# Blacks and crime in America **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 5, 2012, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blacks-and-crime-in-america/633809 "2012-09-05T23:42:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![bldysabba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecccb3/32.png) [@bldysabba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bldysabba)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2012, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blacks-and-crime-in-america/633809/61 "2012-09-08T12:21:32Z")
> [@L. G. Butts](#): > > Wow, I am honestly surprised by this post. I don’t often agree with you, but you don’t usually spout this kind of garbage. Study after study has shown that when you correct for socioeconomic status whites and blacks have similar rates of drug abuse, domestic violence, gambling, and above all the propensity to commit crime, but that arrest, prosecution, conviction, and incarceration rates are much higher for african americans than for whites. Cites please. Not that I particularly doubt they’re there. Just want to see something to back up such an appeal to authority 🙂 > [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > I am equally sure you are about to be lynched, but if you’d like to provide a citation or two that compare violent crime rates in predominantly black nations with other states that are similarly economically situated I would be interested in reading them. I’d be disappointed in the SDMB if he were lynched. He’s making perfectly reasonable, qualified and well referenced points. If he’s wrong, it’d be great if people can set him right with evidence, but to have a climb on simply because he’s proposing a genetic explanation would be a disservice to the fight against ignorance. > [@even\_sven](#): > > India Gini Coefficient ([income inequality](http://therealsingapore.com/sites/default/files/field/image/85329916328192.png)- higher is less equal) = 0.669 > South Africa Gini Coefficient = 0.763 > > For reference, Japan is 0.547 and China 0.550. [Here](http://www.decisionsonevidence.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Gini-coefficient-and-urban-murder-rate.png) is the US Gini Coefficient mapped with the murder rate. See a trend? What mechanism are you proposing for inequality to impact crime rate? ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2012, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blacks-and-crime-in-america/633809/62 "2012-09-08T13:15:45Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > There are markedly different patterns for aggression among populations. In every nation, every political climate and every history, the same patterns for the same groups appear. Ridiculous. Perhaps over the last 50 years “the same patterns for the same groups appear” in some limited way. But at the same time, the same patterns of systemic discrimination for the same groups appears. And while older statistics are pretty tough to find, what does exist does not remotely show “the same patterns for the same groups”. If it does, please provide a link. > [@](#): > > So one person says, “It’s just happenstance, and you cannot properly quantify nurturing to see if it has been normalized across settings. There’s no proof it’s genetically based. It could be nurturing. Show me which allele is doing this, or I’m just going to choose Nurture for my explanation.” This one person is not me. I’m not trying to explain it at all- in fact, I’m pretty damn uncertain as to the “explanation”. I think there’s no evidence for the genetic explanation, and small amounts of evidence for any other, but far from enough evidence of any kind to make any sort of conclusion (except small ones, perhaps, like “systemic racism effects outcomes in a way we have not yet quantified”). > [@](#): > > The other person says, “I don’t have a study showing which genes are responsible. I know that these two groups have different prevalences for many genes. I know that there is [evidence](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21994088) aggression is genetically driven. I see the same pattern regardless of nurturing environment. I see very specific animal studies showing the contribution of genes to impulsive aggression. I suspect the differences in human groups are also due to genes and not nurture.” > > Regardless of which position you take, the genetic explanation side is not “insane” nor should it be dismissed out of hand as if it is “racist” and that’s the end of that. I don’t think it’s insane. But right now it’s a guess- there’s no evidence for it. Studying it is not racist, but because of its shared history with (pseudo)-“scientific racism” and accompanying brutal oppression, it deserves pretty intense scrutiny. