Mon 23 Feb, 2009
Black Americans and crime
Comments (55) Filed under: Thinking about race, privilege and inequalityTags: Crime, Homicide, Racial inequality, Racial segregation, Racial stereotypes
Inspired by a recent exchange of views on another post on this blog, I’d like to offer a few statistics about race and criminal behavior in the U.S.
The comment which sparked this exchange, offered by Louis Calabro, was as follows:
Daily we discuss slavery’s damage to blacks, but what about the extreme disproportionate number of black on white crimes–some horrible?
The idea that black criminals are preying on white victims is a persistent myth in our country, not unlike the mistaken belief that welfare recipients are overwhelmingly black.
Race and crime
According to the Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), for instance, in 2005 86% of white homicide victims were killed by other whites.
The related claim that the victims of crime related to the legacy of slavery are primarily white is also patently false. The same statistics show, for example, that in 2005 blacks were murdered at a rate six times higher than the rate for white Americans. In 2006, for all violent crimes, the BJS reports that blacks were victimized at a rate roughly 50% higher than whites.
It is generally true, of course, that black Americans are more likely to commit crimes than whites are. The same BJS homicide statistics show that blacks are convicted of murder at more than seven times the rate of whites. It is also true that blacks are more likely to be the victims of crime, and these two facts are not unrelated.
This connection to crime, as both perpetrators and victims, is due partly to the fact that blacks are disproportionately likely to be poor. Blacks are also more likely to live in neighborhoods with many of the hallmarks of poverty, such as a lack of infrastructure and jobs. These circumstances, of course, are largely a result of the legacy of slavery and discrimination. There are undoubtedly other factors at work which are more specific to race, and these, too, are in one way or another the consequence of our nation’s difficult history with race.
Racial segregation and crime
One of the most striking facts in all of this, for me, is that most murders in the U.S. are “intraracial,” that is, they are committed against a person of the same race as the offender. This reflects the fact that our society is still largely segregated by race, especially in housing, neighborhoods, schools, churches and other social institutions. As a result, most homicides (92%) committed against a friend or acquaintance are intraracial, and even homicides against strangers (75%) are committed against someone of the same race.
The impact of racial segregation on crime in the U.S. goes a long way towards explaining the dramatic black-on-black and white-on-white crime statistics mentioned above. However, this is hardly a cause for celebration, but rather a dramatic illustration of the extent to which our society to remains highly segregated by race, despite all of our enthusiasm over diminishing signs of racism and the election of a black president.
MuhDik says:
In the United States, a white person is assaulted, raped, or murdered by a black person about every 20 seconds. (The opposite is true about every 10 minutes or so. More than 20 times less likely.)
And the average African American IQ hovers around 85. About 25% of blacks are CLINICALLY RETARDED. (-75 IQ) So at least 1 in 4 of your peeps will agree with your obfuscated “stats” in the article above.
James says:
How amazingly offensive. Did you even read the statistics above? The vast majority of crimes committed against white people in this country are committed by other white people. A white person is the victim of a major crime committed by another white person far more often than one committed by a black person.
As for intelligence, I hate to say it, but it’s clear that you’ve been listening to racist hate speech. All the research consistently shows that if there is any inherent difference in measured intelligence between the “races,” which seems unlikely, it would have to be quite minor.
I will take advantage of this opportunity to point out an awkward, but revealing fact: there has historically been a significant IQ gap between white and black citizens in this country, but that gap has been closing steadily over time.
In other words, you are correct to say that there is currently a roughly 15-point gap in measured IQ between white and black test-takers in this country. However, this gap has been narrowing dramatically since we began keeping records.
What are we to make of this fact? Obviously, it doesn’t mean that white people are smarter than black people–any more than it means that black people are rapidly becoming much smarter, and will soon overtake white people. Instead, it reflects the importance of poverty and similar factors on measured IQ. As black families in this country have been closing the gap with white families in terms of nutrition, education, jobs, and so forth, measured IQ has been improving dramatically.
In other words, this isn’t about race, but about poverty and similar factors; it is only about race to the extent that the “living consequences” of slavery and racial discrimination make it so. Other research backs this up: for instance, research outside the U.S. shows virtually no black-white gap in IQ, while inside the U.S., the IQ gap is very small for young children, and widens as they get older.
To take just one concrete example to understand how this can occur, it has been estimated that the children of professionals are exposed, on average, to about 2500 words in the course of a day. Children in welfare families, on the other hand, hear perhaps 600 words a day. Different experiences like this will naturally have a profound effect on childhood development. As black families continue to narrow the gap in terms of income, resources, education, jobs, and so forth, the artificial IQ gap generated by these factors should continue to diminish.
james says:
Now just why is it that you believe that only Blacks were enslaved? History is a very inneresting subject.
James says:
No one is suggesting that only blacks have had to endure slavery over the course of world history.
However, between the transatlantic and trans-Saharan slave trades, Africans and their descendants suffered by far the largest and most systematic example of slavery the world has ever known. In addition, chattel slavery was a particularly horrendous version of enslavement.
In the U.S., the practice of slavery was generally limited to the millions of Africans and their descendants who toiled on farms, in households and for businesses in the North and South prior to the Civil War.
The most notable exception involved American Indians. There were many examples of American Indians being kept in conditions of slavery in this country, and in addition, thousands of American Indians were enslaved and shipped off to the West Indies.
The result of this history is that it is, by and large, black families in this country who are suffering the consequences of chattel slavery and its aftermath. Native American families, by contrast, are generally facing the consequences of a very different history, one involving the warfare, displacement, and other interactions which characterized relations between European settlers and native peoples on this continent.
John says:
I’ve not seen statistics spun like this in a long time. Of course most crimes against white people are going to be perpetrated by other white people. Like you said, people are still somewhat segregated along racial lines. The vast majority of victims are going to be someone the perpetrator knows or is geographically close to. Thus, the likelihood is that crimes will generally be intra-racial.
Your own statistics damn your argument, if they’re examined closely. Blacks are murdered 6 times more often than whites. That’s because they live around other black people who kill them. Blacks are convicted of murder 7 times more than whites because they are committing several times as many murders. 6 times as many among their own race and vastly more, inter-racially. In fact, blacks actually are found guilty LESS often than whites, per case. They just commit so many violent crimes they are bound to constitute a larger number of convictions, overall.
The average IQ of people has nothing to do with education, income, or jobs. IQ is genetic and intelligence is not the same as education or knowledge, even though many people refuse to understand the difference. Granted, damage can be done to a child’s brain through neglect, malnutrition, drug use (including in-utero, by the mother), etc. The reason black IQ is slowly rising is because blacks are more and more white, due to inter-racial reproduction. The average black person in the US is already about 30% white, and this percentage is growing. People who only appear black, but are mostly of other races are included among “blacks” and are raising the averages, e.g. Tiger Woods, Barak Obama, etc. Hopefully, you can understand that the statistics DO indicate that, yes, white people are smarter than black people, contrary to the completely unfounded statement above. The average IQ among whites is 100, American blacks 87, and the purer African blacks 70. 100>87 (or 70), if I remember my elementary school arithmetic correctly. The “no black-white gap outside the US” is a blatant lie perpetrated by politically-correct pseudo-scientific spin doctors with a preconceived socio-political agenda, by the way.
You repeatedly blame poverty for all the other negative social categories containing a disproportionately high number of blacks, but you are wrongly assuming cause and effect, by doing this. If the average person of a group is borderline retarded, exactly how wealthy do you expect them to become? In reality, the rare black people who are above-average and exceptional are hyper-rewarded for their abilities. Companies fall all over themselves to seek out and hire capable blacks into the highest positions possible, as a demonstration of their “diversity” and political correctness.
How long is this myth that white society is “always try’na keep a brotha down” going to flourish? We have a “black” president, even though calling him “black” is like calling a chess board “black”. The current social environment is such that white people are horrified of being perceived as “racist”, even though the definition of “racist” has been radically changed to mean something it never meant. “Racist” means a belief in inherent superiority or inferiority because of race. Neither hatred nor oppression are part of the original, intended definition.
Pointing out that 10% of the population is “only” half the prison population and welfare state only fools stupid people who don’t understand how those statistics correlate: If 10% of the people are 50% of the problem, that means they are 5 times more likely to be a problem.
The case of “they’ve been oppressed all this time” is a specious argument. A technologically-advanced race of people (e.g. Europeans or Egyptians) travels via technologically-advanced vehicles to find a barbaric race of people, basically living like animals and assumes them to be an inferior life form (like horses, dogs, oxen, etc. that are already bread and used for labor) and so they take them as property as they would any other type of livestock. When a relatively new society is so far advanced (superior weapons, armor, transportation, communication, government, science, mathematics, etc.) that they can just walk a relative few into the midst of an entire continent of another, more ancient society and just take whatever they want, it would seem to support the theory of superiority/inferiority of the aggressors. It is especially enlightening, knowing the warlike, aggressive nature of African history to realize if the Africans were intellectually equal to the other races, they would have at least invented high-tech weapons and defenses. They hadn’t and the individual nations and villages were still fighting with clubs and spears, while Egyptians came in with chariots, bronze armor and swords, and battle strategies. Thousands of years later, Europeans came with canons, intercontinental ships, steel weapons and armor, and very advanced tactics. The Africans were still pretty much in loincloths, wielding sticks. The opinion, then, was still that the Africans were an inferior life form, which would be morally-acceptable to use as livestock. Please keep in mind, I am in no way endorsing enslaving or oppressing any people just because it’s possible; I’m merely stating the fact that blacks are not stupid because they’ve been victimized, but victimized because they’re stupid. Once again, that doesn’t make it right and nobody defends a rapist because the woman is weaker or a mugger who steals a blind man’s wallet.
