# Extremely important question, from a confused black teenager **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 2, 2017, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-important-question-from-a-confused-black-teenager/781189 "2017-03-02T12:20:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2017, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-important-question-from-a-confused-black-teenager/781189/21 "2017-03-02T21:03:27Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > But then they get public defenders who can only afford 5 minutes to their felony trial plea. Not much of an improvement there. > > If you want to reduce the economic factor on the outcome of trials, make _all_ trial attorneys randomly assigned public defenders. Just nuke private lawyers from orbit. Equality of chances, right there. You’d have to double-up on corruption investigations of course. I could picture a “public service” requirement in which, say, a lawyer can have a portion or his/her student debt cancelled if they serve two or three years as a public defender. This might be attractive to people who’ve gone to the higher-end law schools like Harvard but are having trouble earning enough in their early years to pay off their loans. I think there may be similar programs for medical students, encouraging or requiring them to work in rural areas after their residencies. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2017, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-important-question-from-a-confused-black-teenager/781189/22 "2017-03-02T21:13:52Z")
Given that the crook I have some knowledge of was from a middle class, complete family, I wonder how per pressure comes to play a role in creating robbers and thieves. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2017, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-important-question-from-a-confused-black-teenager/781189/23 "2017-03-02T21:15:04Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > Because poverty/income inequality has always been correlated with high crime rates ; and non-white people tend to enjoy more of that in Western societies for a number of socio-cultural reasons. > > Moreover, crime rates are typically calculated based on police statistics, and white folks are more likely to report non-white crimes, just as justice is more likely to thump harder on non-whites, again for a variety of socio-cultural reasons. Which in turn has a knock-on effect on the next generation if Daddy never was home. > > Note that this self-reinforcing cycle is not reducible to “white folks are just racists !”, because both sides of the fence have a role in the tendency - peer pressure within non-white communities, mistrust or outright rejection of institutions, self-reinforcing negativity (“the game’s just rigged, there’s no point in playing it anyway”) all play into the stereotype. And, well, the stereotype itself, too : if society’s going to look down on you like you’re a criminal anyway, you might as well just be one, get something out of it. > > As to how you fix it : you keep your head down and hope for the best, mostly. There’s no magic bullet. Oh, and you implement full communism too, obviously 😃 The 1960s was economically one of the best decades in US history yet crime rates doubled. Crime went down dramatically during the great depression. Crime statistics are calculated two ways. One is by reporting from police, the other is by phone survey. Both rates are very similar and do not diverge much suggesting the crime not being reported is not a big problem for most crimes. Most crimes are committed intraracially so any reluctance of white people to report white criminals would mean massive amounts of crime going unreported. This is not supported by any evidence. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2017, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-important-question-from-a-confused-black-teenager/781189/24 "2017-03-02T21:19:48Z")
Another factor is that African-Americans disproportionately live in high-population-density areas, and population density is itself a risk factor for crime. Most crimes are fundamentally interactions between people, and you get more interactions with greater density. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2017, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-important-question-from-a-confused-black-teenager/781189/25 "2017-03-02T21:54:52Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > That’s my take on it. Excellent take. Thank you. ---
**Author:** ![Alostsomeone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7993a0/32.png) [@Alostsomeone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alostsomeone)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2017, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-important-question-from-a-confused-black-teenager/781189/26 "2017-03-02T22:10:51Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Hi, **Alostsomeone** , and welcome to the SDMB. > > I expect the higher rates of crime in the black community as compared to other groups are caused primarily by single parenthood, lack of economic opportunity, racism, and possibly genetic factors. > > Racism, particularly institutional racism like Jim Crow, began to disappear in the 50s and 60s. Crime rates, however, for blacks and all other groups. rose dramatically. So did single parenting, in all groups but among blacks particularly. Since then, the rates have dropped, but remain higher for blacks than for other groups. Again, probably because of single parenthood, lack of economic opportunity, racism, although to a much lesser degree, and possibly genetic factors. > It appears to me that you might be subjecting yourself to some degree to the fallacy of the excluded middle. > > If IQ is affected both by environment and culture, then it is possible to raise or lower average IQ by changing the culture even if genetic factors are held constant. That doesn’t prove that IQ is affected only by environment - it shows that IQ is affected by environment. > > To run over your points in order - > > - I