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2012, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blacks-and-crime-in-america/633809/63 "2012-09-08T13:32:20Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > I think you are addressing the heart of this. I’m trying to avoid bringing up my annoying attitude about race, but it’s very easy to seperate out poor people and establish the higher rates of social problems among them. From there you can begin to isolate that portion of the problem that is caused by perceptions of race. I think the problems of the poor have a significant cultural aspect. Not just in the culture of the poor, but the culture of the surrounding society as well. I don’t find it surprising that the same dynamic can be seen around the world, and the concept of race can readily be substituted with religion, political, or economic status. It might be something of a natural state for humans to take the route of least resistance and without cultural values to advance one’s position in life a large portion of the population will never fit the modern concept of a productive participant in society. I would add a conjecture to this and suggest it’s not the monetary poor, but the socially poor. My parents had far less in the way of material wealth growing up in the depression then a poor person has today. This was universal regardless of race (not discounting that non-whites had it much worse). This was monetary poverty. They were not socially poor in the sense that they lacked the family structure and social skills required to succeed in life. This provided the work ethic needed for school and jobs. What you see today in prison is social poverty. The framework for the cause is the lack of family structure, morality, social skills, education and work ethic. It literally breeds on itself. So for the purposes of discussion I will define “family structure” as the mechanism that teaches children the life skills needed to survive and prosper. This does not imply a mother/father hierarchy or any other mechanism other than a transfer of life skills to children from their guardians. IMO the ratios of the socially poor have changed since the Great Depression. It’s changed along racial lines despite the civil rights act which should have reversed the trend. What major change in social structure has changed since the Great Depression? I would say the family unit has taken a hit in a major way over time. So why was the “family structure” of one demographic group affected more-so over another? IMO it was an unintended consequence of the civil rights act. Not the act itself, but what followed. We as a nation attempted to right a wrong by introducing monetary support in the face of racist unemployment. Logically it made sense on a moral level. What nobody foresaw was the element of time. The Great Depression had an end date. It was a finite event. Survival was based on the skills acquired from “family structure”. It was a given that you had to have an education which included all the skills needed to go out in the world and support yourself. This was lost in a single generation on welfare. The skills needed to survive were not passed on. It affected every demographic anyone cares to separate out statistically. It affected them based on the ratios of the initially unemployed when it was introduced on a large scale. It affected those who were discriminated against most. In short, we created a situation (originally) through slavery, made it worse by job discrimination and then magnified it by injuring the family structure within. The people in prison are there not because the law discriminated against them, but because society created a situation of financially poverty and then codified it with social poverty. No amount of money will fix this. It has to be done on the family structure level. It can be influenced in school but it has to be a recognized objective. Students are not taught in the sense that information is inserted into their heads. They learn because of their own efforts and that is driven by social structure. Children fail because the social structure of success is not there. We bought and paid for this many times over. Well that’s my 2c. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2012, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blacks-and-crime-in-america/633809/64 "2012-09-08T13:56:08Z")
> [@Leaffan](#): > > The head of the nail has been hit. > > You can’t possibly expect hundreds of years of slavery, then segregation, then treatment as second class citizens to fix itself in a few decades. > > Give it a few more decades. I think the nail on the head is that the ultimate cause of the state of black criminality is due to past or present racism. The question is rather, whether the current state is more due to cultural issues and attitudes internal to the black community, or systemic institutional racism that is unduly persecuting blacks and disproportionately punishing them. Personally, I think that today (2012), it’s a lot more of the former than the latter. Had you asked me in 1975, I’d have said the opposite. There are plenty of black middle class people around, and a fair amount of opportunity as well. I think there’s some cultural and societal attitude preventing a lot of black people from taking advantage of the opportunities that are there, and that makes what (to middle class America) are unacceptable behaviors, such as fathering a lot of illegitimate children, being a criminal, gaming public assistance schemes, etc… acceptable. ---
