Facts about racism

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I never said it did, so no, it's not a red herring. I'm not sure why I need to keep saying this.

I'm not saying that being against police brutality automatically makes one unable to hold an opinion on crime, nor am I trying to divert attention from actual police brutality. What I'm saying is that the people who are very vocal about police violence towards blacks are often unwilling to talk about the issue of black crime, even though it is pertains directly to the very issues they are criticizing. Not only that, but they consistently make accusations of racism against police where evidence for it is totally non-existent. If the criticisms are legitimate, then I am all for it, but way too often they are not legitimate criticisms.


So because they distrust police, they are committing violent crimes against each other, to somehow get back at the police? That makes no sense, you have no evidence to support it, and there is way more evidence supporting the idea that black crime is largely because of social and cultural problems within the black community.


I never said those aren't valid criticisms. What isn't a valid criticism is to say the police are racist, because sometimes they kill black people.

So to recap, you basically think that I'm against criticizing the police in general, and that I believe it's impossible to be critical of both police and criminals at the same time. It looks like I've won the first half of the bet, because that is a completely false estimation of my beliefs. I never indicated that I believe those things, and I can confirm to you that I don't.

Not only that, it does bother me that so many black people are killed by police. I wish the police didn't have to kill anyone, but sadly that is not the case, and indeed this is the very reason I bring up black crime, along with the obvious fact that innocent black people are often the victims of black crime.

Now for my estimation of your beliefs. You think that black crime is not the fault of black people, or at least, it is completely understandable given the past mistreatment of black people in America. You think that criticizing racism, specifically white police racism, is a better approach than criticizing black people, because you believe that systemic racism against blacks is still a large issue, and that it is the main contributor to the problems I'm referring to.

Am I wrong?

Not Google, pretty much any official dictionary of the English language, but sure.

That's not the whole story, however. I specifically take issue with the alternative definitions people on the left use to justify such statements as, "All white people are racists." I don't think I should have to explain why I find this to be problematic.

I take less issue with the "everyone is racist" definition, because I can agree that everyone surely has some amount of racial bias, conscious or subconscious.

Personally I prefer to just use the term "racial bias", because it already exists, and it perfectly describes the thing being talked about without nearly as much of the often unwarranted stigma that comes along with the word "racist", which has historically been used to describe someone who is overtly racist, not someone who is subtly and subconsciously biased, as most people are.

I think it's pointless and unhelpful, and the only real reason to broaden the definition seems to be so that people can justify smearing someone with a very negative label without feeling like they are being dishonest. For the record, I still consider it to be totally dishonest.


Once again, while this is basically true, it is an oversimplification of what I've said that leaves out some important details.

Yes, I do believe that the scale of the crime problem in the black community is vastly greater than the scale of police shootings, and that's not even taking into account that most police shootings are justified. I believe this because I've seen the statistics, the raw numbers, and I've shared them here on this thread as well as on others.

Scale matters. I'm not literally saying this is the only problem that needs attention, but it is a huge problem that gets almost no attention. I've never seen BLM or mainstream media talking about it. Instead, things I see as much smaller problems, like police brutality, are treated as though they are massive issues, when they simply are not. They are issues, but they are much smaller. I simply want people to recognize the actual scale of the issues; I'm not trying to deny that there are any issues with the police.

I will, however, oppose the idea that there is a racism problem in the police. I do think police brutality, lack of proper training etc. are issues which probably vary in degree from department to department, but I have yet to see evidence of police racism being the massive problem that it is portrayed to be.


I agree that there are varying degrees of racism, and certainly more than one acceptable definition, but I generally draw the line when a person has no conscious belief or intent behind their bias, and especially if that person actively tries to reduce such bias in themselves. I think people throw the word around way too much, and it renders the word completely meaningless, aside from the huge stigma which remains. Using it so loosely just poisons conversations about race, which are already extremely difficult to have, and it gets us nowhere.


I've responded to that, so there you go.

You were mostly correct in your approximations of my views, though you left out some key details. Either way, here's yours:

You seem to believe essentially the same thing as GGPViper and the others who don't agree with me here. Generally, racism and systemic racism are massive issues for the black community, much greater than I make them out to be, and are largely if not totally the reason for the problems we see in the black community that are not seen elsewhere to the same degree, like black crime, poverty etc.

