a choice. We aren't talking about street urchins stealing a loaf of bread to survive.

Clearly this is just due to the racist white criminal justice system trying to hold the black man down.

Originally posted by KidRock
Clearly this is just due to the racist white criminal justice system trying to hold the black man down.

You can't keep a brotha down for long.

I haven't seen anything to suggest my earlier assessment - that this is an economic and education issue - is wrong. Many have rightly pointed to cultural elements as well (gangs, lack of parental presence, etc.), but I see those as largely an extension of poverty conditions.

TI's earlier comment about per capita crime is the dangerous kind of statement, though. It may be technically true in a statistical sense, but is reductionist to the point of ignoring other factors and focusing solely on race. It's those sort of statements that proliferate systemic racism.

Don't just take it from me, though. Take it from Superman:

Originally posted by Digi
While it's encouraging that there isn't as much systemic discrimination as some may suspect, I've always thought that it was well established that crime is more a poverty issue. The ratio of blacks in poverty is much higher, and poverty is a notoriously hard cycle to break out of. So it becomes an economic and/or education issue rather than a strictly racial one.

I used to think the same things you did. Until I did a bit more research and threw out the idea that poverty and education were the problem.

Latinos are poorer, on average, than the blacks. They are less educated, too.

Yet, they commit far less crimes than blacks.

Crazy, right? That goes against everything our liberal agendas and data tells us.

We social liberals, people like you and I, need to start swallowing the hard pill. There is a black crime problem in the US. And it is a cultural issue. There's no reason or need to candy-coat things. Liberals are afraid to say things like this. Well, too bad! It's a problem.

I am positive that it is a cultural issue. It is NOT a black race issue. Racists will latch onto my words, in this forum, and pretend their racism against black people is justified. I don't want that. So let's put a stop to that right now. Here's why it is not a race issue: sub-saharan African immigrants are far far far less likely to get involved in crime than even white people. Why? Because they bring different culture with them to the US. They do not associate themselves as being "African American." They are African immigrants.

"Good old-fashioned “root causes” sociology would suggest that since immigrants are more likely to be male, poor, younger, less educated and live in cities, they should be more prone to antisocial behavior. Yet this study reports that they are considerably less antisocial than native-born Americans. This finding applies to immigrants from Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America."

“Across the board, the prevalence of antisocial behavior among native-born Americans was greater than that of immigrants,” find the researchers. According to the survey, immigrants were particularly less likely than native-borns to engage in behaviors that could hurt others, truancy, stay out late without permission, quit a job without options, shoplift, or do something for which they could get arrested. Native-borns were four times more likely to report violent behavior than Asian or African immigrants and three times more likely than Latin American immigrants. European immigrants were only about third less likely to engage in violence than native-borns.

https://reason.com/archives/2014/07/11/immigrants-are-less-criminal-than-native

So we can't blame it on race. Plenty of ethnically sub-Saharan Africans, who come to the US, are very good law-abiding citizens: better than the majority white population. So how do we explain the very disproportionate black violent crime? Culture. Or, rather, subculture. Black American subculture is the primary problem.

We can tackle poverty, education, and try to increase trust for the government in the African American community. Those things definitely help and I've posted research that supports that, before, in another discussion. But that solution package is not a magic bullet. We have to change the culture, too. Perhaps getting more education and income will help? Perhaps. Perhaps that is how we change the culture.

TL - DR: racists who try to use statistics to support the idea that black people are a criminal race just don't understand the statistics. Quite literally, African immigrants are better citizens than white people, in the US. Clearly, it is not a race problem, it is a cultural problem with African Americans.

Now, can this topic be put to bed? Are both sides satisfied? Seems this topic comes up in the GDF quite often.

Good post, DDM.

I don't have much to add, except to say that, while you do a good job of highlighting that it's a culture issue with African Americans, and not a blanket race issue, would it still be reasonable to suggest that some of those ingrained cultural tendencies are at least in part fueled by systemic poverty? Or allowed to persist, perhaps?

Otherwise, I feel slightly enlightened.

I'd say poverty is the main cause of crime regardless of culture.

http://www.today.com/news/millionaire-uses-fortune-help-kids-struggling-town-1C9373666

Take a look at this. Culture is dynamic, it is merely a response to the environment.

The thing about latino's being poorer and less educated yet not committing as many crimes makes sense. Two words: family values. Latino's if they don't have both parents in a household will usually have one or more of the grand parents, or aunts and uncles, etc. Basically some influence other then the mother.

As I said before, far too often you have fatherless black children. Far too often you have black mothers with multiple children by multiple fathers. Far too often you have people on some kind of public aid who feel they have the right to continue to bring kids into the world despite the very fact they need public aid kind of showing they shouldn't be having kids.