Your entire argument denies reality and turns cause/effect on its ear. You claim blacks are criminals and have low IQs because of poverty and that they are in poverty because of racism and a history of slavery. Well, the majority of voters elected a black man as President (per my previous point of American whites basically kissing the collective butts of the black community), so your theory of discrimination doesn’t wash. If you really care about the true cause and effect, you’ll understand blacks were easily conquered and enslaved because they’re inherently intellectually inferior. They are poor because they’re inherently intellectually inferior. They are criminals (often violent) because they’re inherently intellectually inferior. They are globally seen as a lesser race because they are considered to be inherently intellectually inferior, violent criminals, only fit for manual labor (generally). The same things can be said of stupid people of any race (or other demographic), in general. That having been said, obviously, intelligent, capable, productive, valuable black members of the community need to be rewarded for their contributions to our society and not punished for the misdeeds or negative genetic predispositions of their distant relatives.
All this may be a very distasteful pill to swallow, but when one denies the facts of a problem, it’s impossible to ever fix it, because all the wrong things are being done to rectify the situation. If one is truly interested in alleviating this dire situation, one must embrace the reality, regardless of how uncomfortable it may be, and address the real issues, rather than make false excuses and randomly pointing fingers at red herrings.
Midgets, as a group, do not make good basketball players. If we all decide the reason is because they’re wearing the wrong shoes, then wrack our brains trying to come up with the right shoes, we’ll be living in a fantasy world that will never accomplish its goal. The black community and the cowed, PC white community who are so fearful of being labeled “racist” for acknowledging anything negative about blacks (regardless of how true the thing might be) need to stop blindly accepting myths and propaganda, then start addressing the real problems and potential real solutions.
Mike says:
Of the interracial violent crimes committed each year, 85% are committed by blacks and 15% by whites.
Blacks commit 2.25 times more officially recognized hate crimes than white people do.
Blacks are 39 times more likely to murder a white person than a white person is to murder a black person.
As of 2008, Hispanics are 7.6 times more likely to be convicted of a crime than white people, black people 5.5 times more likely, Asians 2.4 times more likely and Native Americans 1.4 times more likely.
All the above is taken from official DOJ statistics. I don’t know why all this is true, and I don’t think anyone else does either. But that it is, in fact, true is beyond doubt.
On the
James says:
Mike, you say that your statistics come from DOJ, but I can’t reconcile any of your figures with what I have from DOJ.
For instance, according to the FBI, in 2008, 61% of hate crime offenders were white. See here. Do you have a source for your claim that blacks commit 2.25 times more hate crime than whites?
Likewise, do you have a source for your claim that 85% of interracial violent crimes are committed by blacks? The statistics I see on race and violent crime from the Justice Department don’t back that up, nor your suggestion that blacks are 39 times as likely to murder a white person than whites are to murder a black person.
Jim says:
I tried to find the supporting statistic: 86% of white homicide victims were killed by other whites, on the above link but could not. This statistic makes no sense, and I believe you got it wrong.
James says:
Thanks for taking the time to verify my citation, Jim. You’re right that the 2005 federal crime statistics are no longer available on that particular page. The page has been updated, but 86% is the correct statistic for 2005, and I can locate that report elsewhere if you’d like.
I’m surprised, though, that you say that the correct number “makes no sense” to you.
Why is it hard for you to believe that most white people are killed by other white people?
After all, most people in the country are white, so naturally, our murderers tend to be white, as well. In addition, there is still a great deal of racial segregation in practice in this country, in terms of housing, schools, jobs, churches, and so on. So people tend to disproportionately encounter people of their own race.
John says:
Why do you continue to lie and spin, James? According to the FBI/Justice Department statistics, while 86% of white murder victims are killed by other whites, 93% of black murder victims are killed by other blacks. Even though blacks are a minority in the US (approx. 14%), they constitute a greater number of murderers, than whites (74% of the population). In 2008, 5,334 murder offenders were white, while 5,943 murder offenders were black. In the United States, “our murderers [do NOT] tend to be white”, James. Get your facts straight and stop drinking/dispensing the politically-correct Flavor Aid.
http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2008/offenses/expanded_information/data/shrtable_03.html
James says:
John, did you actually read what I wrote? I was very clear that most homicides are interracial, so while I specifically mentioned that 86% of white murder victims are killed by other whites, anyone reading my post would also have to assume that a high proportion of black murder victims must be killed by other blacks.
As for your suggestion that blacks commit murder at a higher rate than whites, I said exactly that in the post:
How, then, can you tell me to “get my facts straight,” when you’re citing the very same facts I already have?
You also say that I said “our murderers tend to be white,” but you neglect to mention the context. I was referring specifically to the murderers of white Americans, refuting the idea that blacks are a major crime threat to whites:
I’m left, sadly, with the same belief that motivated me to write this post in the first place: that many Americans are convinced, falsely, that black criminals pose a significant threat to white Americans, and that this mistaken (and adamant) belief feeds into other damaging attitudes about race and racial justice.
Anon says:
These statistics are a joke. I can’t believe anyone would believe this delusional garbage.
There’s a reason racial segregation still exists in the United States. It’s because once blacks starting moving into a community, they bring along crime and violence. Within ten years the community is completely deteriorated. Most whites leave and relocate. The blacks eventually follow. Repeat vicious cycle.
James says:
Anon, what exactly makes you think that these statistics, largely from the Justice Department, are “a joke” or “delusional”? Do you not believe them? Do you not believe they’re the most relevant facts for understanding the situation?
As for residential segregation, it’s simply fantasy to suggest that it exists in the U.S. today because of modern issues. Our present residential segregation is primarily the result of many generations of redlining and other segregationist policies. Segregated communities persist today largely because of inertia, and because of the fact that, as research shows, even a tiny minority who prefer living with “their own kind” will be enough to maintain segregated neighborhoods.
Your suggestion that blacks bring crime when they move into white neighborhoods, and destroy such communities “within ten years,” is also plainly false. Middle-class blacks, for instance, moving into middle-class white neighborhoods do not bring crime or cause infrastructure deterioration. Crime and other social ills are overwhelmingly the result of poverty and neglect, and when poorer people of any race begin to move into previously prosperous communities, there can be a rise in crime, a gradual deterioration in community institutions and infrastructure, and middle-class flight.
I think your comment illustrates perfectly why statistics such as the ones at the top of the page are so important. I doubt very much that you would be able to hold beliefs such as these if you understood that very little of the crime facing whites in this country has anything whatsoever to do with black citizens, and that crime rates among black citizens, in turn, are driven primarily by disproportionate rates of poverty and neglect, as well as the cultural impact of generations of discrimination and abuse.
Shannon says:
WOW!These statistics are shocking! But can anyone answer me this, Why is it that we are willing to debate about this topic, but do absolutely nothing to change these statistics? If you ask me America has established a mentality that African Americans will not change. But the reality of it is that we as Americans are so use to putting another race down that we never take the time to bring them up! That is why African Americans say ” the man is tryna keep a brotha down” because in reality we are. We are so use to considering African Americans as a statistic that we forget that they are in fact humans, who make mistakes! Just as we all do whether you a white or black!
James says:
Why is it that we are willing to debate about this topic, but do absolutely nothing to change these statistics?
I’d like to offer two modest responses to your provocative comment, Shannon, and I’d encourage anyone else to jump in with their thoughts.
First, I suspect one reason that little is done to change these statistics is a lack of information and the widespread acceptance of certain myths about blacks and crime. This is why I think discussion about this topic is vital. I’m constantly amazed at how many Americans labor under significant delusions on this topic. Until more Americans understand what is really going on, and what has caused us to reach this point, I doubt that constructive solutions will be possible.
Second, I suspect another reason that little is done is that it is not at all obvious what to do. Part of this is that we have politicians, pundits, and ordinary citizens who keep putting forth proposed solutions that only make sense if listeners believe one or more of these myths about blacks and crime. But even once we accept the reality of the situation, there are no easy answers and there are many theories about what will and won’t work. After all, many solutions have been tried so far, with only limited success.
Dan says:
Hip hop culture is trash and all who follow. James enjoyed the honesty, throw political correctness out the window…
Dan says:
also the comments from john december 22 shines a good light on the subject. Please keep typing more comments on how blacks keep digging holes and making this country a great place.
Marvin says:
“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” MLK I could not have said it better Myself ! THE CONTENT OF THEIR CHARACTOR !!!!!!! Even MLK knew it wasnt the color of your skin but how you acted …around others that would cause you to be judged. Statistics say that if I am around Blacks I am more than likely going to have a higher exsposure to a crime ! It is not your color that keeps me from wanting to embrase you. It is your culture. Yet you blame Me as a white for not wanting to be around you ! I am labled a racist because I want to be safe !
James says:
Marvin, what you’re saying couldn’t possibly be more antithetical to King’s philosophy.
You’re taking a statistical fact about millions of people, and using it to judge individuals who may be of the highest moral character. King wanted his children to be judged by the content of THEIR character, in other words, by their own actions, and not by people’s stereotypes about those who look like them.
Statistics do say that blacks are more likely to be involved in crime. Let’s set aside the reasons why this is true, even though those reasons make a mockery of your argument that black “culture” is ultimately responsible, and ask ourselves whether your response to this statistical fact is at all reasonable.
You say that you avoid being around blacks because you believe this will expose you to crime. Do you also avoid being around young people of all races, since statistically this group is much more likely to commit crimes than black citizens are? Do you avoid being around people from poor communities, since this is a much better indicator of crime risk than being around black people?
Finally, you say that you want to avoid black people in order to be “safe.” Did you read the statistics above? Did you notice that white people are exceedingly unlikely to be caught up in crime committed by black people? Whatever you can say about black crime as a social issue, it is simply not a significant threat to you as a white person.
EMLLY AVA says:
Of course whies committ more crimes numberwise, but not percentagewise. For example if there are 100 whites and 12 blacks, 10 whites would have seen the inside of prison walls sometime in his of her life, whereas 6 blacks would. So that would mean that 10% of whites and 50% blacks.
