[deleted] t1_j87xdxr wrote on February 12, 2023 at 8:31 AM

Reply to comment by empfindsamkeit in Family of Oakland baker seeks 'restorative justice' for her death following robbery by IAmNotARobot124

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empfindsamkeit t1_j882g1r wrote on February 12, 2023 at 9:42 AM

I find that really difficult to believe, but if true for the sake of argument, how else would you explain that? It seems like you think this is some kind of "gotcha" argument, but the other guy's argument was that crime was a result of poverty/environment. Your alleged facts foreclose both of those. So what else could it be? You also said "commit more crimes", implying that we're talking about being actually guilty, and not just being convicted/arrested more (otherwise law enforcement misconduct or racism could be at work). But we are arguing about actual criminals here and what makes them that way.

dukeimre t1_j88yqrb wrote on February 12, 2023 at 3:28 PM

The point here is, correlation is not causation. For black people in America:

There was a series of policies that set them up for poverty. Slavery, sure, but more recently and relevantly redlining and other policies that set up black communities for failure. Black people were all forced into the same, poor communities (nobody would sell them homes anywhere else); their communities were ravaged at times by urban development ("where should we put this highway? Just stick it through the black neighborhood"); they were all put in the same schools that lacked basic essentials (and when they tried to go to other schools, white parents fled to the suburbs), they were discriminated against in hiring.

They were ravaged by the drug epidemic, and they were ravaged by the tough on crime approach that responded to the drug epidemic. For example, the consequences for possessing a small amount of crack were much, much greater than for possessing an equal amount of regular cocaine-- so, you wound up with poor black people getting ridiculously long prison sentences where wealthier people received relatively light consequences for the same crime. Likewise, there were many more police on black neighborhoods, with less oversight, so poor black people were much more likely to be caught and harshly punished for really low-level crimes, and noncriminal black youth were more likely to develop massive fear and distrust of the police due to antagonistic policing methods.

This in turn destroyed black families (imagine if a quarter of the men you know who ever did any illegal drug went to prison and their kids spent a portion of their childhood without a father).

All this taken together means that more black people are poor, more black people are less educated, more black people are in prison, etc.

But it doesn't mean black people are genetically inferior.

(Happy to provide a source for anything mentioned above upon request!)

empfindsamkeit t1_j89t0ti wrote on February 12, 2023 at 6:54 PM

> The point here is, correlation is not causation.

No one was saying it was. Guy above was claiming that even controlling for wealth and location, black people allegedly commit more crime. If that were true (which I very much doubt for a number of reasons), what would be the explanation? If men commit more violent crime than women when you control for pretty much any variable, what does that leave as the explanation?

> All this taken together means that more black people are poor, more black people are less educated, more black people are in prison, etc.

> But it doesn't mean black people are genetically inferior.

And no one said that. The guy above said that controlling for income and geography, it was still true. Which means even rich, educated black people living in wealthy areas commit more crime than rich, educated whites in the same area. As I said, I think that's bullshit, and I could list the reasons. But if it were true, it would seem to preclude much other reason but genetics. At least that I can think of.

dukeimre t1_j8a3bwa wrote on February 12, 2023 at 8:04 PM

Ohhhh, I missed the "even controlling for...". Sorry!

I do think it's possible that the original commenter is right because there might be other factors to control for besides geography and income. For example, perhaps black kids who live in a rich neighborhood and have a high income are still less likely to do well in school because of stereotype threat. So I wouldn't be surprised if there are performance differences between groups that remain after you control for geography and income... but I'd expect that the more additional factors you control for, the smaller the differences would become, until they eventually vanished (or, at least, almost vanished, to within a tiny margin).

empfindsamkeit t1_j8cm6si wrote on February 13, 2023 at 8:38 AM

I'm not saying there can't be any differences, I'm saying I think it's unlikely that there's a statistically significant difference when it comes to major crimes. Why would a rich black guy in a wealthy area commit robbery or burglary? For fun? Does the commenter just mean white collar crime past a certain income level? That arguably makes it harder to believe. I can't remember the last time I read about a white collar crime committed by a black guy who wasn't a minister (and even then white evangelical ministers have elevated it to an art form).

I think he just threw that out there because he thought he could shut me up about arguing that genetics influence criminals by trying to trap me into saying black people are genetically predisposed to crime. Hence the Trumpian "they say". I'd also wager any serious study attempting to establish that would be unlikely to receive funding or see publication. Which means he's probably either referring to a far-right source or his own skimming of basic stats where he didn't really "control for" anything, assuming he wasn't outright making it up to see what I'd say.