haven’t read your cites closely enough to comment on the idea of a “warrior gene”. Thus I wouldn’t know if or why it affects Chinese males or black men or both or neither. > > - Group heritability for IQ isn’t affected by culture. Performance is, but the part of IQ that is controlled by genes isn’t. > > - Likewise for the IQ gap. It can be closing due to cultural changes. It persists nonetheless. One theory for this is that genes don’t change as fast as culture. > > - The other points I would need more details. Which interventions have produced permanent gains, which temporary, and which have raised performance without raising IQ? > > But again, welcome. > > Regards, > Shodan I think you misunderstood 90% of my comment, especially regarding my beliefs about IQ. I’d be happy to take this to Great Debates if you’d like? If I’m going to be providing sources to support my conclusions, it essentially becomes a debate, and therefore belongs there 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Alostsomeone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7993a0/32.png) [@Alostsomeone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alostsomeone)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2017, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-important-question-from-a-confused-black-teenager/781189/27 "2017-03-02T22:14:25Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > You also need to be circumspect about statistics. Only a very small number of Americans commit violent crimes. This is such a small number, that criminality is an outlier in every subset of people. You cannot draw any general conclusions about an entire community by simply measuring size of the outlier fringe – they are still outliers who do not represent the general population. In any study, the width of a fringe can expand or contract for a varied complex of reasons, and will also have nebulous borders which allows for a great deal of subjective inclusion. You make a great point; I’m aware that only about 2% of the Black American population is producing this crime rate, which is why I’ve never really understood judging us as a whole based on the minimal segment of our populace who commit crimes; but that’s people for you, I guess. ---
**Author:** ![Alostsomeone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7993a0/32.png) [@Alostsomeone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alostsomeone)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2017, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-important-question-from-a-confused-black-teenager/781189/28 "2017-03-02T22:41:27Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Hi, **Alostsomeone** , and welcome to the SDMB. > > I expect the higher rates of crime in the black community as compared to other groups are caused primarily by single parenthood, lack of economic opportunity, racism, and possibly genetic factors. > > Racism, particularly institutional racism like Jim Crow, began to disappear in the 50s and 60s. Crime rates, however, for blacks and all other groups. rose dramatically. So did single parenting, in all groups but among blacks particularly. Since then, the rates have dropped, but remain higher for blacks than for other groups. Again, probably because of single parenthood, lack of economic opportunity, racism, although to a much lesser degree, and possibly genetic factors. > It appears to me that you might be subjecting yourself to some degree to the fallacy of the excluded middle. > > If IQ is affected both by environment and culture, then it is possible to raise or lower average IQ by changing the culture even if genetic factors are held constant. That doesn’t prove that IQ is affected only by environment - it shows that IQ is affected by environment. > > To run over your points in order - > > - I haven’t read your cites closely enough to comment on the idea of a “warrior gene”. Thus I wouldn’t know if or why it affects Chinese males or black men or both or neither. > > - Group heritability for IQ isn’t affected by culture. Performance is, but the part of IQ that is controlled by genes isn’t. > > - Likewise for the IQ gap. It can be closing due to cultural changes. It persists nonetheless. One theory for this is that genes don’t change as fast as culture. > > - The other points I would need more details. Which interventions have produced permanent gains, which temporary, and which have raised performance without raising IQ? > > But again, welcome. > > Regards, > Shodan To clarify what I mean: Say you have three, black individuals, one who scores 75, one who scores 85, and one who scores 90. They are all under the influence of the same factor we will call “x”; x could be anti-intellectual peer culture, poverty, racism, or any combination of these and/or other factors. All three individuals are transferred into an environment which eliminates the effects of x, and all three scores raise; let’s say from 75 to 80, from 85 to 90, and from 90 to 95 or higher. Although all scores have raised, the gap between them remains; this gap between individuals is the genetic aspect of IQ. It doesn’t mean however, that they cannot all be suppressed by an environmental factor which they all share in common, which causes them to underperform. It is likely that the average black IQ raised 5 points because of the increasing accessibility of middle class opportunities, or fewer people in poverty; that’s the only thing that has changed, as the culture has not. There is some evidence to suggest that culture explains the rest of the gap; a recent follow-up of an early intervention study that suffered the fade-out effect found that the study did in fact raise general intelligence, but the effects were lost after the intervention ended. This demonstrates that “failure to raise g” is not what causes gains to fade. Black children adopted by white parents show phenomenally high increases in scores, which plummet once they hit high school. If the fade-out effect is not a failure to raise g in the event of an intervention, then a logical speculation would be to expect fade-out of adoption