James says:
That’s exactly what I’ve said above: whites commit a greater number of crimes, while blacks are statistically more likely to be found guilty of a crime.
These facts define the contours of the problem: contrary to myth, blacks do not pose a crime problem for whites (both because whites commit more crimes than blacks, and because crime against whites is usually committed by other whites), but there is a disproportionate amount of crime in black communities (with blacks making up the overwhelming majority of the victims).
Armed with these facts, we can say something about white complaints about blacks and crime. We can also begin to explore why there is disproportionate black crime: as I’ve indicated, we know that this is partly the result of such objective factors as a greater incidence of poverty among black Americans, and partly the result of other issues related to our legacy of slavery and race, such as a legacy of abuse and neglect on the one hand, and suspicion and mistrust on the other.
Chris says:
In 1994 “he” and his followers promised a new dawn for what became termed the Rainbow Nation. That was the year that “Apartheid” came to an end in South-Africa. Wow, we are free from white domination.
Today 15 years later “we” stand out as one of the most dangerous crime ridden nations on Earth. We are world champions in terms of murder rate and rape(includes the ugly phenomenon of child rape)
Genocide Watch(Dr Gregory H. Stanton) reported back in Jan 2006 the slaughter of 2000 white farmers-since 1994 is genocide in SA. Given that it is now all but illegal in South-Africa to report the race of either victim or the perpetrator of a crime (unless the perpetrator is white and the victim black) and as modern SA official crime statistics are notoriously massaged, it is impossible to know the exact number of farm murders that have taken place up to date.
As with the Matabeleland massacres, news of which the BBC together with much of the world media suppressed for twenty years to protect their one time hero, Zimbabwes Robert Mugabe, another secret genocide is being ignored by the world media. That is the Genocide in Democratic South-Africa. Just search SA farm murders-crime, but should be warned of the very gruesome images of what is going on in SA.
How would America look like if the whites would make out 6% of the population??
Jim says:
James, what do you mean when you say that black crime is a result of the “greater incidence of poverty among black Americans”. Most other nations where people have much less material goods but there is nowhere near the crime. It is not poverty, but a person’s values or lack of values which makes them decide that they want to commit a crime. Where do these values come from? Look at their rap lyrics, their political leaders and choices in role models; or look at their attitudes toward school, education, law, white people, etc. You get the point. It has nothing to do with poverty as people are not stealing food, they are stealing the latest greatest pair of Nike shoes. Poverty has become a convenient crutch to gain sympathy.
Terence says:
I’ve read all the comments and I have to say that none of them surprise me. As a Black man it pisses me off that the facts are what they are. It pisses me off just as much when I accept them, but others don’t because they want them to be worse. I say want because the DOJ would be viewed as an awesome source in any other situation, but because these stats conflict with the stereotype’s about blacks, they are all of a sudden unreliable.
What you fail too mention is where crimes committed by blacks generally take place. Five black guys at a Starbucks, regardless of how they’re dressed, will most likely not be the ones to rob you. Five black guys in ‘the hood’ standing outside of a liquor store on the other hand, will probably take your car.
I grew up in the suburbs but I have family that did not. Growing up this way gave me a different perspective than my family that grew up in black communities. I was always being prepared to go to college. I was told how to dress for a job interview. My friends went skiing, and took their boats to the lake. My family grew up thinking that all that was for white people and they couldn’t be a part of it. When I say all that I mean college too.
They were not entirely wrong but mostly incorrect. I say they weren’t entirely wrong because it seemed like anytime I said something about snow boarding, or camping, or whatever, I got looks like ‘black guys don’t do that’. It’s like people thought I was trying to be something other than what I am. I had a serious identity crisis because I was exposed to another way of living than my ‘people’.
Now that’s when Hip Hop come in. Growing up outside of the black community you don’t get a lot of black influences. So us black suburbanites were just like the white kids that listened to wutang clan and started tyring to dress ‘gangsta’. For me it was a cultural expression (i know it sounds stupid now). For my family it was just the way it was. The rap used to relflect the community than it started sensationalizing the truth and thats when even the urban kids started to do more than what was real.
So with all that being said, we segregate because it seems like we’re supposed to, and gangster rap does increase crime among minors. Blacks with jobs and mortgages dont usually kill, poor ones do. thank you.
Jim says:
About 30 years ago I was a sophmore in high school my mother had a nervous breakdown (she thought we were losing our home), running through the neighborhood streets, screaming until the ambulance caught up with her and sent her away. Later that day I remember a neighbor who walked into our house, opened the refrigerator and found that there was no food, it was completely empty. Our fatherless family with 6 brothers and sisters knew that we were poor but I think it was the reaction of the neighbor when he saw that there was no food that it really hit home that in spite of our pride we were at the mercy of others’ charity. But never did any of my brothers or sisters ever consider harming anything to improve our lot. And I don’t think our circumstances are to different from millions of other despirately poor white and black people who could not under any circumstances harm another person.
The point I was making in my previous post was that it is all too easy to use poverty as a reason to hurt others. This is something I still cannot fathom, and I credit my brother’s and sister’s values to the way we were raised by my parents.
Chris says:
Do you folks know what per capita means? African Americans are 5.6 times more likely to commit a violent crime, than a white person living in the US. They are 28 times more likely to commit a hate crime where the victim is white, than vice versa. All of the above are statistics taken straight out of the same exact source that you are using. You’re just failing completely to interpret them properly.
50 some % of violent crimes are commited by blacks in this country, when their stake in US population is no more than 13%. 90 % of black kids are on food stamps or take advantage of other fed assistance programs. 1/3rd of AA population is on Welfare (28.3%). Should I go into OOW births and incarceration statistics, or maybe the fact that 5 times as many young AA males spend time in prison rather than graduate college?
Statistics are all there, you just need a little common sense to know how to use them. THese statistics are alarming and should be faced head on by AA community. Trying to pretend thatper-capita doesnt exist or the sources are racist, only makes these problems worse. Wake up black america.
James says:
Chris, I think it’s safe to say that everyone here knows what “per capita” means. Just look at the back-and-forth about what the differences in per-capita crime rates do, and don’t, mean.
Speaking of which, your confident belief that most of us are failing to “interpret” those statistics “properly” is misplaced.
You, for instance, cite several statistics about the black population, while implying that these statistics are very different than in the white population. In fact, that’s generally not the case at all, and most of what variance there is can be explained by reference to such factors as poverty.
Do you really believe that these statistics can tell you why there are differences, on average, between white and black Americans? If so, why, and exactly what are those differences? If not, then how do you believe you can use those statistics to call for black Americans to “wake up” and use “common sense” in addressing the problem as you perceive it?
To the extent that these statistics, broken down by race, can be mostly explained (at least in a strictly statistical sense) by reference to factors like poverty and education, what do you believe to be the source of those differences?
Can you explain the higher levels of poverty in many black communities, for instance, in a way that justifies your confident assertion that black communities need to fix themselves? Can you explain why you dismiss, out of hand, the possibility that our nation’s long history of slavery and racial discrimination is the source of these differences, and not whatever moral or other failings you believe you see in the statistical evidence?
Chris says:
James,
The reason I brought up per-capita is that while many understand the actual definition of this term, they fail to apply it when debating. For example, saying that most crimes are commited by whites, while a true statement, is also very misleading considering there are roughly 250 million whites lving in this country, which stands for 68% of US population.
Poverty is a nice excuse and a crutch, but it also has its expiration date. Black statstics and white statistics are nothing alike, and no matter what statistic you look at, you find that blacks are lagging far behind not only whites but every ethnic group living in the US.
From disproportionate crime rates to incarceration rates, to unemployment rates, to poor education rates, to welfare rates, to AIDS rates…I can go on and on. Poverty, does effect some of this behavior and helps skew these rates to a degree, but it is hardly a cause.
So spare me the nonsensical “84% of crimes against whites are commited by whites” BS excuse. It means absolutely nothing to anybody. How about you focus on real problems, like more than half of murders and violent crimes commited by blacks, which more than quadruples their stake in this population – due to complete disregard for human life by many.
In my opinion, the reasons for these differences are many. Every ethnicity is different, from physical and mental makeup to cultural differences and values. Slavery and racial discrimination surely do play a role here, but it shouldnt be used as an endless excuse to underperform and wait for someone else to fix your problems. I assume you are aware of the fact that blacks were never the only ethnicity to be enslaved, and many have moved on long, long time ago to live in prosperity and become law abiding citizens.
Education has no importance in urban black communities. I have spoken with many AAs, and the most common response i got, yeah its important but i know Joe and he has a vending route and he never went to college. 70% of black kids grow up in single parent families or units, which sets them up nicely for future failure. Young boys get young girls attention by thug behavior, and certainly not by doing well in school. In fact, I have heard with my own ears, blacks talking about going to college as acting like Uncle TOm, for a peer AA. Parents, seem to really care less about their kids education as seen in PT meetings and such.
Without education, you end up with stupidity, lack of individual growth, poverty and unemployment. Look, these are very, very complex issues, and Im really not trying to oversimplify them, but the bottom line is, that no one is going to fix those for you.
Black america needs to look itself in the mirror, and move forward. Believe it or not, nothing would make me more excited than to see US AA communities stadnup on their own to feet, move forward and succeed on every level. But the plain and inconvenient truth is, that they are struggling and the rest of america is getting fed up, much quicker than you’d like.
James says:
Chris, it isn’t misleading to say that most crimes in this country are committed by white people, and that crimes against white people are overwhelmingly committed by other white people, even if the per-capita crime rate is higher among blacks.
The issue is what point is being made. If you’re looking to make the facile argument that black Americans are statistically more likely to commit crimes than whites are, then the per-capita rate is relevant.
If, on the other hand, you’re rebutting such claims as the argument that blacks represent a significant crime threat to whites, as this post was doing, then the per-capita rate is nothing but misleading.