Therefore, my criticism of the black community is seen as racist, victim blaming, or generally just unhelpful to finding a solution. You think I want to minimize an issue which you believe is still very real and present in the black community, and instead focus on the symptoms of the problem. You think the proper approach to the problems I've mentioned is to support groups like BLM who claim to oppose white racism.

Fair?

To put that into context: for decades we've been conditioning people to accept that racism is a horrible, disgusting thing and that one of the very worst things you can be is a racist.

Cue the redefinition of racism into weapon that can be used against literally any target, as long as it's white.

This practice is inherently racist. The objection to its usage is that it's a definition that's tailor-made to justify actual racism.

This might make sense if everyone accepted the most extreme definition. They don't, obviously, since it's extreme. I'm not even sure that many people want to spend the cognitive energy to think it through completely, since it's not simple at all. Extreme ideas only take hold of the masses if you can make them simple. Down with racist wh***y will never draw the same crowds as They're destroying our way of life, or for that matter No justice no peace.

In any case, there are lots of people who enjoy making other people feel horrible or consider it less important than their right to disable their natural internal filter. Plenty of people don't say offensive stuff accidentally. You can tell because they often preface it with, "I know this isn't PC." That indicates something bigoted is coming and it's no fair if anyone has a problem with it.

Sorry if the notion that our society is still structurally racist offends anyone. But it will always be the most offensive to its victims.

I feel like people on WP are trying to justify hatred towards other races more and more with lengthy posts and big fancy words.

At least it's not as bad as YouTube. I was on a live stream a few days ago and someone said "Muslims are all terrorists by default".

So how much longer before the US goes back to the early 1900's and brings back slavery? I know that there were slaves who escaped to Canada the first time, I hope they'll at least be welcome to do it again.

It makes sense if a single person accepts a sufficiently severe definition. A significant percentage of people associate racism with extremism. If the common definition of racism was "someone who likes puppies more than people", there wouldn't be a problem.



You're making my point for me. They don't want to spend the cognitive energy to differentiate between a "racist" and a "racist". Being called a racist carries an unavoidable stigma, depending on where you are in the world. Labelling someone a racist automatically puts them on the defensive precisely due to this stigma.



I'll get my first objection out of the way. Any internal language filter is artificial, not natural. People adjust their speech and expressions in all kinds of interesting ways to adapt to different social situations. It's called Communication Accommodation Theory, and will be familiar to anyone who has studied English Language.

Whilst there are, of course, people who revel in the reactions of others (the WBC folks would be a great example of this), I believe that the majority of people who object to PC restrictions of language do so on the grounds that they don't believe that somebody taking offence to free expression is a valid argument for censorship.

I'd much prefer to know who the overtly extreme bigots are, which is just one of several reasons that I side with the right to free speech over the non-existent right to not be offended.



But it also indicates that the person saying it is aware that what they're saying is taboo. This just highlights the fact that restricting speech doesn't actually make for better* people, it just makes for sterilised discourse.

*Yes, I'm aware that "better" is subjective. I'm using it the context of an argument that is often presented in support of restricting speech.



You were invited to provide a legitimate example of "structural racism" that constitutes a functionally assailable problem. When you can do that, we can talk solutions. Social experimentation based on unsound hypotheses is fundamentally unethical.

To what end?



That's ideological bigotry, not racism.



You will have to contact Cis Straight Able White Patriarchy HQ for that information. They're averse to sharing information with the neurologically atypical.

I put it to you that this discussion, and the discussion in the media that uses not-very-subtle stereotyping, shows that there is not sufficient agreement on any definition of racism to condemn anyone. Even the presidential nominee of a major party initially refused to disavow David Duke this year. He disavowed him previously, but claimed ignorance of one of America's most notable racists until that became impractical.



Or it could make them re-examine their behavior. Going on the defensive and lashing out instinctively is a bad policy, especially if the possibility exists that the accused could have unexamined racist instincts.



I wasn't aware Chomsky had been repudiated. Common language mechanisms probably have a structural explanation in the brain, as far as I'm aware, hence my use of the word natural.