**Author:** ![orcenio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/orcenio/32/1036_2.png) [@orcenio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/orcenio)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2012, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blacks-and-crime-in-america/633809/65 "2012-09-08T14:28:36Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > There are markedly different patterns for aggression among populations. In every nation, every political climate and every history, the same patterns for the same groups appear. That is bullshit. Danes are no longer acting like Viking savages, Belgians are no longer acting like evil colonialists, etc. Utter bullshit. > [@](#): > > So one person says, “It’s just happenstance, and you cannot properly quantify nurturing to see if it has been normalized across settings. There’s no proof it’s genetically based. It could be nurturing. Show me which allele is doing this, or I’m just going to choose Nurture for my explanation.” Oh? Well then allow me to also paraphrase how these race threads go: **Racialist** : “The blacks” are genetically incapable of thinking, behaving, “as good” as everyone else (“us whites”). This is how it’s always have been throughout recorded history and will always be 'til time immortal. It’s genetic and I can prove it with science! **Rational person** : [ul] [li]Claim 1: **Race theory is valid.** You need to prove humanity should be divided into “black” “white” etc races. [/li][li]Claim 2: **Blacks are behaviourally different.** You need to prove that this “black race/population/etc” is violent/aggressive/stupid etc.[/li][li]Claim 3: **Genetics.** You need to provide a genetic causal link from your “the blacks” theory 1 to your “violent/idiots” theory 2.[/li][/ul] **Racialist** : Of course. Here it is: flimflamflimflamflimflamflimflamflimflamflimflam… **Rational person** : Nothing you’ve provided proves any of your claims. It seems to be a mishmash of confused ideas, inaccurate citations, and historical ignorance haphazardly thrown together to support unfounded (and long discarded) racialist claims. **Racialist** : Don’t oppress/lynch me for telling “the truth” you race-denier/creationist/anti-science/etc. That’s it. Supposed “facts” are never factual, supposed “logic” is never logical. Claims are made and ignored/discarded as it suits the racialist. All in a nutshell. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2012, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blacks-and-crime-in-america/633809/66 "2012-09-09T02:38:16Z")
> [@orcenio](#): > > That is bullshit. Danes are no longer acting like Viking savages, Belgians are no longer acting like evil colonialists, etcl. Perhaps it would be useful to make a clarification between impulsive aggression and pre-meditated aggression such as war-making or genocide. I’m not talking about evil, per se, here. I’m not talking about the kind of pre-meditated “violence” such as war. I’m talking about on-the-spot impulsive aggression. The sorts of thing we would consider most violent ‘crimes’ fall under–i.e. rapes, shootings, assaults, armed robbery cut 'n runs…that sort of thing. The word “aggression” is used in many ways of course, but from the standpoint of what there is evidence for genetically–and what I think the common patterns are that I describe above–I’m using it in this impulsive aggressive behavioral sense. Think testosterone rage. I’m not talking about a whole country that deliberately sits down and pre meditates the invasion of Europe. That kind of aggression is completely different and is clearly not an impulse behavior. I am not seeing in your response, by the way, a rejection that there are genes associated with impulsive aggression. That’s a start. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2012, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blacks-and-crime-in-america/633809/67 "2012-09-09T02:51:57Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > I would add a conjecture to this and suggest it’s not the monetary poor, but the socially poor. My parents had far less in the way of material wealth growing up in the depression then a poor person has today. This was universal regardless of race (not discounting that non-whites had it much worse). This was monetary poverty. They were not socially poor in the sense that they lacked the family structure and social skills required to succeed in life. This provided the work ethic needed for school and jobs. > > What you see today in prison is social poverty. The framework for the cause is the lack of family structure, morality, social skills, education and work ethic. It literally breeds on itself. So for the purposes of discussion I will define “family structure” as the mechanism that teaches children the life skills needed to survive and prosper. This does not imply a mother/father hierarchy or any other mechanism other than a transfer of life skills to children from their guardians. > > IMO the ratios of the socially poor have changed since the Great Depression. It’s changed along racial lines despite the civil rights act which should have reversed the trend. What major change in social structure has changed since the Great Depression? I would say the family unit has taken a hit in a major way over time. > > So why was the “family structure” of one demographic group affected more-so over another? IMO it was an unintended consequence of the civil rights act. Not the act itself, but what followed. We as a nation attempted to right a wrong by introducing monetary support in the face of racist unemployment. Logically it made sense on a moral level. > > What nobody foresaw was the element of time. The Great Depression had an end date. It was a finite event. Survival was based on the skills acquired from “family structure”. It was a given that you had to have an education which included all the skills needed to go out in the world and support yourself. This was lost in a single generation on welfare. The skills needed to survive were not passed on. It affected every demographic anyone cares to separate out statistically. It affected them based on the ratios of the initially unemployed when it was introduced on a large scale. It affected those who were discriminated against most. > > In short, we created a situation (originally) through slavery, made