“Poverty is a nice excuse and a crutch, but it also has its expiration date.”
How so? Do you mean that after a while, poverty no longer affects the poor? Or that after a while, we should expect poor people to behave as if they were well-to-do, and not have rates of crime, drug addiction, and so forth that look like those of the poor?
Or are you making a racial argument, that because black people s a group were poor after slavery and have been relatively poor ever since, that we should not expect black citizens born in recent times to be poor?
The fact is that poverty and wealth tend to be transmitted generationally. If you have an identifiable group that is poorer than the population as a whole, for reasons not of its own making, then you can safely expect only gradual change from generation to generation. Even given equal opportunity, which black families have never had in this country, the difference will be wiped out only after many generations.
“blacks are lagging far behind not only whites but every ethnic group living in the US.”
This is patently untrue, Chris. Do you really think, for instance, that the Native American population is far ahead of the black population in measures of poverty and similar factors? It isn’t.
“Poverty, does effect some of this behavior and helps skew these rates to a degree, but it is hardly a cause.”
Actually, poverty is known to dramatically shape crime and incarceration rates, AIDS rates, and the other factors you mention. Not to mention unemployment and welfare rates ….
“spare me the nonsensical “84% of crimes against whites are commited by whites” BS excuse. It means absolutely nothing to anybody.”
This statistic should mean a great deal, Chris.
I hear all the time that blacks represent a significant crime threat to whites. This is a perennial excuse for all sorts of complaints and proposed policy interventions against the black community, and this statistic proves that it is nonsense.
“How about you focus on real problems, like more than half of murders and violent crimes commited by blacks … due to complete disregard for human life by many.”
Chris, I’m sure you’ve been told that crime in the black community is caused by a disregard for human life, or other dysfunctional values. That doesn’t make it so. Again, I would point you to the fact that poor white communities see vastly higher rates of murders and other violent crimes than middle-class or wealthy white communities.
“Every ethnicity is different, from physical and mental makeup to cultural differences and values.”
It’s simply not true, Chris, that human beings vary in “physical and mental makeup” according to race (much less ethnicity). At best, race and ethnicity are social categories which track only loosely with a handful of genetic traits which do not affect gross physical or mental characteristics.
“Slavery and racial discrimination surely do play a role here, but it shouldnt be used as an endless excuse to underperform and wait for someone else to fix your problems.”
First, I don’t see anyone here trying to use slavery and discrimination as an excuse. We’re just talking about the facts here, and you’re taking sharp issue with the analysis.
Second, what is endless? If the legacy of slavery and race in this country hasn’t yet been addressed, then shouldn’t we acknowledge that they still play a dominant role in crime and other issues?
“I assume you are aware of the fact that blacks were never the only ethnicity to be enslaved, and many have moved on long, long time ago to live in prosperity and become law abiding citizens.”
Can you give me an example, Chris, of an ethnic group which experienced something akin to chattel slavery and then “moved on” in the way you describe?
There are examples in U.S. history, for example, of ethnic groups where a minority of its members experienced indentured servitude. This was nothing like chattel slavery, especially in its effects on families. Moreover, these were primarily ethnic groups that have been considered to be white, and thus part of the mainstream, for many generations, affording the descendants of indentured servants plenty of time to gradually improve on their lot in life unhindered.
“Education has no importance in urban black communities. I have spoken with many AAs, and the most common response i got, yeah its important but i know Joe and he has a vending route and he never went to college.”
Let’s leave aside the accuracy of your claim about black attitudes towards education, Chris, and see what we can make of the explanation you offer.
You suggest that the reason for a relative lack of emphasis on education is that some black citizens believe an education is not key to the type of jobs they seek.
This makes perfect sense to me. Why do middle-class and upper-class parents and institutions stress education so strongly? Primarily because it is seen as essential to the right careers. It is no surprise, therefore, that in poorer communities, where most residents have relatively menial, low-skill jobs, and expect their children to have similar jobs, there is little value seen in education.
There is also a long history here when it comes to the black community: Generations of black Americans saw that all but the least-desirable jobs were off-limits to black citizens, and that those black students who did well in school were not given access to higher education or to more promising careers, facts that really began to change only in the 1960s and 1970s.
In these circumstances, wouldn’t you expect that black parents and institutions would not especially value education for their children, compared with, for instance, staying out of trouble, learning to work hard, going to church, and supporting their families? Do you think that cultural values like these simply vanish in a generation or two, even if opportunities were now perfectly equal?
“nothing would make me more excited than to see US AA communities stadnup on their own to feet, move forward and succeed on every level”
I’m sure that’s true, Chris. Because then, you would be forever free from having to ask the really tough questions here: How did these circumstances arise? How is it that these problems happen to disproportionately beset the descendants of those who were enslaved or suffered under Jim Crow? What is the responsibility of the victims of this history to care for themselves, and what is the responsibility of our society to address the legacy of our own history and inequities which afflict our own people?
You’d even be free from asking the most uncomfortable question of all: What is your responsibility, as someone who has inherited so much benefit from this history, towards those who suffer from its legacy today?
Dan says:
I was saying Chris that hip hop culture “seems” to do negetive to “uneducated” or “naturally dumb” white and black citizens. If white or black folks are not taught morals and values then they will not understand the meaning. Everyone these days knows there is no excuse for ignorance…its a choice
Dan says:
Sorry my words are so brief but im not the most educated white guy just having a few beers and throwing my 1 cent in. Complex issue and enjoy reading all your statements. Chris, James, and Jim
John Wellington says:
good discussion
Chris says:
James,
Thank you for your reply. I will try to address some of your points here, without citing the original content, because these posts are getting long and rather hard to read.
- According to you, it is misleading to say that blacks are a threat to whites, and as your proof you cite the DOJ statistic of white on white crime. That is fine, if you dont mind the elephant in the room – that is. Here si something more recent from the DOJ website.
Among inmates held in custody in prisons or jails, black males were incarcerated at 6.6 times the rate of white males. One in 21 black males was incarcerated at midyear 2008, compared to one in 138 white males. At midyear 2008, black males (846,000) outnumbered white males (712,500) and Hispanic males (427,000) among inmates in prisons and jails. About 37 percent of all male inmates at midyear 2008 were black, down 41 percent from midyear 2000.
Female incarceration rates were substantially lower than male incarceration rates at every age. Black females (with an incarceration rate of 349 per 100,000) were more than twice as likely as Hispanic females (147 per 100,000) and over 3.5 times more likely than white females (93 per 100,000) to have been in prison or jail on June 30, 2008. An estimated 207,700 women were held in prison or jails at midyear 2008, up 33 percent since midyear 2000.
http://www.ojp.gov/newsroom/pressreleases/2009/BJS090331.htm
So, in 2008, according to DOJ, there were more black males in jail than those of any other race. A black male is 6.6 times more likely to be incarcerated than a white male.
Black women are also incarcerated more often than those of any other race.
- a WHITE LIVING IN THE US, IS 28-39 times MORE LIKELY TO BE MURDERED by a BLACK than VICE VERSA.
So, as you see, using sound logic, blacks are an incredible threat to whites living in the US. and 30 times more threat than vice versa. Why do you continue, to spin the numbers and ommit the real issues. Why then wonder why these things arent improving? I feel like im at a lib meeting here.
A number of overall crimes is incredibly misleading in any context and any conversation, concerning US statistics, because there is a huge huge difference in total population of these races. I cannot find any other reason for doing so, than trying to take the focus away from the real problems we are all facing.
It is exactly the same thing as saying, “whites use welfare more”, which ive heard on several occasions. While the statememnt has been true in the past, it is a very misleading statement, considering only 1 out of 10 whites is on welfare, and 1 out of 3 blacks is on welfare. Lets forget about median family income for both, where once again blacks lag pretty much behind every other ethnic group living in the US. In similar conversations, there are terms like producer and consumer, used with plenty of proof and for a very good reason.
Concerning education and AA attitudes toward education, I think we are clear on where we stand. I will not waiver in my strong belief that education is not as important in the black communities, and its a shame, because it truly is the way up and way out of the ghetto and poverty stricken areas. Poverty plays its role, but I know plenty of folks who grew up poor and went on to get great education. I am one of those persons. Poverty has never forced me or my siblings to commit a crime or blame my problems on someone else. I know of some studies that show results to the contrary, but I question their validity for many reasons.
As far as slavery, we all know about it and we all know that it has powerful after effects on groups of people that experienced it, especially for long periods of time. I think that it is still effecting AA communities today and may very well for the next 50 years. However, every race has slavery in its history, and there were plenty of white slaves as well as black slave owners. There is no other group on this planet that has been as persecuted and as oppressed as the Jewish. For thousands of years. Recently they were exterminated by millions by Nazis, way after black slavery ended here in the US. However, there arent more jewish young males in prison than there are in college, and Jewish are very prosperous and powerul law abiding citizens.
Moreover, your ending statements are misdirected, because I came to this country as an immigrant 20 years ago from Eastern Europe and owe no black a thing. Somehow it seems to be a popular belief that every white born in this country benefits so greatly from black slavery and oppression from 300 years ago, that they are born with a set of silver spooons up their rectum. In reality, this isnt the case whatsoever.
Bottom line, trying to pretend the real problems, such as high crime rate, hiv rates, oow rates, lack of education, dependence on gov aid, low IQ, laziness, bad attitudes, inability to fit in or get along with any group of people incvluding your own, dont exist by focusing on some nonsensical white on white murder rate statistic is nothing but an attempt to deflect from the real issue. If you want to talk about solutions, we all have to look in the mirror and face these problems head on, instead of trying to pretend they dont exist. I will leave you with this short writing from a black jouranlist.
Juan Williams, the black senior correspondent for National Public Radio has authored a book, “Enough: The Phony Leaders, Dead-End Movements, and Culture of Failure That Are Undermining Black America,” in which he decries the state of the black culture in America.
Mr. Williams has come under strong criticism from that very culture.