Taking offense is not censorship, it is more free speech. If you want to believe the arguments of people who serially say offensive things to no apparent benefit to themselves, I'd like to know why. I assume they get some benefit, and since I used to live around a lot of such people I have had the chance to watch them smirk when they succeed in offending someone. Usually, if they get in that mood, they'll escalate until they get a reaction. I saw up close and personally the reaction to the shooting targets with an outline of a man in a hoodie holding a bag of skittles. Mostly, real life trolls make some excuse like the above arguments. It fuels more outrage than admitting they were being horrible for fun, but that appears to be the only benefit of such antagonism.



How nice for you. Some people prefer to use their free speech to object to extreme bigotry. They're probably happy to know that you will tolerate bigotry.



It's better for racism not to be taboo? I don't understand.



You were invited to provide a legitimate example of "structural racism" that constitutes a functionally assailable problem. When you can do that, we can talk solutions. Social experimentation based on unsound hypotheses is fundamentally unethical.[/quote]

I have one. The results of the Implicit Association Test. Social psychology also has tools to break down the tribalism that fosters implicit bias. Test the police, and then apply the tools. Easy, if we can agree that implicit racism is both normal and undesirable.

tl;dr Objecting to speech is not censorship, it's more speech.

Nonsense. The posters in this discussion aren't remotely representative of wider society, and also have a demonstrable political bias (see the Political Compass thread). Even taking that into consideration, most of the participants are in agreement that there is a common definition of racism and a narrowly-used (increasingly misused) sociological definition.

The common definition has plenty of room for nuance - that's what adjectives are for. What it doesn't allow for is the notion that racism can be subconscious - it necessarily requires conscious belief and valuation.



A single example of a social outlier cannot be extrapolated to the general population.



It already has made them re-examine their behaviour. Hence the "I know this isn't PC" disclaimer.



One cannot be instinctively racist. See my first response. One can have an instilled preference for those that look like ourselves (as reflected in mummy, daddy et al), and in fact most of us do. It may explain why some people have an aversion to gingers.



Communication mechanisms, yes, but not socially-directed language filters. Think of it as hardware vs software, if that helps.



That's a strawman. Telling people which words they can and cannot use is censorship.



Either you're conflating my sympathies for the second group of people I described with tolerance for the first, or you're inferring meaning that isn't present in my post. If the former, there is nothing objectionable about preferring free speech to language policing. If the latter, I have no desire to "believe the arguments", whatever that's supposed to mean, of people like the example I gave (the WBC).



How can they object to extreme bigotry if extreme bigotry cannot be expressed? Banning speech on the grounds that you and others who share your political ideology perceive it to be extreme bigotry is itself bigotry.



That much is self-evident.



Point of order. Implicit Bias is not structural racism.

Amongst the many criticisms of the IAT, the one that is immediately obvious to anyone experienced with video games, is that it measures the ability to map and re-map binary and abstract non-binary concepts on the fly, that it measures reaction times (thus presents the test as a challenge) and that the initial random assignments to 'left' and 'right' have more impact on the results than any other factor.

That also implies that someone who plays a lot of video games, and is therefore more proficient at translating visual information into a spatial model, would have skewed results.

The original study also had another, more pertinent flaw, as pointed out by Dawson and Arkes. It only reported bias in a
single direction..

"The doctors scoring low on bias had a pronounced preference for giving the drugs to blacks, while high-scoring doctors had a relatively small preference for giving the drugs to whites — meaning that the more “biased” doctors actually treated blacks and whites more equally."

So no. I don't believe you "have one".



A conclusion that demonstrates your complete lack of understanding of my position.

... a few minutes on Google...

http://abcnews.go.com/US/obama-murder-r ... d=40592847
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/josh-suga ... 02228.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/go ... ery-state/
http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/ ... ictims-too
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/chicagos ... dle-class/
http://www.wsj.com/articles/homicides-r ... 1461797871
http://edition.cnn.com/2016/05/19/healt ... rder-rate/
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/18/upsho ... -says.html
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nati ... /81290184/
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/201 ... ago-study/

Crying about PC is justification not examination.

Okay, then you are restricting free speech by telling people not to object to offensive speech.

Society programs the filter, which is hardware.