it worse by job discrimination and then magnified it by injuring the family structure within. The people in prison are there not because the law discriminated against them, but because society created a situation of financially poverty and then codified it with social poverty. > > No amount of money will fix this. It has to be done on the family structure level. It can be influenced in school but it has to be a recognized objective. Students are not taught in the sense that information is inserted into their heads. They learn because of their own efforts and that is driven by social structure. Children fail because the social structure of success is not there. We bought and paid for this many times over. > > Well that’s my 2c. Good post. I’d just say that the problems being discussed in the OP really aren’t due to slavery. It has to do almost exclusively with the dissolution of the black family. Look at the poor black communities in the 1950s and look at them now. Same poverty, same, history of slavery, Jim Crow and racism. But there was still dignity. It’s sad what has happened. And its a problem that is being allowed to get even worse when the schools in these communities fail these kids, now generation after generation. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2012, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blacks-and-crime-in-america/633809/68 "2012-09-09T03:13:39Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > Perhaps it would be useful to make a clarification between impulsive aggression and pre-meditated aggression such as war-making or genocide. > > I’m not talking about evil, per se, here. I’m not talking about the kind of pre-meditated “violence” such as war. I’m talking about on-the-spot impulsive aggression. > > The sorts of thing we would consider most violent ‘crimes’ fall under–i.e. rapes, shootings, assaults, armed robbery cut 'n runs…that sort of thing. Ahh. So we must discount any “cold” (as opposed to “hot”) crimes- the pre-meditated ones, etc. Surely you’ve already weeded these out in your statistics, so we’re only considering the “impulsively aggressive” crimes. Of course, this assumes that (non-“cold” and non-pre-meditated) violent crime is an adequate (and therefore not incomplete) measure of impulsive aggression. I’m certainly not confident that this is the case. > [@](#): > > The word “aggression” is used in many ways of course, but from the standpoint of what there is evidence for genetically–and what I think the common patterns are that I describe above–I’m using it in this impulsive aggressive behavioral sense. Think testosterone rage. I’m not talking about a whole country that deliberately sits down and pre meditates the invasion of Europe. That kind of aggression is completely different and is clearly not an impulse behavior. > > I am not seeing in your response, by the way, a rejection that there are genes associated with impulsive aggression. That’s a start. Everything is “a start” with you, it seems… you seize on the obvious stuff that we’ve never denied and pretend it means that we’re on our way to agreeing with you. In case my sarcasm was not clear enough above, considering violent crime statistics as a comprehensive treatment of “impulsive aggression” is absurd for (at least) two reasons- it’s damn near impossible to determine which crimes are “impulsive” and which are not without looking at each one individually, and there’s no reason to believe “impulsive aggression” is limited to violent crime. For some reason you’re convinced that black people have a genetic tendency towards “impulsive aggression” and lower intelligence (second part gleaned from other threads). Believing this, you search for supporting evidence. There’s no such genetic evidence, so you cling to circumstantial evidence, so to speak, like crime, economic, and education statistics. But if you’re looking for historical patterns, I think there are some that are far more valid for these sorts of discussions- I’m speaking of the patterns of majority-minority relations- and nations in history in which race and class were often the same thing. Statistically the crime, economic, and educational disparities between majorities and minorities, and between races and classes, were so often there, and with a huge variety of groups. Why wasn’t this “genetic explanation” the best explanation for past disparities between groups- whether the groups were Irish and Italians in the US 120 years ago, the myriad minorities/castes in India, ethnic groups like the Hmong in SE Asia, the Hutus and the Tutsis, etc? If the disparate outcomes economically and educationally were not evidence of “population genetics in action” in past disparities, why are they now? What’s so damn special about outcomes _now_? ---