scores also to not be explained by failure to raise g. You can conclude that the effect size of the intervention is smaller than the effect size of being adopted for the obvious reason that one is much more impersonal than the other. So now we have evidence that a massive change in cultural attitude among african americans _could_ result in a closing of the gap. What we need to figure out now is what is happening during adolescence which causes the plummet, if failure to raise g is clearly not responsible. As an african american myself, I can provide some insight into this. We know that the same genes that account for intelligence in childhood are also responsible for intelligence in adulthood; evidence suggests that intelligence builds upon itself, and so a child’s ability to select into high-stimulation environments determines whether or not the intelligence gained in pre-adolescence will remain. Hereditarians primarily have believed that black children are unable to do so because the intelligence gained does not represent general intelligence, but now that we have reason to believe that isn’t true, I present another mechanism: black children are discouraged from selecting into intellectually stimulating environments, once peer pressure and non-home environment takes precedence over home environment. Peers who associate high school performance, reading and learning with whiteness will mock and bully those who don’t agree; with few role models in popular media that suggest otherwise, it’s not a surprise that any gains would fade over time. I also find that the fade-out effect perfectly coincides with the timing of synaptic pruning, a natural mechanism that is influenced by environmental factors. So in theory, it is actually possible that black children are losing synapses that are important for critical thinking and analytical skills, because once the new peer environment is fully introduced, these synapses become unused and neglected, so the brain views them as no longer needed. Synaptic pruning stops at exactly the same time IQ stops fluctuating and the gap stops widening; this is my personal theory and the connection that I’ve made, no one else has suggested the connection between synaptic pruning and fade-out yet. Personally, I was never introduced to the anti-intellectual peer culture, as I have been home schooled for the entirety of my academic career; I believe this has benefited me immensely. My test scores and performance have remained consistently high, although my mother was never as remarkable during her youth, having grown up in poverty and attended public school. If you want sources for some of the above claims, join me in great debates 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2017, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-important-question-from-a-confused-black-teenager/781189/29 "2017-03-02T22:44:21Z")
Is there a 25-words-or-less version of your thesis? ---
**Author:** ![Evan\_Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b487fb/32.png) [@Evan\_Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evan_Drake)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2017, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-important-question-from-a-confused-black-teenager/781189/30 "2017-03-02T23:00:56Z")
Prolly not. Race Realist sites churn out this thinking with the associated writing style like they’re writing 1000 page Phd dissertations on the Mating Rituals of Woodlice. ---
**Author:** ![Alostsomeone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7993a0/32.png) [@Alostsomeone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alostsomeone)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2017, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-important-question-from-a-confused-black-teenager/781189/31 "2017-03-02T23:03:03Z")
> [@Evan\_Drake](#): > > Prolly not. Race Realist sites churn out this thinking with the associated writing style like they’re writing 1000 page Phd dissertations on the Mating Rituals of Woodlice. Sorry It’s so long; if you paid any attention to a word I’ve said so far you’d realize I’m an environmentalist, anything but a race realist. C’mon people, keep up! ---
**Author:** ![Alostsomeone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7993a0/32.png) [@Alostsomeone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alostsomeone)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2017, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-important-question-from-a-confused-black-teenager/781189/32 "2017-03-03T00:28:29Z")
Whoever moved this to great debates, thank you. ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2017, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-important-question-from-a-confused-black-teenager/781189/33 "2017-03-03T01:00:00Z")
> [@Boozahol\_Squid\_P.I](#): > > Where did you source your concept of the “warrior gene” shared between Chinese and Afrcian populations that supposedly leads to higher crime rates? That smacks of the sort of eugenic thinking from the early 20th century that passes an initial nodding test, but rarely has any scientific background. He’s referring to the monoamine oxidase A gene, where low expression of the gene has been linked to aggression. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monoamine\_oxidase\_A#Warrior\_gene](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monoamine_oxidase_A#Warrior_gene) ---
**Author:** ![Evan\_Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b487fb/32.png) [@Evan\_Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evan_Drake)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2017, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-important-question-from-a-confused-black-teenager/781189/34 "2017-03-03T01:09:58Z")
> [@Alostsomeone](#): > > Sorry It’s so long; if you paid any attention to a word I’ve said so far you’d realize I’m an environmentalist, anything but a race realist. C’mon people, keep up! I think you mean Behaviorist. Environmentalists care about the little birdies and the destruction of Gaia. ---