He said:
Why not just go ahead and call me an Uncle Tom and a sellout? Why bother with trying to put a new coat of paint on the same old personal attacks by saying that I am “demeaning black people,” that I’m the “black Ann Coulter” and a turncoat against the cause of racial progress for black people in the United States?
That’s a sampling of the nastiness flying at me since I wrote a book that holds today’s civil rights leaders accountable for serious problems inside black America. I’ve suggested that many poor people are capable of helping themselves by graduating high school, keeping a job and having children when they’re married and ready to be parents.
One hard, unforgiving fact is that 70% of black children are born today to single mothers. This is at the heart of the breakdown of the black family, the cornerstone of black life for generations. Some of these children without two parents may turn out just fine, but most add stress to the lives of their grandparents, neighbors, police and teachers who have to take up the slack for absent or bad parents.
It is easier to attack me than to deal with the hard fact of a dropout rate now at about 50% nationwide for black and Latino students. The average black student who gets a high school diploma today is reading and doing math at an eighth-grade level. Even with a diploma, that young person is ill-prepared to compete for entry-level jobs or for a college degree.’
And what about the tragic fact of a 25% poverty rate among black Americans? That’s more than twice the 12% national poverty rate and more than triple the poverty rate among whites.
My critics are busy blaming racism for all this poverty. But that tactic is losing its punch because so many people of color, including black people from Africa and the Caribbean, arrive in this country and outperform native-born black people in educational achievement and income. And it is hard to make the old “racism is the whole problem” argument when the other 75% of black America is taking advantage of 50 years of new opportunities — since Brown vs. Board of Education and the Civil Rights Act — to create the largest black middle class in history, with unprecedented wealth and political power.
The core group of black people trapped in poverty today is not defined by lack of opportunity as much as by bad choices. Black youth culture is boiling over with nihilism. It embraces failure and frustration, including random crime and jail time, as the authentic expression of black life. “Keeping it real” and “street cred” in that destructive world require gunshot victims, the “N-word” and treating women as “bitches” and “hos.” There is no arguing that this is a sick mind-set.
Here are some more facts: 44% of the nation’s prison population is made up of black people, and blacks account for 37% of violent crimes, although black Americans are only 13% of the population. Who can make the case that this is anything but a social disaster?
Yet I’m condemned for asking why today’s prominent civil rights leaders, such as Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and Maxine Waters, are not dealing with these problems. They prefer to call for more government programs and more white guilt.
And yet a poll done by the Pew Research Center a week after Hurricane Katrina found that two-thirds of black Americans agree with 75% of white Americans who say that too many poor people are overly dependent on government programs. In other words, a clear majority of the nation, including most black people, are saying that the poor need to look in the mirror and halt self-defeating behavior.
Have a good one!
Chris says:
Dan,
Hip Hop culture effects on people, may or may not play a role here. Hip Hop itself is much different than gangster rap or rap in general, or at the very least was intended to be. Some of the early hip hop groups such as TCQ, DeLaSoul or Pharcyde were very commited to positive lyrics and positive influence on their audience. They very often spoke about importance of values, education, family structure and other positives. They also discredited life of money and fame, drug use and other negatives. But, I have a feeling that youre talking about some of todays empty rap “culture” and its promotion of money, bling bling and half naked women. I would think that it has some negative effects on its audience, just based on the message that is being sent via lyrics. I am very familiar with early hip hop music and the message that carried, but in all honesty dont pay a whole lot of attention to todays rap, so please take my opinion FWIW.
Dan, just so you know, I consider myself as just an average dude, trying to make ends meet, waiting impatiently for the next cold one. I just have some interest in these topics, even though they are based mostly strictly on my own experiences and opinions.
Roger says:
What many forget is that when traditional slavery “ended” in the United States, it resurfaced in our society in other ways, i.e.: Jim Crow, residential segregation, redlining and the list goes on and on; so though blatant, traditional slavery is over, enslavement dwells among us in very subtle ways.
The difference, now, is that the enslavement is increasingly affecting the poor of ALL races and ethnicities and is mostly economic in nature. You have large coporations (the monied elites) targeting the poor with high-interest-rate mortgages, student loans through these increasingly pervasive online colleges and personal and/or pay day loans.
Instead of focussing our energies on dethroning these elites, however, we bicker and complain amongst ourselves (quite like how some have done in their posts above), endlessly competing for smaller pieces of the pie, hoping that one day, we too, will strike it rich and be just as wealthy as our ‘massas’.
It’s time for ALL Americans — not just the African-American ones — to wake up,
Peace in!
Dee says:
As someone from the South where I am a majority minority I can tell you everything said above is right on the money. People living in states like Vermont with less than 2% blacks think they understand but they do not have to deal with the black mindset as we do. In my city it is 55% Black. I just moved! My neighbors were black and as wonderful as anyone could hope for as a neighbor. However, they were the only ones I can say that about. The rest have no regard for anything at all. Crime here is out of control in black areas.
I am fed up with the excuses and taking care of the blacks that refuse to provide for themselves. Being born after the Civil Rights movement and having gone to public schools all my life I can say any black my age had all the same opportunities as myself if not more so than myself. I don’t qualify for anything being a white male.
Three generations ago my family was living on a pile of oyster shells in the bay on the coast fishing for a living. In one generation my grandmother went to High School, her kids all went to college and all my cousins and I have degrees now. All without a single handout from the government and by hard work.
The white community is getting weary of the whining and has run out of money to support this failed social experiment, it has to end soon.
To me it is like the Muslims that refuse to call out the terrorists. Why won’t blacks call out blacks? We sure can’t do it being white else we are racists without question. So if you blacks will not do it who will?
At the rate things are going now you are going to create more racial division on this path than you ever had before just of a different type. It amazes me that the black community is not more vocal about the illegal alien issue. Do they not realize if things continue with that the blacks will be the minority minority? Think the Mexicans give a damn about your being black? But alas I digress since I am asking why a group of people who can not even address issues of their own doing about more complex forward thinking aspects of life.
James says:
Dee, I believe you are confusing race, culture, and poverty, among other issues.
You condemn the “black mindset” that you perceive, and say that aside from one black family you know, “the rest have no regard for anything at all.” Yet there is no one mindset shared by all members of a given race; at most, there are cultural attitudes that may be more common, for a variety of reasons, among people of a given race.
You complain that crime is “out of control in black areas,” yet the crime rate in black neighborhoods throughout the United States is in fact quite similar to that in white neighborhoods. It is factors like poverty which determine most of the differences in crime rates from one neighborhood to another.
You also say that black citizens “refuse to provide for themselves,” when the evidence suggests that this is merely a myth propagated by people with a political agenda. The idea that your black neighbors, colleagues, and fellow citizens aren’t as hard-working, on the whole, as any other group of people is ridiculous.
You go on to say that in the post-civil rights era, “any black my age had all the same opportunities as myself if not more so than myself.”
In fact, the evidence is overwhelming that black citizens frequently face racial discrimination in education, employment, housing and other key areas of life. To even suggest that your black neighbors and colleagues may have had it easier in life because of the color of their skin shows that you have bought into the pernicious myth that we have somehow turned a corner in this country, that rather than slowly improving race relations, the pendulum has swung and black people are somehow more advantaged than white people.
In one generation my grandmother went to High School, her kids all went to college and all my cousins and I have degrees now. All without a single handout from the government and by hard work.
Can you not see how race plays a part in this story? With overt racial discrimination rampant in your grandmother’s generation, and racial prejudice still widespread today, how could a black family have experienced equal access to such dramatic educational opportunities?
It would also be surprising if your family really didn’t benefit from government assistance of any kind. Did your struggling family really send two generations of children to college without federally-subsidized loans? Did even your grandmother not go to public school? Our public schools, paid for by the government, are still highly segregated by race, and the disparity in majority-white and majority-black schools is astonishing.
The white community is getting weary of the whining and has run out of money to support this failed social experiment, it has to end soon.
What social experiment, Dee? Are you referring to welfare, which benefits predominantly white citizens? To affirmative action, which benefits predominantly white citizens?
Why are you (do not speak for “the white community”) tired of what you perceive as whining? Why do you think we should have achieved racial equality by now? It would be bizarre to suggest that black families, left with nothing after slavery and subject to Jim Crow laws for the next century, should have achieved socioeconomic equality just a few years after the civil rights movement, in the face of continuing racial prejudice.
it is like the Muslims that refuse to call out the terrorists. Why won’t blacks call out blacks?
How many Muslims do you believe will not condemn terrorism?
And what, exactly, do you want black citizens to “call out” their fellow citizens for?
Darrius says:
I’m black and I’m sick of us blaming slavery and poverty for everything. Black people are still poor because the majority of them don’t want to work for anything. They either want to get on welfare, steal, sell drugs, or all of the above. And it’s getting worse and worse. Blacks have every opportunity now to be successful but they don’t take it. They drop out of high school instead of going to college and getting a degree. Then they join gangs, destroy neighborhoods, and walk around with their pants going down to their knees. I was raised by a single mother on the south side. I wanted to be successful, so I went to school everyday, I went to college, and thanks to this government black people are always saying is against them, I got the money to pay for college, which all black students can do. There is no reason for so many black people to still be poor and uneducated. It isn’t anyone’s fault but their own. Whites aren’t the ones telling black teenagers don’t go to school, join a gang, and act ignorant with their pants hanging down to their knees and talking like their retarded. Blacks these days just want everything to be handed to them. When it isn’t they steal and sell drugs. Poverty is not a reason to drop out of school and do nothing with your life.
Frank says:
James..you are living in a dreamland.Affirmative action benefits whites? What do you do for living? Have you ever tried to test for any public job? State, federal, City? I had a friend of mine applying for a State Troper job in Pennsylvania and the recruiter (black) himself told him “You are not black, chances are slim!! What kind of crap is this? You just don’t want to recognize the obvious: there is racial disparity today’s in the US and is being pushed by whites themselves !!?) toward the opposite direction: at the white population expense! Instead of promoting Equal Opportunity we are promoting un-equalities pushing minorities ahead on the premises that they can’t do it themselves! that’s a pile of crap, whatever stats or “informed”(?!) analysis you appear to provide here. What is wrong with you?