Far too often in these communities women will choose to have a kid by a dude they know has no interest in it, by a dude who they weren't dating and just screwed. They can abort if they want..or have dude tossed into jail for not paying child support if they want.

All this leads to kids that run wild and think they can do whatever they want. It leads to the same types of people who do stupid shit and disobey cops and all that. The same type of people whose FIRST THOUGHT after their kid is killed via some kind of violence is to make a god damn "Go Fund Me" for it.

So yes it is more about culture and the culture needs to be reevaluated.

Originally posted by red g jacks
it's an ethic that benefits the gangs in question and is enforced by them... i don't think people who are serious about addressing the situation are necessarily "ok" with the code of silence... it's more a question of how do you get rid of it? simply putting the onus on people in the hood to cooperate with police is just silly when doing so is basically suicidal.

You get rid of it by the people in the community who claim to care about the community and claim to care about black lives..to actually back up those claims. Since the reality is the gang bangers are worse then any cop walking the streets.

You also don't think this mentality leads to a worse relationship with cops? The more people protect these pathetic as all f*ck gang bangers the more influence they get in the neighborhood, the more influence they have the more dangerous it is for cops to be patrolling these neighborhoods and so do you feel this type of stuff doesn't contribute at all to these trigger happy cops?

Plus gang bangers are too stupid to learn to shoot properly, so I'd want them off the streets merely because even if they aren't out to specifically target me for "ratting" chances are I could get shot in the face next time one of these dumb mother*ckers decides to go shoot at some rival. Actually it almost seems like if they are specifically aiming for you you have a better chance of not being hit..they make Storm Troopers look like the avatars of the God of perfect aim.

You also realize it genuinely seems like people think the only fixable problem in the black community is racism and police brutality and everything else is just meh, a way of life I guess. Something we just essentially shrug our shoulders about.

Originally posted by Digi
I haven't seen anything to suggest my earlier assessment - that this is an economic and education issue - is wrong. Many have rightly pointed to cultural elements as well (gangs, lack of parental presence, etc.), but I see those as largely an extension of poverty conditions.

TI's earlier comment about per capita crime is the dangerous kind of statement, though. It may be technically true in a statistical sense, but is reductionist to the point of ignoring other factors and focusing solely on race. It's those sort of statements that proliferate systemic racism.

Don't just take it from me, though. Take it from Superman:

Look, I love Superman and all as anyone can see by my avatar. He's the greatest of all super-heroes but that's what's known as "P-I-S" in comic books. Plot-Induced-Stupidity. That comic was also written at a time when the world was a Hell of a lot safer than it is today and we didn't have to worry about a certain group of people infiltrating the country and chopping our heads off in the name of a fake God called "Allah".

TIL: Being against bigotry is Plot-Induced-Stupidity

The posts on cultural standards, family values, etc, play to major points of Sociology like Labeling, Strain, and other theories. People who are brought up as part of a family and constantly have it reinforced that the family unit is something essential and to be put before the self are less likely to commit or continue in crime than those who have nothing like that guiding them to "conform" in a positive way. People who see others who look like them constantly portrayed as criminals in the media, in film, in print associate themselves with negative labels; it is just the opposite for those who see those like themselves constantly portrayed in a positive light.

The differences in behavior aren't a result of skin color or even simply poverty. Education, labeling, and the relative safety or lack there of in the surroundings that people find themselves all contribute heavily to behavior. Most who come up in a safe environment, who know that others have their best interest at heart, who are told that they are loved, who are shown that they are cared for by those around them, who are pointed towards positive goals for life fare better regardless of race, color, sexual orientation, religious affiliation, disability, or any other defining factor.

I'll assume that TI's point wasn't to simply make the assumption otherwise. I'm glad that those who do think race is all that matter or who want to spin statistics seem to be in the tiniest of minorities in this thread.

Originally posted by Star428
Look, I love Superman and all as anyone can see by my avatar. He's the greatest of all super-heroes but that's what's known as "P-I-S" in comic books. Plot-Induced-Stupidity. That comic was also written at a time when the world was a Hell of a lot safer than it is today and we didn't have to worry about a certain group of people infiltrating the country and chopping our heads off in the name of a fake God called "Allah".

You literally represent nothing that Superman's Jewish creators had in mind when they began his comic series. If I get an infraction so be it, but nothing you say is positive, uplifting, edifying, well thought out, or in any way in the spirit of America or any superhero that I can think of. You are one of the most negative, distasteful people I have ever encountered when it come to how you address others and how you attempt to "share" your ideals. Your intolerance and bigotry has on more than one occasion crossed the line into the disgusting. It's for God to judge you in the end, not myself, but as both a citizen who claims to represent the values of the United States and as an informed debater you have failed miserably in every regard.

Also um since Superman is the same person who said it's okay to "Slap a Jap" he really shouldn't be brought up when discussing racial tolerance.