**Author:** ![Stringbean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Stringbean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stringbean)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2017, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-important-question-from-a-confused-black-teenager/781189/35 "2017-03-03T01:35:04Z")
> [@Alostsomeone](#): > > 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. Not sure that I buy a “straight-A” student can’t present his or her ideas in standard paragraph formatting. At any rate, “black people” were violently oppressed for centuries and that destroyed their sense of family unity, cultural unity, and spiritual unity. At the heart of the modern (post-Jim Crow) crime tendencies, I believe that the disintegration of the nuclear family has played the largest role. In particular, the absence of a father figure has left many black youth with no adult role model from whom they learn to deal with male aggression during the formative years. The absence of such a father figure creates feelings of abandonment and hatred, which, in combination with the male predilection toward aggression, often put these youth into the revolving cycle of violence and crime. Will had [Uncle Phil](https://youtu.be/PI4Mv8R0mE0) to teach him how to be a man. So many others do not have such fortune. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2017, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-important-question-from-a-confused-black-teenager/781189/36 "2017-03-03T02:30:14Z")
> [@Stringbean](#): > > Will had [Uncle Phil](https://youtu.be/PI4Mv8R0mE0) to teach him how to be a man. As well as both his Aunt Vivians! ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2017, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-important-question-from-a-confused-black-teenager/781189/37 "2017-03-03T02:42:39Z")
> [@Stringbean](#): > > At any rate, “black people” were violently oppressed for centuries and that destroyed their sense of family unity, cultural unity, and spiritual unity. I should think that it would increase those values, rather than decrease them. ---
**Author:** ![Alostsomeone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7993a0/32.png) [@Alostsomeone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alostsomeone)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2017, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-important-question-from-a-confused-black-teenager/781189/38 "2017-03-03T03:21:29Z")
> [@Stringbean](#): > > Not sure that I buy a “straight-A” student can’t present his or her ideas in standard paragraph formatting. > > At any rate, “black people” were violently oppressed for centuries and that destroyed their sense of family unity, cultural unity, and spiritual unity. > > At the heart of the modern (post-Jim Crow) crime tendencies, I believe that the disintegration of the nuclear family has played the largest role. In particular, the absence of a father figure has left many black youth with no adult role model from whom they learn to deal with male aggression during the formative years. The absence of such a father figure creates feelings of abandonment and hatred, which, in combination with the male predilection toward aggression, often put these youth into the revolving cycle of violence and crime. > > Will had [Uncle Phil](https://youtu.be/PI4Mv8R0mE0) to teach him how to be a man. So many others do not have such fortune. No need to resort to personal attacks; I’ve always been lazy about indentation, and so I apologize for forgetting to do so in my post. I tend to forget to do it outside of an academic setting where it isn’t necessarily imperative for a grade. I’m a girl by the way 🙂 Please understand that my post was not originally in “Great Debates” and it was very early in the morning when I posted; I was still tired and not necessarily concerned about presentation. I don’t think you can speculate about my intelligence based on that; in any case, we’re definitely on the same side. I’m here to gather the opinions, thoughts and citations of others to build my case against arguments for the inherent criminality and/or low intelligence of black people. If you’d read my entire post, you’d know that! ---
**Author:** ![Alostsomeone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7993a0/32.png) [@Alostsomeone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alostsomeone)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2017, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-important-question-from-a-confused-black-teenager/781189/39 "2017-03-03T03:22:40Z")
> [@Evan\_Drake](#): > > I think you mean Behaviorist. Environmentalists care about the little birdies and the destruction of Gaia. No, I mean environmentalist; it’s another term for the nurture side of the debate surrounding gaps in achievement, IQ and crime rates, the other side are the hereditarians. ---
**Author:** ![Alostsomeone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7993a0/32.png) [@Alostsomeone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alostsomeone)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2017, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-important-question-from-a-confused-black-teenager/781189/40 "2017-03-03T03:31:02Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > I should think that it would increase those values, rather than decrease them. You would think; take Jewish immigrants for example. Part of reason why I think it didn’t happen this way for black americans is because we’ve had our original cultural identity erased, and we’ve had to rebuild one from scratch. A culture built upon the psychology of oppression and “othered-ness” is going to have difficulty building group esteem, that’s how I see it. It’s a very unique situation; so it most certainly would not be fair to compare Afro-americans to immigrant groups, oppressed or otherwise. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-important-question-from-a-confused-black-teenager/781189.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-important-question-from-a-confused-black-teenager/781189.md?page=3)