I’ve already showed a precipitous drop in crime committed by black people. I’m having trouble finding a cite that breaks this down by age and race over the years. If you like, you can pretend that black youths are getting more violent and the drop comes entire from a decline in violent crime committed by old people. Or you could accept the obvious. I’m good either way. Velocity, would you mind answering this question?
If the answer is no, you have to accept that sometimes stereotypes are just fabricated to advance the agenda of a society and can run 100% contrary to the truth and in fact that they are sometimes used to obscure the truth- in this case, the widespread violence and coercion that society used against a victimized group. If the answer is yes, then I have very little to say to you.
Difficult to quantify; might be *different *kinds of violence. A white master whipping a black slave is a very different violence than an escaped black slave shooting a pursuing white master to avoid recapture.
If yes, then during the era of slavery, black people may have had much more justifiable reason for violence - i.e., more self-defense. I would prefer not to compare it to today’s era.
Which question? This one: “So you believe black people tended to be more violent than white people during the eras of slavery and Jim Crow?”?
No, I don’t believe that. If you can show me some evidence that there was a widespread belief that black people were more violent than white people during slavery, I’d like to see it. Although I am sure there was no love lost between slave owners and slaves, so the slave owners did have to watch their backs.
I was asking Velocity, but I already posted a link to a Reconstruction-era document to that effect. Here’s a more vivid example.
Of course the former slaves were the ones who were really in danger. Weird how that works. One group commits violence against another but insists their victims are really the violent ones.
Neither in post #174 nor in your quote is there anything that shows that there was a widespread perception during slavery era that blacks were more violent than whites. Not more “animalistic” or “primitive” but more violent. Your cited paper does mention “hyperaggressive” but does not support it with any cites.
“During slavery the dominant caricatures of blacks – Mammy, Coon, Tom, and picaninny – portrayed them as childlike, ignorant, docile, groveling, and generally harmless. These portrayals were pragmatic and instrumental. Proponents of slavery created and promoted images of blacks that justified slavery and soothed white consciences. If slaves were childlike, for example, then a paternalistic institution where masters acted as quasi-parents to their slaves was humane, even morally right. More importantly, slaves were rarely depicted as brutes because that portrayal might have become a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
Are you dropping your insistence that there was a widespread perception during slavery era that blacks were more violent than whites?
“Hyperagressive” is supported with a cite (from a book written in 1944). Further, you’re ignoring the sexual-type caricatures – when far more black women were raped by white men than the reverse, why did this stereotype exist for black men but not white men?
During Jim Crow, the height of the “brute” stereotype, black people were far more at risk from white violence than the reverse. And yet the brute stereotype soared, with no similar caricature for white men.
You’re correct, it appears to date to Reconstruction. Let’s look at how I worded the question yet again:
So now perhaps you could try engaging with the actual question. OK, you’re using the modern version of a stereotype that dates to Reconstruction era instead of slavery. I don’t think that’s much to celebrate. Of course if you believe there was a solid factual basis for the belief that black people were inherently violent, you can go ahead and say so and try to substantiate that belief.
From what I see in those sources, because some whites wanted to justify slavery post-facto by creating an impression that it was slavery that pacified the blacks?
That would be horrible enough, but no. They were justifying Jim Crow and the new repression of freed blacks, and of course the widespread murder and oppression that came with it.
There is a solid factual basis that significantly more crime is committed by blacks vs. whites, proportionately. As for whether this is due to inherent violence - depends what you mean by that. If you mean genetic/built in kind of violence, no I don’t think so. If you mean whether there are inherent cultural differences that cause this significant discrepancy in crime committed, yes, I think that’s correct.
The quote from the book that was in the paper you cited. If the authors wanted to support their “hyperaggressive” characterization, they should have found a better quote.