Then your statement that the vast majority of blacks are law-abiding can’t be quantified either, and therefore has no relevance.
Besides, you are merely wrong. If you compare the victimization surveys to the records of those actually caught and convicted, you will find that the results of what victims themselves say about the race of their attacker does not vary significantly from what the court system says about the race of their attackers. The notion that 13% of the population doesn’t really commit 50% of the murders because police don’t arrest white people is absurd.
Yes, I understand that you would like to blame everything on white supremacy. And you have every chance in the world of convincing me - all you have to do is prove it.
Jews and blacks suffered from discrimination. Blacks were enslaved a hundred fifty years ago and suffered from racial prejudice against them. Jews suffered from anti-Semitism for thousands of years, and were murdered by the millions within living memory by white supremacists. Jews have much lower levels of illegitimacy and crime, and much higher levels of education than blacks. Jews achieve higher levels of socio-economic success than blacks.
The opposite, as I see it – I suspect that nearly every last black criminal is found and prosecuted harshly (along with some number of black non-criminals), while I suspect that there are many white criminals who are not found and prosecuted harshly, based on statistics like those marijuana usage vs prosecution numbers.
Murder is a very small portion of all crimes, and I think it could be best explained by the phenomena described by Richard Parker.
There’s no comparison in the history of Jews and black people in America (I’ll disclose that I am white, and my ancestry is half Jewish, which I’ve always known, and 1/32nd sub-Saharan African, which my family only found out quite recently). One group immigrated mostly voluntarily, one did not. One group came with culture and family in tact, the other’s culture and family groups were generally destroyed or scattered by force. One group was generally treated as human, the other was not (until very recently). One group was able to build businesses, own property, and pass on wealth to the next generation, the other was not (until very recently).
The only comparable group in terms of treatment in America to black people, IMO, are Native Americans. Is it really coincidence that crime and economic and other social indicator statistics have both of these groups (non-immigrant-origin) at the bottom, while immigrant-origin groups like Jews, Asian Americans, and others score much higher? Should we be surprised at all that the two groups at the bottom of so many of these categories are the two groups that didn’t come here voluntarily, and were treated by far the worst through our history?
The pattern - where rates as reported by the victim match to the rates observed in the criminal justice system - also appears in the other index crimes tracked by the FBI, not just murder and non-negligent homicide.
Also, please show your evidence that it is explained by your phenomenon instead of any other. Otherwise it’s just hand-waving.
Assuming this is true, this would just apply to crimes with victims (in the sense of someone there to report), which could be well explained by those phenomena described by RP (and which, in my understanding, make up a minority of overall crimes). Further, witness reports on things like race can be notoriouslyinaccurate – if victims have bias, they might well be more likely to assume the perpetrator was black even if they didn’t get a close look.
I’m certainly not certain about any of this, but considering the pervasiveness of white supremacism into law enforcement (demonstrated by the findings of the Ferguson report, among other studies), which you probably don’t accept, it seems logical to me that it would be involved in these related disparities as well.
Are the vast majority of black mothers having their first child in wedlock? 73% of black babies are born out of wedlock. 67% of black children are raised in single parent households. Compare that to 17% for Asians and Pacific Islanders and 29% for whites.
Are the vast majority of black men avoiding criminal activity that lands them in jail? A third of black men spend time in jail.
Perhaps much of this is due to poverty but some of it is not. Some of it is due to the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow that left a jagged unhealing scar in the culture of black communities.
One possible solution to single motherhood is marriage. Another is abortion. A third is adoption. A fourth is safe sex.
You don’t need 51% of a community to be criminals for the community to be broken.
Maybe for their daughters, but not for their sons. Why is it that black women attain such high levels of academic achievement compared to their black brothers? We know that the pay gap between races tends to narrow with higher education and yet the disparity in the college population of black women vs. black men is shocking.