**Author:** ![Belowjob2.0](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Belowjob2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Belowjob2.0)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2012, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blacks-and-crime-in-america/633809/69 "2012-09-09T03:18:02Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > Perhaps it would be useful to make a clarification between impulsive aggression and pre-meditated aggression such as war-making or genocide. > > I’m not talking about evil, per se, here. I’m not talking about the kind of pre-meditated “violence” such as war. I’m talking about on-the-spot impulsive aggression. > > The sorts of thing we would consider most violent ‘crimes’ fall under–i.e. rapes, shootings, assaults, armed robbery cut 'n runs…that sort of thing. > > The word “aggression” is used in many ways of course, but from the standpoint of what there is evidence for genetically–and what I think the common patterns are that I describe above–I’m using it in this impulsive aggressive behavioral sense. Think testosterone rage. I’m not talking about a whole country that deliberately sits down and pre meditates the invasion of Europe. That kind of aggression is completely different and is clearly not an impulse behavior. > > I am not seeing in your response, by the way, a rejection that there are genes associated with impulsive aggression. That’s a start. So, Europeans are significantly different genetically from what they were 700 years ago? Because Chaucer’s London had levels of violent crime that would make Detroit or Baltimore or Newark look like lotus land. Did the dueling feuding culture that existed among the ancient Scandinavians, where massive interpersonal violence could erupt because of an insult to someone’s honor, were the genes for that somehow erased? Apparently, the Russians didn’t benefit from the genetic adaptations, because their big cities have high crime rates today. Is it genetics that makes Helsinki clean and safe at all hours of the day in all parts of the city, but St Petersburg, outside of the tourist areas, quite dangerous after dark? You dont’ have any evidence. You haven’t found any patterns - that aren’t completely contradicted by a full examination of the historical record \*and \*current events. ---
**Author:** ![AlienVessels](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ba8739/32.png) [@AlienVessels](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AlienVessels)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2012, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blacks-and-crime-in-america/633809/70 "2012-09-09T03:59:19Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > One of the main reasons blacks are over-represented among criminals in the US is that most black children are born out of wedlock, and are more likely than other groups to grow up without the stable, long-term presence of a father figure in the home. No matter what race, that correlates to practically every social pathology under the sun - crime, poverty, academic under-achievement, etc. Single moms tend to be poor. Any cite showing the separate influence of the absence of a father figure? I also would like to see a cite and reasoning for “main”. > **[サプリが効かない治らない](https://www.childtrendsdatabank.org/?q=node%2F196)** > > 効いた人・治った人から教えてもらえるパーフェクト健康バイブル > [@](#): > > In 2010, 73 percent of all births to black non-Hispanic women, 66 percent of births of American Indian or Alaskan native women, and 53 percent of births to Hispanic women occurred outside of marriage, compared with 29 percent for white non-Hispanic women and 17 percent for Asian or Pacific Islander women (preliminary estimates). I don’t see how this is anything more than a parroting of a conservative talking point. ---
**Author:** ![AlienVessels](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ba8739/32.png) [@AlienVessels](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AlienVessels)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2012, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blacks-and-crime-in-america/633809/71 "2012-09-09T04:11:43Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > Good post. I’d just say that the problems being discussed in the OP really aren’t due to slavery. It has to do almost exclusively with the dissolution of the black family. Look at the poor black communities in the 1950s and look at them now. Same poverty, same, history of slavery, Jim Crow and racism. But there was still dignity. . What is your experience or knowledge of the life in poor black communities in the 50’s in their separate but “equal” lives? Bonus credit for relating that to the map of the US at [Anti-miscegenation laws in the United States - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-miscegenation_laws_in_the_United_States) and how the last law requiring blacks to “keep to their own” wasn’t repealed until 1967. Or why “Nonetheless, it took South Carolina until 1998 and Alabama until 2000 to officially amend their states’ constitutions to remove language prohibiting miscegenation. In the respective referendums, 62% of voters in South Carolina and 59% of voters in Alabama voted to remove these laws” And could we have a clarification on how “dignity” differs from knowing their place? ---
**Author:** ![ruadh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d2c977/32.png) [@ruadh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ruadh)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2012, 8:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blacks-and-crime-in-america/633809/72 "2012-09-09T08:19:59Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > In response to which, a white racist probably would trot out the point (they often do, IME, at every opportunity) that there is a **lot** of crime in countries with (relatively) **many** blacks, i.e., those in sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean. But, of course, no society exists in a historical vacuum, and those countries are all very poor for historical reasons. Well, yeah, the fact that those countries are all very poor would mean that’s not really much of a response. The racist would need to start by finding a \*wealthy \*black country - by which I mean one where the wealth is reasonably well-distributed, i.e. not Equatorial Guinea - with a high crime rate. On **Shodan** ’s point, it strikes me that the high rate of incarceration of African-American men doesn’t do an awful lot to promote the existence of two-parent-in-the-home families. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2012, 8:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blacks-and-crime-in-america/633809/73 "2012-09-09T08:39:46Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > India: Violent crime rate 3.4; Purchasing Power Parity per capita $3,700. > South Africa: Violent crime rate 32; PPP per capita $11,000. Gee, I wonder if there was some way in which the experience of American and South African Blacks was congruent, and that was disparate from the experience of Indians? I wonder… ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2012, 9:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blacks-and-crime-in-america/633809/74 "2012-09-09T09:06:01Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Gee, I wonder if there was some way in which the experience of American and South African Blacks was congruent, and that was disparate from the experience of Indians? I wonder… Yeah, indeed. Given India’s historically rigid caste system and the inflexible classification of practitioners of a number of necessary trades as “Untouchables” (tho’ \*Dalit \*also translates as “ground”, “suppressed”, “crushed”, or “broken to pieces”), you wonder why their impotence doesn’t translate into widespread violent crime. I guess it’s because brown-on-brown oppression doesn’t count. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2012, 10:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blacks-and-crime-in-america/633809/75 "2012-09-09T10:12:34Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > If the disparate outcomes economically and educationally were not evidence of “population genetics in action” in past disparities, why are they now? What’s so damn special about outcomes _now_? I’m not aware of statistical evidence from the past which shows violent impulsive crime rates were dissimilar to now among various populations. Do you have some, or are you just going by movies and anecdotes and whatnot? Certainly where there has been lack of a structured, stable legal and political system, there exists more brutish behavior. When personal vengeance is the only remedy for an insult, you are going to see a personal response, violent if deemed necessary. However I posit that the ability to even drive a stable, law-abiding culture is in our genes. Only populations without aggressive impulsivity will be able to create societies and cultures that are law-abiding. Broad themes of religious or philosophical beliefs take root only where there is a (genetically-based) capacity to embrace them, as for instance, with humans over other animals. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2012, 10:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blacks-and-crime-in-america/633809/76 "2012-09-09T10:22:23Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Gee, I wonder if there was some way in which the experience of American and South African Blacks was congruent, and that was disparate from the experience of Indians? I wonder… Well, they were both colonial holdings, and those who made them colonies had the same general theme: How can we make these folks part of our empire, and how can we get them to produce for us? That there were two different outcomes speaks not to the intention of the conquerors, but to the populations being conquered. In any case, I’m trying to figure out if your argument here is that the extraordinarily high murder and rape rate in South Africa–mostly black on black–is a consequence of having been colonialized. (“Hey, neighbor, the white man was way too rich and powerful. So I am going to rape you now.”) What is your argument, exactly, about the cause-effect of a political disparity or financial inequality, and impulsive aggression within an oppressed population? We do not see this degree of impulsive aggression within the Indian population, even at the lowest of castes, who are still reasonably oppressed. ---
**Author:** ![orcenio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/orcenio/32/1036_2.png) [@orcenio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/orcenio)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2012, 11:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blacks-and-crime-in-america/633809/77 "2012-09-09T11:09:38Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > Perhaps it would be useful to make a clarification between impulsive aggression and pre-meditated aggression such as war-making or genocide. So. You’re just going to 1. declare that a) only violent crime equals “impulsive aggression” b) all other examples of savagery in this world is “pre-meditated aggression”. 2. Imply that a) Indians and South Africans are useful archetypes for your (as of yet undefined/delimited, and self-believed) races. b) the violent crime stats you’ve provided (sans cite/date) are somehow representative of these “races”. and then you expect the rest of us will…simply play along? This is horseshit. > [@](#): > > I’m not talking about evil, per se, here. I’m not talking about the kind of pre-meditated “violence” such as war. I’m talking about on-the-spot impulsive aggression. > > The sorts of thing we would consider most violent ‘crimes’ fall under–i.e. rapes, shootings, assaults, armed robbery cut 'n runs…that sort of thing. > > The word “aggression” is used in many ways of course, but from the standpoint of what there is evidence for genetically–and what I think the common patterns are that I describe above–I’m using it in this impulsive aggressive behavioral sense. Think testosterone rage. I’m not talking about a whole country that deliberately sits down and pre meditates the invasion of Europe. That kind of aggression is completely different and is clearly not an impulse behavior. > > I am not seeing in your response, by the way, a rejection that there are genes associated with impulsive aggression. That’s a start. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2012, 11:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blacks-and-crime-in-america/633809/78 "2012-09-09T11:31:50Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > I’m not aware of statistical evidence from the past which shows violent impulsive crime rates were dissimilar to now among various populations. Do you have some, or are you just going by movies and anecdotes and whatnot? Sure. Figure 8 of [this report](http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/history/postgraduate/ma_studies/mamodules/hi971/topics/interpersonal/long-term-historical-trends-of-violent-crime.pdf) shows homicide rates around 1880 in various countries in Europe. It does not break it down by race/ethnicity, but it does by country. Ireland had a significantly higher murder rate than Great Britain, and Italy and Spain were even higher. Are the Irish, Italians, and Spanish more genetically inclined to impulsive violence than the English? Or are there other explanations? If there are other explanations for this disparity, then why are outcomes _now_ the perfect display of genetic tendencies? > [@](#): > > Certainly where there has been lack of a structured, stable legal and political system, there exists more brutish behavior. When personal vengeance is the only remedy for an insult, you are going to see a personal response, violent if deemed necessary. > > However I posit that the ability to even drive a stable, law-abiding culture is in our genes. Only populations without aggressive impulsivity will be able to create societies and cultures that are law-abiding. Broad themes of religious or philosophical beliefs take root only where there is a (genetically-based) capacity to embrace them, as for instance, with humans over other animals. You can posit whatever you like. There’s no genetic evidence for this (with regards to different groups of humans). ---
**Author:** ![orcenio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/orcenio/32/1036_2.png) [@orcenio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/orcenio)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2012, 11:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blacks-and-crime-in-america/633809/79 "2012-09-09T11:33:31Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > However I posit that the ability to even drive a stable, law-abiding culture is in our genes. Only populations without aggressive impulsivity will be able to create societies and cultures that are law-abiding. Horseshit. Utter horseshit. Civilizations rise and fall throughout all of recorded (and unrecorded) history, throughout almost every corner of this goddammed planet. Some of those societies were pretty damn violent (Aztecs) others were less so. > [@](#): > > Broad themes of religious or philosophical beliefs take root only where there is a (genetically-based) capacity to embrace them, as for instance, with humans over other animals. And what the hell does this even mean? Are you claiming that some “populations” are unable to accept religious/philosophical beliefs? You have provided no proof to 1. any genetic link between your (as of yet undefined/delimited, and self-believed) populations/races. 2. linkage of (the “sciency” term) “aggressive impulsivity” to this unnamed gene/race group. 3. towards your (wholly new) claim that populations are required to not have “aggressive impulsivity” to create “law-abiding societies and cultures”. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2012, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blacks-and-crime-in-america/633809/80 "2012-09-09T13:28:06Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > Well, they were both colonial holdings, and those who made them colonies had the same general theme: How can we make these folks part of our empire, and how can we get them to produce for us? That there were two different outcomes speaks not to the intention of the conquerors, but to the populations being conquered. > > In any case, I’m trying to figure out if your argument here is that the extraordinarily high murder and rape rate in South Africa–mostly black on black–is a consequence of having been colonialized. (“Hey, neighbor, the white man was way too rich and powerful. So I am going to rape you now.”) > > What is your argument, exactly, about the cause-effect of a political disparity or financial inequality, and impulsive aggression within an oppressed population? We do not see this degree of impulsive aggression within the Indian population, even at the lowest of castes, who are still reasonably oppressed. Do you have any familiarity with South African history? Family and community structures were deliberately broken in a systematic way, and young men specifically were separated from parents, wives and children. In the _1980_s. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blacks-and-crime-in-america/633809.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blacks-and-crime-in-america/633809.md?page=5)