Frank says:
James: Poverty? ALL immigrants have been poor at some point in time in the US history and who didn’t face discrimination? Italians did! Irish did? Are they discriminated against today? Did they have affirmative action? NO. They made it, with their hard labor! Quit finding excuses! Laws are in place that guaranteed education, freedom of expression, equal treatment on the job for EVERYONE!You just don’t want to face the fact the races are different: that’s a fact!It is in front of us every day: the effects of diversity! Can you name any Black majority place in the World which is prosperous and civilized? NO. South America? Little better but not at the North American standards! Can you deny it?
James says:
Frank, the statistics do show that affirmative action has benefited white women more than any other demographic group.
Of course, affirmative action inherently involves trade-offs, and a particular white candidate may lose out to a qualified black candidate as a result. The point is that affirmative action has not been a program to simply benefit black people at the expense of white people.
The broader point is that you’re simply wrong when you suggest that racial discrimination today benefits blacks at the expense of whites. Research consistently shows that while programs like affirmative action take modest, corrective steps, they hardly make a dent in existing racial inequality and are dwarfed by ongoing racial discrimination by whites against blacks and other minority groups.
Perhaps the reason you’re so quick to dismiss “stats or ‘informed’(?!) analysis” in favor of your own experience is that you believe the premise of racial justice is that non-whites “can’t do it themselves.” In fact, the premise is that no group of people can overcome substantial inequality on their own, in the face of ongoing prejudice, in just a generation or two.
For example, you mention all those white immigrant groups (Irish, Italian, etc.) in the 19th and early 20th centuries. These groups all benefited from gradually coming to be seen as ordinary, “white” Americans, and from the massive federal aid programs that built the white middle class in the 20th century. The descendants of American slaves, on the other hand, have been offered nothing comparable to this.
You, however, have a problem that goes well beyond these issues of analysis: you display obvious and powerful racial prejudice, and thus illustrate that our society does not offer minority citizens equal treatment, even today. You say that “the races are different,” and believe that anywhere in the world you look, race determines whether societies are prosperous or “civilized.” This is the very definition of racial prejudice, Frank.
John says:
“You say that ‘the races are different,’ and believe that anywhere in the world you look, race determines whether societies are prosperous or ‘civilized.’ This is the very definition of racial prejudice…”
Actually, James, That is the definition of ‘racism’. To add “prejudice” is a logical leap and therefore a fallacy. “Prejudice” means just what it implies: To pre-judge. Pointing out the fact that blacks are sociologically inferior in virtually every way, in every area they inhabit, is an observation of reality, not judging without information.
On another note: I’ve noticed some comments by obviously intelligent black people and even an extensive quote from a book by Juan Williams. I have heard similar statements from Bill Cosby and Walter Williams about blacks being their own worst enemies. Generally, these successful blacks suggest the black community pull itself up by its collective bootstraps, do well in school, make intelligent life and financial decisions, get a good job and work hard at it, etc.
This is a common mistake made by the precious few blacks with IQs at or above the mean. They believe all other blacks are just like them and have all the same opportunities and abilities. This is just not the case. I’ll dust off the analogy from my original post over a year ago: This assumption by a tiny statistical minority of blacks who are intelligent that all blacks can achieve anything they want is as unrealistic as someone who is over 7′ tall saying that anybody (even a midget) can be a great basketball player, just like him.
Once again, the obvious is being ignored because it is a painful reality: Blacks, as a race, are unintelligent. The sour grapes argument that going to college is “acting white” is an excuse. The vast majority of blacks who graduate high school are reading at an 8th-grade level. Some part of their brain – whether they will admit it or not – realizes college is beyond their abilities. Anyone who’s ever owned a puppy knows if you try to walk it down steep or high stairs or introduce it to a much larger dog, it balks. It realizes its limitations and resists doing things it find intimidating. In much the same way, people naturally resist doing things they find difficult and tend toward things that come naturally to them.
Statistically, stupid people are much more likely to be criminals than college graduates and blacks are very likely to be stupid (average IQ of 87). Once this truth is realized, progress can be made. Rather than try and fail at college, blacks tend toward entertainment or sports (which is a pipe dream for almost anybody) and when that doesn’t work out, a life of welfare and/or crime. This unfulfilling and self-esteem crushing life leads to acting out in random sexual gratification which results in unwanted and unplanned pregnancies, violence in an attempt to stroke their egos at someone else’s expense, and other antisocial behavior as they attempt to appear to embrace the lifestyle they have, as though it were their choice rather than their only option.
If socially-advanced societies would stop making excuses and pointing fingers in all the wrong directions, progress might be made in the black community, but there is a concentrated effort to deny the reality of the source of blacks’ problems, blaming poverty, slavery, social iniquity, racism, and lack of opportunity.
The fact is, all these reasons are red herrings to distract from the real reason the vast majority (though not all) of blacks underachieve: They are inherently mentally handicapped and socially handicapped from being raised by a single mother who is also mentally and socially handicapped. The black community refuses to admit it, it would be socio-political suicide for the black “leaders” to admit it, the white community is terrified to admit it, so the problem is ignored and festers. Trying all different kinds of shoes in an attempt to allow midgets to be competitive at basketball is unrealistic and so are the social engineering programs that attempt to elevate blacks. They don’t work, because they don’t address the actual problem: The average black person is stupid (IQ of 87).
This condition is the CAUSE of the crime, the CAUSE of the unemployment, the CAUSE of the resentment, the CAUSE of the violence, the CAUSE of the horrible and short-sighted choices, the CAUSE of the lack of any sense of responsibility, the CAUSE of low scholastic performance, the CAUSE of the high dropout rate, the CAUSE of the poverty, the CAUSE of the slum conditions, even the cause of slavery. If this bitter pill is ever swallowed, perhaps real solutions can be found, but blindly lashing out at invented causation and mythological issues will never help anyone. James, your and other posters’ denial even when looking right at the statistics is exactly the mentality that is driving this society down an endless road to nowhere, in perpetual misdiagnoses followed by indefinitely prescribing the wrong cures.
James says:
John, I made no logical leap in describing the belief that the races are different, and one race inferior to another, as “racial prejudice.” By definition, approaching any individual (or group) with pre-set beliefs based on nothing more than race is to be prejudiced on account of race. (I could just as easily, as you point out, have described this as “racism.”)
Your argument appears to be that it is appropriate to judge others solely on account of race, because you believe that the world demonstrates that race is somehow relevant to intelligence. This is an empirical question, not a logical one, and I find it patently absurd to suggest that the world provides evidence to support this belief.
For instance, you write, “This is a common mistake made by the precious few blacks with IQs at or above the mean.”
Yet research shows, every time, that blacks have IQ scores roughly the same as whites, that is, that there are equal proportions of each race at or above the mean for all people.
You also write, flat-out, that “The average black person is stupid (IQ of 87).” Yet this claim is refuted by every single study of race and intelligence.
In other words, you are simply, and dramatically, biased in your observations of the world. You say that you are simply reflecting reality, yet you hold beliefs like this that fly in the face of all unbiased observations.
Under other circumstances, I would not even dignify such wild imaginings about race with a response. However, I would not want to think that anyone could visit this web site and come away with the slightest suspicion that your beliefs are held in any regard by anyone who has ever looked at a study on intelligence and race.
John says:
“Yet research shows, every time, that blacks have IQ scores roughly the same as whites, that is, that there are equal proportions of each race at or above the mean for all people.” This is a lie.
“You also write, flat-out, that ‘The average black person is stupid (IQ of 87).’ Yet this claim is refuted by every single study of race and intelligence.” This is also a lie.
African American IQ scores have long averaged about 15 points below those of Whites, with correspondingly lower scores on academic achievement tests. In recent years the achievement-test gap has narrowed appreciably. It is possible that the IQ-score differential is narrowing as well, but this has not been clearly established. – Neisser, U., Boodoo, G., Bouchard, T.J. Jr., Boykin, A.W., Brody, N., Ceci, S.J., et al. (1996). “Intelligence: Knowns and unknowns”. American Psychologist 51: 77–101
So all we are left with are various lines of evidence, no one of which is definitive alone, but which, viewed all together, make it a not unreasonable hypothesis that genetic factors are strongly implicated in the average Negro-white intelligence difference. The preponderance of the evidence is, in my opinion, less consistent with a strictly environmental hypothesis than with a genetic hypothesis, which, of course, does not exclude the influence of environment or its interaction with genetic factors. – Jensen, Arthur (1969). “How Much Can We Boost IQ and School Achievement?”. Harvard Educational Review 39: 1–123
all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours — whereas all the testing says not really – Nobel Prize geneticist James Watson
Some data shows that blacks have made no IQ gains on whites, despite relative environmental gains, and that this adds credibility to the case that the black/white IQ gap has genetic origins. – William T. Dickens and James R. Flynn (2006). “Black Americans Reduce the Racial IQ Gap: Evidence from Standardization Samples”. Psychological Science 16 (10): 913–920
The list goes on and on and on. Your flat denial of reality either suggests a prejudice on your part that you blindly want to believe despite all proofs against it, a total ignorance on the subject, or both. James, the fact is, your attitude leads to the staus quo and if you would like to see the black community continue to wallow in poverty, prison, unwed motherhood, crime, violence, drug use, and despair then you are on the right track. Your posts and the very existence of this forum would indicate your concern for this condition and desire to see it rectified, though. You need to choose between your beliefs and your goals, because they are diametrically opposed.
James says:
John, you are simply wrong when you say that the IQ scores of African-Americans are not comparable to those of white Americans.