Why would DC vote out a chancellor that brought about significant increases in academic achievement if they valued their children’s education so much? There is at least some sense within the black community that “school is for fools” because even an educated brother isn’t going to get a break and all that work will be for nothing. There isn’t the same faith in the power of education to counter the headwinds of poverty and racism that you see in the Asian and Jewish community.
No, no they don’t. Not really. Its not entirely their fault and like most other minority communities, they will have to struggle more and work harder to achieve the same things as their white counterpart, but it is not entirely inapposite to the experience of Asian immigrants.
You keep comparing blacks to whites and frankly blacks don’t have the advantage of white privilege to lean and neither do Asians. Compare black incarceration rates to Asian incarceration rates.
Compare black single parenthood rates to Asian single parenthood rates.
I see lot of excuse making for a culture where thuggery is celebrated, single parenthood is the norm and education is NOT actually held in as high esteem as it is in other cultures.
And how did the state lose that monopoly? Seeing how many black we send to prison, it doesn’t seem to be for lack of trying. Perhaps that monopoly was wrested from their hands by gang violence.
Quite obviously, at least for some of his political issues. But something that’s a political loser now might not be one forever. Abolition of slavery was a political loser for a long time, as was Civil Rights and desegregation in the South.
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Are the vast majority of black mothers having their first child in wedlock? 73% of black babies are born out of wedlock. 67% of black children are raised in single parent households. Compare that to 17% for Asians and Pacific Islanders and 29% for whites.
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Unless you have evidence that these babies are made on purpose, then I’m not sure if this gives us any information about the culture of parenthood. Are they having more non-marital sex than other groups? Or do they just have less access to birth control and abortion? Is marriage less accessible since so many young men are locked up (which I think is reasonably strongly related to systemic bias)?
“Jagged unhealing scar in the culture of black communities” may or may not be true, but if so, what does it mean, and what can we do? Saying “have less babies out of wedlock!” doesn’t really do much if birth control and abortion aren’t easily accessible, or if there aren’t reasonable marriage options. People are going to have sex, because they’re people. “Don’t be criminals!” doesn’t really do much if many or most young black people don’t have reasonable career options, and if retaliatory violence is the only way that many of these communities can achieve some sense of intra-community justice. Ta-Nehisi Coates has talked about a sort of “language of survival” on the streets – in which some version of personal honor (i.e. never back down from insult or challenge, always back up your friends and family, etc.) is the ultimate currency. If someone isn’t fluent in this language, they could end up as chronic victims or worse, if they can’t find a way to leave (and if your sick mother who loves you lives there, then leaving isn’t much of an option, even if one has the resources and a place to go). Being fluent in this language might mean a higher likelihood of arrest for violence, but that’s a superior tradeoff to the alternative (chronic victimhood or death) for many of these young folks. And he’s also talked about the difficulty of translating this language of survival to the language needed to function successfully outside of those streets, which can make it hard to survive and succeed even if one manages to leave these disadvantaged communities.
I think there is a HUGE difference between slavery and Jim Crow and what we have today. I think that slavery created an absolute bar for black people. I think Jim Crow created an ALMOST absolute bar for black people. The racism we have today does not make advancement difficult enough to make it an excuse for so much of black society.
Its not immaculate conception.
reasonable marriage options? Why aren’t the men you sleep with reasonable marriage options? Don’t sleep with those thugs and criminals; instead, sleep with more reasonable marriage options and I bet we see a lot more young men try to become reasonable marriage options.
And why does this “language of survival” only exist in black neighborhoods? Why isn’t it equally present in all poor neighborhoods? Why doesn’t this “language of survival” exist in the poor Chinese ghettos or the poor Jewish ghettos? Why is thuggery in youth so much more prevalent in black neighborhoods?
Big differences, but I don’t think it’s nearly as big as you do. And it’s not about excuses, not in any way at all.
There’s no point in trying to control people’s sexual behavior. The only way in human history this has ever “worked” was through truly horribly repressive policies and practices, and those were far worse than any good they did in lessening STDs or out-of-wedlock births. Might as well ask them to grow magic beans. Adults (and young adults) will have sex, period. The best we can do is ensure that birth control and abortion are very easy, safe, accessible, and affordable for everyone, which is quite obviously not the case in many communities.
