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

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

> 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.