You completely fail to address my experience of people being deliberately offensive.

What ban?

I'd rather people hear racist talk and hear it confronted. Is it the arguing that bothers you? Get over it.

I like it when scientists point out the flaws in their research. It's what makes them scientists. Clearly it did not invalidate their conclusions.

... a few minutes watching/reading...

http://abcnews.go.com/US/obama-murder-r ... d=40592847

Obama speaks about crimes in black neighbourhoods only in terms of black victims, not in terms of black criminals. It doesn't address the objection that black lives don't matter to black people who kill other blacks.

Large emphasis on guns and gun control.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/josh-suga ... 02228.html

Outright blames wider society for the murders of black people. No mention of black on black crime.

Large emphasis on guns.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/go ... ery-state/

No mention of black on black crime

Focuses solely on gun control as the solution.

http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/ ... ictims-too

This one is actually a decent read, though it's certainly not objective. However, it dismisses "black-on-black crime" as meaning "murder as the inevitable result of a tangle of dysfunctional pathologies exhibited by black people" as opposed to being descriptive.

Places primary emphasis and responsibility on the police.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/chicagos ... dle-class/

This was an interesting video. It highlights the fact that there's significant income disparity and a class divide within black communities. There's an implication that addressing poverty by creating jobs, rather than blaming racism, is the key to solving the social problems - by Shari Runner from about 3:30 onwards (her name elicited a chuckle as the subject of the video is "Black Flight").

http://www.wsj.com/articles/homicides-r ... 1461797871

Not subscribed to the WSJ.

http://edition.cnn.com/2016/05/19/healt ... rder-rate/

Frames the discussion from the perspective of a grieving mother, but it didn't get in the way of the "meat and potatoes". I think this one missed the point somewhat. It mentions the initiatives that police are enacting, how they're engaging with citizens and working together with them to resolve the problem. It then mentions that the crime rate is escalating despite this, and talks about the huge role that the drug trade is playing.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/18/upsho ... -says.html

This article starts out well, by pointing out the negligible statistical difference between arrest demographics and police shooting demographics. It then falls off a cliff, fails to apportion any responsibility to black criminals and concludes that wider society is to blame.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nati ... /81290184/

"our study found that the vast majority of these homicides are committed with guns, usually a handgun"

Does mention gangs, doesn't mention the colour of the hands wielding most of the guns.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/201 ... ago-study/

Once again, no mention of who is doing the killing.

As one reader commented:

"In a causal relationship (cause and effect), gun violence is the EFFECT, not the cause. The CAUSE is the past several generations of urban yutes being raised in predominantly fatherless, undisciplined households where years of coddling and spoiling by aunties, grannies and too-young mommies has resulted in tens of thousands of ill-mannered, poorly behaved male & female yutes with absolutely zero respect for themselves or anyone else around them."

Putting aside his use of the term "yutes" (which may be intentionally pejorative or may be a recent adoption into Chicago street slang), he makes a good point. The WT article, much like most of the others (I pointed out the exceptions), focuses exclusively on the effects and not the causes.

The impression I take from these articles as a whole, is that there is a taboo surrounding discussion of the cultural and social realities of crime and poverty afflicted black neighbourhoods. Far from addressing the areas of concern that L_Holmes has, it seems that the MSM doesn't want to touch it with a barge pole.

Last edited by adifferentname on 17 Oct 2016, 2:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Ad hominem is evasion, not argumentation.



Provide a quote to support your claim. I have done no such thing.



Society provides the parameters, the individual decides whether to adjust their software. You suck at analogy.



Your feelings about other people's words aren't relevant to me.



Any ban.



Was that supposed to be a quote, or have you flip-flopped?



Clearly I have an aversion to arguing. You only need to check my post history on this board.

Considering your sudden adoption of brevity, I suspect that was projection on your part. Care to confirm?



Except that's not what happened in this case. The flaws were pointed out after it had been peer-reviewed. That's not an uncommon problem with the so-called "soft sciences".



Their conclusions were invalidated when they chose to ignore the far higher incidence of positive bias towards blacks.

False.

Same link, second section (and at 3:30 in the video clip):

Mentioning that the perpetrators are black, once, is not speaking about them.