I’m sure similar “languages” exist everywhere, but such neighborhoods aren’t nearly so large or so common in those other communities. And law enforcement doesn’t have nearly the same oppressive history, which warps the relationships between the law and the community.
This kind of moralizing you’re doing does nothing but maybe make you feel better. It’s never worked, not for any group in history. Privileged and advantaged people sitting back and saying “the lower classes should just behave better” has always been very common, but it’s never actually done anything to help the disadvantaged folks. The only things that have ever worked are changing the conditions of societies with this sort of repression, whether through peaceful political processes or violent revolutions.
It will take a lot of effort to change our society, and it will require efforts and sacrifices from privileged and advantaged folks as well as those in disadvantaged communities.
I think it is absolutely an excuse from some quarters. There are arguments out there that say that blacks should not have to try any harder than they do or fix anything about their culture because everything bad happening to them can be explained by racism. And that is an excuse.
Weng Xiang Lau at the top of a resume gets passed over as much as Tyrone Jefferson (with the same credentials as a Robert Smith).
Blacks are 2.5 times more likely to be killed by cops, they are also about 3 times as likely to be poor. Any guess on how frequently rich white men get shot vs. poor white men? Income and wealth may explain most (if not all) of the disparity between black and white. That doesn’t mean that racism doesn’t exist in the police, but the level of racism is low enough that it is not anything close to being a bar to improving your situation.
Or the black community could stop elevating thuggery so that non-thugs (or “reasonable marriage prospects”) will become attractive sex partners.
OK what could the disadvantaged be doing better? Because I think we have had plenty of discussion of what the privileged could be doing better and frankly you might as well be asking the privileged to stop having sex.
The abortion rate is five times higher for black women than for white women (cite) - what makes you think they have less access? Planned Parenthood gives away condoms for free, and provides low-cost or subsidized birth control for practically anyone who asks. And yet the rate of unwed pregnancy for black women is still sky-high.
If there is no way to control sexual behavior, why do whites and Asians and Jews have so much lower rates of illegitimate birth? Something is working
Your own cite gives a lot of possible reasons, including differing access to effective birth control (Planned Parenthood isn’t literally everywhere) like IUDs, due to lack of income and health insurance, among other factors.
What’s the alternative explanation? Black women are horrible sluts with no sense of responsibility? Native American women too, I suppose, since they’re also at the bottom in these statistics – I guess it’s just coincidence that the two groups in the US that were treated by far and overwhelmingly the worst are represented at the bottom of so many of these statistics. It couldn’t be that generations and centuries of such incredible brutality, only ending very recently (and probably not entirely), might have ramifications today… or maybe that has something to do with it?
So they have access to abortion such that they obtain the procedure five times more often, but lack access to birth control. Is that the idea? If so, can you explain why the doctors who perform the abortion cannot provide birth control?
We are back to ignoring the period in history during which Black Americans were building strong communities without the help of Good Whitey.
Thomas Sowell:
"The poverty rate among blacks was nearly cut in half in the 20 years prior to the 1960s, a record unmatched since then, despite the expansion of welfare state policies in the 1960s.
Unemployment among black 16 and 17-year-old males was 12 percent back in 1950. Yet unemployment rates among black 16 and 17-year-old males has not been less than 30 percent for any year since 1970 — and has been over 40 percent in some of those years.
Not only was unemployment among blacks in general lower before the liberal welfare state policies expanded in the 1960s, rates of imprisonment of blacks were also lower then, and most black children were raised in two-parent families. At one time, a higher percentage of blacks than whites were married and working."
The data is out there.
Blacks were hampered by the actions of Good Whitey, yet an ideological drive to control has led Good Whitey to ignore what actually worked for Black folks in the past, the market economy, and instead push a suite of programs that has hurt Black folks.
If the centuries of oppression explain Black societal problems today, why were the effects of the legacy of oppression not more obvious during Jim Crow?