Hi… I’m Alostsomeone, and I like science and history and getting straight A’s (this intro is really unnecessary, but hopefully it’ll provide some context to the rest of what I’m about to say). For the past year or two I’ve dedicated much of my online resources to disproving racist claims about black people and why “we” do and don’t do certain things, because upon first hearing many of these claims, being a sheltered home schooled kid formerly engrossed in white suburban culture, they were extremely alarming and destroyed much of my self-confidence and pride in my identity, despite none of the common black stereotypes applying to me. I’ve managed to clear up much of the mystery surrounding the IQ debate for myself, something I may or may not go into later (I don’t really feel the need to attract any more of the stormfront trolls I’ve seen on this board before than this thread already will) but not the crime rates… I’ve heard a lot of people say that the high crime rate of afro americans is mainly due to lack of economic opportunities, fatherless homes and racism; that was what I believed for a while, but now, I’m not so sure. I came across a few blogs (extremely biased ones) where people were posting crime states from 1904-1960s showing that even then, black men were grossly overrepresented in crime despite comprising even less of the population back then, and despite single-parent homes being extremely uncommon in the black community during that time frame. I found the stats suspicious immediately; first off because there was little evidence for where the documents originated, as they seemed to have been circulating around the same cluster of extremely racist blogs; secondly because of course during that time frame, many black people were falsely accused, arrested and lynched for crimes they played no part in; so naturally, I wrote it off as bullshit. The only thing that made me question whether or not I was wrong for doing so was when I read the writings of W.E.B Dubois on subject; he seemed to agree even then that there was a violent crime problem in black communities, wrote of it almost extensively, and didn’t think it could be explained by the racist bias of the time. That was disturbing to me; to be clear, I still don’t think it’s genetic, in-part because the so-called “warrior gene” so many claim we possess is also, according to studies, extremely common among chinese men, who’s crime rates are low. My question is: If the crime rates aren’t because of fatherless homes, poverty, or racism, then why has been like this for so long? Obviously racism and poverty were much worse prior the 1960s, and yet as those have decreased (but not gone away) crime in the black community has risen every decade (discounting between now and the 90s, where overall crime declined). If it were high even then, when single parent homes were not the norm, then what could be the cause?
Note: I have considered the possibility that W.E.B Dubois could’ve been wrong or overly optimistic to assume that racism and false reports were not inflating the black crime rate, in fact, I wonder why he would think such a thing at all. I do think his writings however give us reason to question whether or not “the break-down of the black family” is really responsible.
Sources upon which I base my conclusions and statements (some of them questionable, but you decide):
Race and crime in the United States - Wikipedia
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/dubois/ch09.html << Quote from Dubois (I consider him about the only trustworthy source I’m listing here, he’s the only one who made me even consider what those wacky blogs were saying)
Violent Crimes: Black On White & White On Black: Black Males & Their Historical Crime Rates
^ Some sketchy documents here and on a few other similar blogs that seem as if they were spawned by the same person…
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/viewSubCategory.asp?id=1261
^ This wasn’t originally where I saw the claim for 11 percent single-parent rate prior to the 70s, and I don’t agree with all the other crap it says about the left; but I’ve seen the 11 percent stat touted by a lot of black and white conservatives alike who say that before fathers left the community, crime was supposedly so much lower, which doesn’t match up of course with what Web Du bois thought.
But yeah, I’d like to know what you guys think; about what Du Bois said, possible causes of the crime rate, etc.
I will entertain a genetic explanation IF:
-Provide a plausible explanation for why the “warrior gene” would not produce the same effects in chinese males
-Provide a plausible explanation for why within group heritability for IQ would apply between groups which follow completely different sets of social cues and receive vastly differing treatment in nearly ever aspect of life.
-Prove that the IQ gap hasn’t been closing (more recent reports suggest that it has reduced by roughly 5 points, based on statistically representative samples and controlling for the renorming of tests)
-Explain why many social interventions have been relatively successful in reducing teen pregnancy and propensity for crime, while improving academic performance even when they don’t raise IQ
-Explain why some interventions have produced permanent gains
-Explain why recent evidence suggests that the fade out effect seen with most interventions is not due to a failure to raise ‘g’ (in other words, interventions can raise general intelligence for children, but because they are limited effects don’t last).
To summarize my entire questions: Why does it seem that black people have been overrepresented in crime for so long? If it’s reliable; then why is this, and how can we fix it? I’m open minded, will entertain all perspectives as long as you have compelling evidence that I have not already reviewed :dubious:. Thank you.