The thing is Trader_Jorge that it's not as clear as you try to make it. The arguement is that it may be 500 dogs that bite people and 500 cats bite people, but all 500 of the dog bites are reported, while only 20 of the cat bites are being reported. That's where racism comes in to play. I would argue that Blacks and Non-blacks commit on average about the same amount of crimes, range from all levels of severity, but Blacks get CONVICTED more frequently. Non-blacks commit just as many crimes but are rarely held accountable. The facts you are backing your statements on fail to take this into account.
That's a whole other thread rfw. And quite different from the one we were discussing here. It will be much harder to support that thesis.
My main reason for bringing up this issue is in response to Trader_jorge's earlier statement about "what happens before they get to trial". Do you have some facts based on what happens before they get to trial? The real thing that go me is that TJ thinks that blacks are not only "convicted" of more crimes, but also "commit" more crimes. This is highly debatable and I have yet to see any justifid facts. In fact it's very hard to say what is the case and that's exactly my point. People forming there opinions on so-called facts that can't really be proven. These assumptions, rather are based on people's perception and or experiences, but these might not be truths. That's the point i'm trying to get across from TJ. There are no valid "facts" to back his claim, especially since he's agreed that discrimination does occur. The existence of discrimination makes this question much harder to answer.
How does that prove me wrong ... all these stats show are arrests. This doesn't show the crimes white people committed that they weren't even arrested for. This only goes to show that they are arrested more frequently than whites, not that they actually commit the crimes more frequently. This doesn't even take into account the times in which Blacks are falsely arrested and even draws in such topics as racial profiling. I never said blacks weren't arrested more often than whites. As a matter of fact, I agree, but the argument I'm making is that how can you measure all the times a white person commit a crime and wasn't arrested? Then take into account the times that a black person was falsely convicted and/or arrested. Dead Wrong ... I think not.
So your thesis is that blacks are arrested three times as often as whites while committing the same number of crimes? In your fantasy world, is every member of every law enforcement agency a member of the KKK?
Actually what you did was inadvertantly give an excellent analogy regarding the essence of the problem while tap dancing around it's seriousness. In your analogy one person is being discriminated against for simply being who they are while the other is being discriminated against for what he's chosen to do to his body. Personal accountability therefore cannot be a logical solution to the problem for minorities.
SO . . .Should we kick all the white guys out of management because they commit most 'white collar' crimes? How are they not effected by that fact? Rocket River
Why don't you let the people that hired them kick them out... if and when they commit such crime regardless of their skin color?
excellent point. I'm willing to bet that statistics will show that white males are many times more likely to engage in securities fraud, mail/wire fraud, embezzlement, and other white collar crimes than black males. You can't fault a Board of Directors when they turn down that white CEO applicant for the comparable black CEO applicant. I mean, they are just calmly weighing the statistical evidence that the white CEO applicant is more likely to commit a crime, he came from a privileged culture where he has everything just given to him, so he feels entitlement. Fortunately, the black ceo applicant, for better or worse, had to work for what he had. So it's not a matter of the board of directors looking at that pasty skin and those cold, criminal blue eyes, it's stats. Atlas shrugs!
This was posted on the 1st page, but here is the link again (have to have Adobe Acrobat to view it): As you can see, more whites are arrested for fraud and embezzlement than blacks; however, if you use a simplistic factor of 12% of the population to be black then this is how it breaks down: Total population is 192,580,262 Black population is 23,109,631 White population is 163,693,223 (using 85% as the factor) Blacks arrested for fraud is 65,213 Whites arrested for fraud is 142,535 Blacks arrested for embezzlement is 4,415 Whites arrested for embezzlement is 9,085 Now, to get a true "apples to apples" comparison between the two races, we have to normalize the populations: Blacks on fraud is 65,213 out of 23,109,631 for .28% Whites on fraud is 142,535 out of 163,693,223 for .09% So, even though the percentages are miniscule (sp?), blacks are still likely to commit fraud three times more than whites according to these statistics. Blacks on embezzlement is 4,415 out of 23,109,631 for .02% Whites on embezzlement is 9,085 out of 163,693,223 for .006% So, once again, even though these percentages are extremely small, blacks are still likely to commit embezzlement three times more than whites according to these statistics. Timing, I am sorry if I conveyed that I didn't think this was a serious thing; I was just trying to offer a plausible explanation for it. Remember, I admitted that it was not right, but looking at these statistics, if something can be done about crimes to the point where blacks are not as three times as likely to commit a murder or robbery, etc than that could help. Does it mean that it will solve the problem once and for all? Sadly, I don't think it will and that is a damn shame.