On the contrary, while it used to be true that there was a large gap between black and white IQ scores, that gap has been steadily closing for generations and has nearly disappeared.
Now, there are two ways to interpret this fact.
The first is race-based. In this interpretation, black Americans are becoming dramatically more intelligent with each passing generation, and are on track to become much, much smarter than white Americans in the years to come.
The other, arguably more plausible, explanation is that IQ scores measure not general intelligence, but specific abilities that are largely the product of knowledge and of experience with certain types of reasoning. Generations ago, black Americans were generally offered little or no education and faced other environmental disadvantages. As these circumstances have gradually changed over the years, black IQ scores have risen accordingly and grown nearly identical to those of whites.
How do I know that you are mistaken about IQ scores? Because you have misread the sources you’re citing.
The 2006 paper you cite, for instance, does offer the sentence you quote, as the start of its abstract. However, that sentence summarizes the research that the authors are refuting in this paper. The paper itself argues strongly that blacks have indeed made substantial IQ gains, undermining the poor work of a few researchers who wanted to argue a race-based explanation.
Likewise, the first paper you mention does not say what you claim. Instead, that paper argues, much as I just did, that IQ scores for black Americans are not steady (at 15 points below the mean, or at any other value) but have been rising substantially for a long time. The paper also documents the ways in which IQ scores are dependent on factors like education, nutrition, and home life.
It is true that James Watson made the statement you mention. However, it was not based on research, but was a personal musing for which he quickly apologized when confronted with the evidence.
I’m not going to bother looking up the 1969 paper you cite; there has been forty years of research done since then, and the data show forty years of improvement in IQ scores, rendering it surely obsolete.
I leave you with this observation, John: Suppose you are right about average IQ scores, that they are significantly different, will not continue to change, and reflect genuine differences in intellectual ability rather than the artifacts of environment. Do you really believe that crime, poverty, and so on are predominantly caused by people with slightly below-average intelligence? Do you really believe that the difference between a C+ and a B student, for instance, which is roughly the IQ difference we’re talking about here, is enough to cause poverty and unwed motherhood, rather than merely subtle differences in highly skilled work?
Even if you do believe this, how can you square this belief with the fact that even these small reported differences in IQ scores are only averages? That the range is vastly more than the difference in averages, such that much of the white and black populations overlap in IQ scores, even according to the most extreme researchers you can cite? Wouldn’t you expect, in proportion to their respective population sizes, almost as many white families to be impoverished, and nearly as many respectable, middle- and upper-class black families as white ones? Shouldn’t you only be talking about slight differences in the percentages of people not smart enough (in your view) to avoid crime, poverty, and poor values?
Frank says:
James, where are the inequalities that you are talking about? You said that the Irish and the Italians have been offered..by whom? How? Explain the process of being offered some and by whom, by the first immigrants. Black communities have all they need from the government to be equal to others today! What are you talking about? Schools, jobs,opening a business, grants (if you are black or a woman is easier, ain’t that true?), you name it. Is the fact that people like you think that in 2010 there is a strong discrimination against minorities that creates abominations similar to “affirmative action”!! It doesn’t work that way! Ever heard about “personal responsibility”? Can you say that minorities in 2011 need the same assistance that the first immigrants needed a century ago? Don’t accuse me of prejudice as usual excuse to justify obvious differences amongst races. I am just asking people to recognize the facts: that’s all! Name and single out the factors that discriminates minorities! Name cases where minorities are discriminated! I will name cases in which whites are discriminated!! there is the law for these cases. And saying that races are different doesn’t make a worse person that you are, or “racist” as you “non-racist” love to say, abusing this word. I don’t want to deport Blacks or Asians or Italian or Irish. I am for real equal opportunity for everyone and the law should protect only that right, for everyone. No quotas, no affirmative action , no programs for minorities, none of that crap. If you have a brain,go to school, get an education and get a damn job.To many times we see less qualified individuals getting jobs just because they are minority! While the white person that scored higher, better qualified is pushed back in the name of diversity! Is this the future for America? WHERE is the equality here? Where is the same opportunity for the non-minority “human being”to get that job and show how capable he/she is. I can say that YOU are prejudiced against the non-minority, can’t I? Cut the crap..
James says:
Frank, as I indicated briefly above, the federal government embarked on massive aid programs in the 20th century which are largely responsible for lifting the families of immigrants into the middle class. This aid took the form of subsidized mortgages, assistance for higher education, job training and placement, and so on. These programs were significant in creating a large American middle class in the first place. In housing, for instance, the FHA made it possible for the nation to move from a situation where relatively few people owned their own homes, to where this was commonplace. These programs were limited almost entirely to white families.
It’s certainly true that immigrants and their descendants generally also had to work very hard to get ahead. But, of course, this was true of former slaves and their descendants, as well, and they were prevented from passing down to their heirs the same rewards for the same effort. European immigrants, no matter how little they had when they arrived on these shores, walked off the ships to face opportunities denied to black Americans.
So you can say that black families today have all that they need to be equal to others. Yet it takes generations for most families to be able to rise from poverty into the middle class and then affluence, and it has historically usually required considerable assistance. Merely enacting legal protections against discrimination won’t magically allow everyone, with equal effort, to attain more education or better jobs than their parents had.
You criticize the view that there is still strong discrimination against minorities, yet every study I’ve ever seen backs this up. If you look on this blog alone, you’ll see empirical evidence of ongoing racial discrimination in housing, education, employment … even in balls and strikes called by home-plate umpires.
Frank says:
James..James: you say that enacting legal protection against discrimination is not sufficient.So the LAW is not sufficient to protect everyone, therefore there are other groups, special groups, that need MORE than others. On which basis? I still don’t see much of discrimination today if not in the simple fact that “those” unequal laws CREATE discrimination, doesn’t matter how do you put it. Is discrimination against whites not discrimination? So what is it? Doing us a favor? I live out there and i work with blacks, whites, yellows and striped. When i apply for a job i don’t see any discrimination in the intentions of the employer. I see it in WRITING: in your laws! We have to reserve 20% to minorities, or crap like that! If you fight against discrimination it has to be undiscriminated, right? BUT YOU are discriminating!What else you “magic” equality wand is thinking that these minorities need in order to d well for themselves? Would you call minorities the millions of immigrants that have been accepted in the US in the past years? If so, and if they consider themselves minorities and discriminated, why did they move (legally or illegally) in the US in the first place? These ,measures that groups like you would like to see promoted in favor of minorities and “discriminating” whites are pure and simple “handouts”. Social programs are available out there for poor families and jobless people. They just have to go and get them!
James says:
Frank, I’m not saying that any group requires protection more than any other. I’m saying that legal rules alone aren’t sufficient to prevent discrimination.
As for your difficulty in seeing much discrimination against blacks or other minorities today, perhaps that’s because you aren’t the target of the discrimination? You say it yourself: when you apply for a job, you can see affirmative action policies but not informal discrimination. It’s not as if discrimination tends to be overt these days, with employers openly refusing to hire black workers or signs on drinking fountains.
I’ll grant you that you’re not alone in what you’re saying. There’s a persistent myth today, in certain circles, that there is little discrimination left towards minorities, and that most discrimination is now against the majority white population. This just isn’t true, however. I’ve mentioned the stacks of research that show discrimination in housing, education, employment and other aspects of life, and the modest effects of government policies like affirmative action.
I agree with you that affirmative action policies must, by definition, discriminate against those they aren’t designed to assist. Whether this is a sound policy or not is another question, but it is certainly a form of discrimination (albeit one which is designed to correct the effects of past discrimination, in order to balance the scales). But I’ve also mentioned that affirmative action has hard made a dent in the racial equality gap that has persisted since slavery, and affirmative action has benefited the white population as a whole more than any racial or ethnic minority.
I’m not endorsing affirmative action here, contrary to what you seem to believe. But I’m quite certain that affirmative action is not a “handout,” seeking as it does to identify past discrimination and to undo its effects. Whether such programs do this job well or with justice is a different matter, but you don’t seem to be asking those questions.
Frank says:
James: I will give you that affirmative action benefited white women, it did not benefit white men for sure! The argument here is that there should not be any affirmative action at all!Where do you live? Employers refusing to hire black workers? That would be multi-billionaire lawsuit! What about Federal jobs? Can you deny that there is a “strong” affirmative action there? Can you deny that the bankrupted Postal Service is a like a black Caucasus? There is no discrimination in schools, Colleges..what are you talking about. These institutions all have racial quotas even in giving school grants!What is the argument for supporting racial quotas to a huge amount of minorities that just immigrated in the US and never had suffered slavery, what about all the hordes of minorities that got in the US in the past 40 years? Do they need help? You haven’t answered! The reality of things is the set-asides, quotas, affirmative action, are all abominations!I don’t want to be discriminated because i am white. I have nothing to do with slavery, why should i be discriminated?
jim says:
Frank,
Very nice arguments and examples, and I have no problems with the factual content. However, before i explain my thoughts i’d like you to try to answer why there is so much hatred of black persons in white society?
This question has nothing to do with making up for the past… It is just a simple question – why so much pure hatred?
There are many examples of the type of hatred that i am talking about. During the civil war, when confederate solders captured black union troops who had already surrended, they would bludgeon or rifle butt them to death. During the same period, New York Irish mobs protesting the draft shot and hang as many blacks they could find. These were good deaths as many black families were burned alive in their homes. During the 1960′s white women screamed in protest that they would never let those “N*****” into their schools. These of course are not isolated incidents they happen all the time and every day (for that matter blacks also hate whites but to keep things simple i want to question white on black hatred ).
So why is there so much deep seated hatred of black people? Please consider this question as it defines logical explanation (It is logical for a soldier to try kill a soldier who was trying to kill him, but it is not logical to hate that soldier.)
I do believe that the source of much of this hatred is part of the human condition, a predispostion that all humans share. Let me explain.
My college dorm was probably very typical of other dorms. We had a special floor where handicaped persons lived. If you looked at the lives of these handicapped persons they tended to be lonely – not too much dating especially for persons with facial deformities. No surprises here. The point I want to emphasise is that people are so hard wired to avoid persons that are unlike them or that they belive to be inferior to them that this environment is considered normal. It is as if mother nature has given humans a sort of ‘mean-streak’ so that the gene pools do not get corrupted. We know that these isolated people suffer from loneliness but we do not include them into our lives. We don’t care about them, but to be more accurate we are disgusted by them.
The feelings we have toward handicapped persons is closely related to the feelings that whites have toward blacks except that white people do not have to worry about handicapped persons missing with their genes: all they have to do is avoid them and their gene pools are ‘safe’.
The point is that to preserve the quality of our gene pool, we – by default – do want to associate with inferior people.
If avoidance is not good enough to protect the gene pool, humans will go to more extremes.
There is no anti-discrimination law that can change this. Most children are born like this and they will isolate other kids who they believe are different. When our society has advanced to the point where this natural urge is suppressed, then we will be able to move forward. Until then this natural tendency must be curbed.
You may very well be right that whites have a higher IQ than blacks, and that yes, they are being discriminated against my anti-discrimination laws. Yes, that is definately wrong and it does bother me. However, i do see that there are other factors in play and we do have a natural tendency to go with our own. This does hurt minority opportunities if they do get into the door, so i think it is best to keep these so called anti-discrimination laws in place as a kind of balance to our darker side.
Regards,
Jim
Mist says:
Wow. Just… wow.
I actually followed this thread from beginning to end, and first let me say – James? You did an amazing job of presenting logical, facts-based arguments. I am floored at how much time and effort you put into refuting a disappointingly large number of people whose perceptions of blacks are based on heresay, rumor, speculation, and anecdotal evidence.
For those people, let me say this:
I’m a black chick who’s always been into rock/alternative/indie. I went through a goth phase when everyone in my neighborhood was wearing flannel shirts and boots during the summer. Because I was ostracized by most of the blacks I knew, I turned instead to whites (and, in smaller part Asians) for friends, lovers, etc. I live in suburban CT right now, and I am literally the only black person for miles. But I was raised in the poorest parts of Philadelphia and Chicago.
So when I say that I have lived in the white world and I have lived in the black world, trust me. As an oreo, I’ve only ever been an honorary member in either world.
With that said, I’ve experienced racism from whites on numerous occasions. I went to any number of concerts where I was the only black face, and I heard any number of horrible things. I’ve lived in the South, where I had to keep hearing things like, “When I talked to you on the phone, I thought you were white. You speak so well!” And even in the north, the moment I’d leave a large city to go camping, I’d have to deal with small-town people yelling slurs at me out of windows as they drove past.
My favorite was the time when a white woman LITERALLY pulled her child further away from me with a panicked glance in a country convenience store. At the time, I was wearing a nice long floral skirt, feminine tank top, sandals, and my hair in a ponytail. I’m not a hulking black female, I’m 5’4 in my bare feet, and some extra pounds on a petite frame. How much more harmless can you possibly get?
Here’s the thing:
If I allowed these experiences to color my perceptions the way some of you folks do, I’d be convinced that all whites are racist. If I allowed my experiences in the south to color my perceptions the way some of you folks do, I’d be convinced that all whites are tactless, poor, and allow their children to run barefoot and filthy in their front yards.
If I allowed the behaviors and actions of a few to shape my opinion of the whole, I would have some pretty terrible opinions of whites.
But I don’t. And to my credit, part of the reason why I don’t is because as an oreo living much of her time in the “white” world, my dearest friends have been white. My boyfriend is white. My daughter is mixed. I’ve been around white people long enough to dispel any of the myths that a lot of blacks have – blacks who are as isolated from whites, as a lot of whites are from blacks.
And it was those white people who, in each and every one of those instances of racism, defended me with such passion and anger that they were ready to fight with fists. It was a crowd of white strangers who, after some nearby guy yelled the “N” word and I froze in the middle of the sidewalk in fear, yelled the man down and drove him off.
I’ve been lucky enough to experience the best of whites as well as the worst, and I made the choice a long time ago to not judge the entirety of ANY race on the behaviors of a few, because that type of judgment will only lead to becoming bitter and bigoted.
The funny thing is that some of the people in this thread who say they don’t want to be around black people out of fear are creating that fearful environment for themselves. They wouldn’t have such fear of a black perp lurking around every corner if they actually knew a lot of blacks. But since they don’t, they’re half-convinced that most blacks just rove in packs, robbing and looting at will.
I’ll leave you with this: I’ve lived in this suburb for 3 years now, and only one of my white neighbors has introduced herself. Her kids and my daughter play together all the time. I’ve had to flag down neighbors as they’ve walked their dogs or gotten their mail, and at one point, I went around with cookies. Even now, they’re a bit aloof. I don’t take it personally. I don’t attribute motives. In fact, it makes me a bit sad.
Because in every black neighborhood I’ve lived in, including the poorest ones, it was the other way around. A couple of places even threw a block party to welcome my family to the neighborhood, complete with music, BBQ, and yes, watermelon.
I guess ultimately my point is this: it is a human tendency to stereotype people in our minds when we have no real exposure to them. So it’s understandable to have stereotypes. But once you’ve recognized that you’ve got stereotypes, there is no excuse – none – for not putting in the immediate effort to replace that stereotype with something more realistic.
At least, that’s what decent people do.
Leeada says:
Figures that distort:
When Hispanics are victims of crime they are categorized as “Hispanic”.
When Hispanics are perpetrators they are categorized as “White”
The hispanic offender rate for murder,(as an example) is 3 or 4 times that of the “white” offended rate.
Black Americans are 12.6%
Hispanic Americans are 16.3%
“White” Americans are 63.7%
Given the difference in crime rates, certainly you have statistically a greater chance of being murdered by a Lantino or Black American.
“”There is nothing more painful to me … than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking about robbery, then look around and see somebody white and feel relieved. — the Reverend Jesse Jackson, as quoted in US News, 3/10/96 “”
Anonymous says:
I am white with a biracial son. My husband is black with a very successful trucking business in the South. He came from a broken home and a drug dealer, strip club owning father. Though I am the one with the education, from a 2 parent household, he has always made much more money than me–and paid many more taxes than me.
The real problem in this country is our young men–99% of mobs, beatings, murders,rapes, etc…occur in young boys from 17-25, of all races. Usually the crime is gang related, within the same race and age group. It is almost always male on male, outside of rape of course, which is far less common than murder. Most hate crime is committed between young boys in that age group. So, occasionally they step out and kill outside their demographics–but generally stay within. Within that age group –nearly twice as many black men fall victim to being the predator and victim.
The most interesting statistics I read–were outside of that age group–whites are more likely to kill their infants under 1, children from the ages of 1-9, their women, and their elderly over the age of 55. Doesnt matter if you do per capita–whites kill those demographics more–so how anyone could express more concern for the condition of the black race than the white race is beyond me.
Might sound harsh, but if we just legally set boundaries for how many children a woman is able to have, no matter their income, alot of those problems would be solved–less children, less teenage boys, less problems, more time to focus on the future.
On welfare:
A higher percentage per capita of blacks are on welfare–but a higher number of whites use it–so for haughty taughty white people to suggest cutting welfare–you are only hurting yourself. Doesnt matter if we have more white people here or not–its not just a free ride for the blacks–its a free ride for everyone.
Because we have used it for so long-Im not sure that halting it completely would even work–we would have 3rd world savage conditions.
As someone that used those programs as a single mom to get myself a bachelors degree–I have more than paid back my taking. I understand the frusteration that people just milk it–but if you just stop it, what happens to all those kids that dont have anything to do with their parents decisions? They just wont eat?
I would love to hear suggestions for how we could gradually eliminate some of those problems–but I think it starts with restricting how many children women can have. Not through abortion, but tying peoples tubes once they have had 2–make it across the board–no matter your income, you dont need more than 2.
Less mouths to feed-less welfare.
On poverty:
Being from the South–poverty is everywhere–Ive never noticed more poor blacks than whites. So its ok for the white people to be poor–just not the blacks?
With years of successful history–what are the white peoples excuses for being poor?Poverty is a huge determiner on all negative socio economic situations–it affects eduaction and influence, which breeds craziness.
On immigration-
If we close our borders and send people home, we will have jobs for the blacks and whites that have skill sets in those industries. Those folks have learned their lesson–I assure you they will be willing to work for the same pay as the immigrants now. Is is fair? No. But, in this economy–a job is a job.
And I dont just mean Mexicans–Im not interested in hearing any immigrants opinion on the condition of this country–Just because you are a white immigrant from Eastern Europe doesnt make you any different.
We shouldnt give any of you tax breaks to open businesses or live here–we, Americans, are the idiots for that. If youre not Chinese, then you dont own me, so I dont want to hear it.
On crime:
James is right–the crime is higher in black communities, but black crime overall does not affect that many white communities–white crime affects white communities. Most crime is intra-racial, period. Visit the FBI, DOJ,Census Bureau..the numbers all match up and they are all the same.
Im doing estimates here for easy math-about 500 white people killed blacks in 2008, about 200 blacks killed whites the same year. Since there are about the same amount of murders within the races it seems to show–that more black people per-capita murder overall–but about the same amount of whites kill blacks as blacks kill whites–its like a 10% difference? Now, of course add in per capita, etc..but you are not 50% more likely to be killed by blacks–the inflation seems to go with the differences in the population of the two races?????
Im not even going to comment on the IQ thing–youre ignorant for even bringing in a history lesson about spears and Egyptians to discuss African IQ. And to suggest black people are smarter now because of race mixing–really?
Jay says:
Why do so many AA females continue to have children when they cannot even take care of ONE??? And why do all of these children, in the SAME household, have different last names?? Did some white man cause that?