I am still focused on the two most provocative aspects of the article: 1. Young, qualified, law-abiding black men are severely discriminated against in seeking entry level employment, through no fault of their own. For those of you (including me) who believe in the free market system and would like to see a race blind meritocracy (calling DaDakota), what should/can we as a country/society/individually do about this? 2. 30% of 12 year old black boys will spend time in jail during their lives. Do you (t_j) believe that this is SOLELY due to a lack of personal accountability? If so, what can be done about it? If not, same question.
Dang it, Manny, you should have held off on that until *after* I baited SamFisher into accepting the challenge!! His hubris would have led him down the road to personal destruction at the hands of Conquerer_Jorge! Oh well, I guess I can live with the two of us being right yet again. It hurts to be this right all the time, it really does. SamFisher and RocketRiver, your lies have been: EXPOSED
Yea, I didn't see your post until after I posted it, sorry. Hey, I'll go back and edit that post and this one, if you edit the one I quoted!
Let's not go to all that trouble. I know SamFisher well. Of all posters, he is one of the most susceptible to psychological attack. He will provide us with many more opportunities to cleverly bait him into saying something he regrets. At that point, I will jump on him mercilessly for all to witness. I shall once again shame him into submission.
Again ... these stats speak of "arrests" not the actual commiting of these crimes. As far as the comment below ... you would have to look strongly at the number false convictions and/or arrests to guage this but if you look at the prevalence of racial profiling, I would say that with this in effect the number of blacks stopped is way greater three times those as whites. I don't think it's that far off to say that whites get away with crimes at a clip of 3 to 1 when comparing them to blacks.
So, in other words, your whole argument is based on something that there is no way of proving. Just like there is no way that I can prove that heaven exists despite being a Christian. I feel that it does exist, but do I have any proof? No. Do you have any proof for your supposition? No. Anyone can argue about things that cannot be proven.
Exactly. My point is that the real crux of the argument cannot be proven. No one can factually say what the actual rate of committing these crimes are, so to base one's bias or prejudice against a person based on their race is unfounded and cannot supported by fact. You can go by all the numbers and stats regarding arrests, convictions and what have you but if you agree that discrimination/racism exists then these stats are not something to base one's opinion on because racism skews the facts. It's all opinion and bias. I'm trying to express my opinion that blacks and whites probably "COMMIT" around the same amount of crimes. It's just that blacks are arrested/convicted/etc... at a higher rate, thus making the likelihood that a black job applicant will rob, steal, embezzle, faud, etc ... is the same for a white person.
You know, nothing is better than to find indisputable proof or evidence that backs your argument and show it to the person you are arguing with and they just have to admit, "Wow, I was wrong." Here is a classic case of that, pay attention to page 4 of this thread: rfw2, As far as I can recall, no one in this thread was saying that racism didn't exist in this study, but TJ, texxx, and me, etc were trying to give plausible explanations for the cause of this. Racism is letting the black guy without a criminal record not get the job compared to the white guy with the criminal record of 18 months. Racism is NOT facts that show that blacks are three times more likely to get arrested than whites. Your quote: "I'm trying to express my opinion that blacks and whites probably "COMMIT" around the same amount of crimes. It's just that blacks are arrested/convicted/etc... at a higher rate, thus making the likelihood that a black job applicant will rob, steal, embezzle, faud, etc ... is the same for a white person." cannot really hold water because the disproportionality in getting arrested between the 2 races cannot be equated to "committing the same amount of crimes." Sure, there are cases in which crimes are committed and the perpetrator gets away with it, but I highly doubt that whites get away with it 3 times more than blacks do.
