Race and Racism in The United States

[Patridam]

Well, the racial profiling and the prison population disparity might have something to do with blacks committing more crime.

No. Because there's racial profiling means that African Americans are targeted more meaning the fact that we commit more crimes isn't actually fact, or not one that can be proven with simple arrests. If there's racial profiling, and there's a lot of it:

I'm saying they are racially profiled because they commit more crimes. It's not healthy for race relations, not really fair to the honest people of any race, but sometimes people deem it necessary: http://cnsnews.com/news/article/nyc-tax ... er-pickups

[The Emerald Dawn]

No. Because there's racial profiling means that African Americans are targeted more meaning the fact that we commit more crimes isn't actually fact, or not one that can be proven with simple arrests. If there's racial profiling, and there's a lot of it:

I'm saying they are racially profiled because they commit more crimes. It's not healthy for race relations, not really fair to the honest people of any race, but sometimes people deem it necessary: http://cnsnews.com/news/article/nyc-tax ... er-pickups

There's a problem with that.

If I go to an area where black people are thought to commit more crime than whites, and commit crime, I'm getting away free because of being white.

How about instead of looking for the color of people when looking for indicators of crime, we just look for the indicators of criminal behaviour?

[The Cobalt Sky]

No. Because there's racial profiling means that African Americans are targeted more meaning the fact that we commit more crimes isn't actually fact, or not one that can be proven with simple arrests. If there's racial profiling, and there's a lot of it:

I'm saying they are racially profiled because they commit more crimes. It's not healthy for race relations, not really fair to the honest people of any race, but sometimes people deem it necessary: http://cnsnews.com/news/article/nyc-tax ... er-pickups

I know, and I'm saying that's not the case. I highly doubt a whole race of people is just naturally barbaric, and there's a good chance you're a racist for insinuating that. I'm saying that the justice system is the source of the problem, and also huge bigots, not the general populace.

[Mavorpen]

No. Because there's racial profiling means that African Americans are targeted more meaning the fact that we commit more crimes isn't actually fact, or not one that can be proven with simple arrests. If there's racial profiling, and there's a lot of it:

I'm saying they are racially profiled because they commit more crimes. It's not healthy for race relations, not really fair to the honest people of any race, but sometimes people deem it necessary: http://cnsnews.com/news/article/nyc-tax ... er-pickups

Which is circular logic. Discrimination started long before there were any statistics pointing to blacks committing more crimes. Thanks to that it became a self fulfilling prophecy because blacks were profiled against despite there being no evidence of committing certain types of crimes at a higher rate, thus leading to the ruining the lives of the victim of profiling and their family. That has a ripple effect and eventually it hinders the community in general. You can't point to the crime disparity for justification for profiling when profiling and racism caused the disparity in the first place. You'd need to compare it to an actual control group and given that we have yet to find an area where profiling doesn't exist at all, there's utterly no evidence to suggest that without profiling blacks would still commit crimes at a higher rate.

[The Emerald Dawn]

I'm saying they are racially profiled because they commit more crimes. It's not healthy for race relations, not really fair to the honest people of any race, but sometimes people deem it necessary: http://cnsnews.com/news/article/nyc-tax ... er-pickups

Which is circular logic. Discrimination started long before there were any statistics pointing to blacks committing more crimes. Thanks to that it became a self fulfilling prophecy because blacks were profiled against despite there being no evidence of committing certain types of crimes at a higher rate, thus leading to the ruining the lives of the victim of profiling and their family. That has a ripple effect and eventually it hinders the community in general. You can't point to the crime disparity for justification for profiling when profiling and racism caused the disparity in the first place. You'd need to compare it to an actual control group and given that we have yet to find an area where profiling doesn't exist at all, there's utterly no evidence to suggest that without profiling blacks would still commit crimes at a higher rate.

inb4:

"Africa"
"Imperialism"
"Post-Imperialism"
"Area resource strip mining"
"doo bee doo"

[Gauthier]

Which is circular logic. Discrimination started long before there were any statistics pointing to blacks committing more crimes. Thanks to that it became a self fulfilling prophecy because blacks were profiled against despite there being no evidence of committing certain types of crimes at a higher rate, thus leading to the ruining the lives of the victim of profiling and their family. That has a ripple effect and eventually it hinders the community in general. You can't point to the crime disparity for justification for profiling when profiling and racism caused the disparity in the first place. You'd need to compare it to an actual control group and given that we have yet to find an area where profiling doesn't exist at all, there's utterly no evidence to suggest that without profiling blacks would still commit crimes at a higher rate.

inb4:

"Africa"
"Imperialism"
"Post-Imperialism"
"Area resource strip mining"
"doo bee doo"

Also: "Rosa Parks ended racism"
"We are in a post-racial society, we elected a black President (whom we accused of being an illegal foreigner)"

[Washington Resistance Army]

inb4:

"Africa"
"Imperialism"
"Post-Imperialism"
"Area resource strip mining"
"doo bee doo"

Also: "Rosa Parks ended racism"
"We are in a post-racial society, we elected a black President (whom we accused of being an illegal foreigner)"

Illegal foreigner AND a Muslim, can't forget that part.

[Gauthier]

Also: "Rosa Parks ended racism"
"We are in a post-racial society, we elected a black President (whom we accused of being an illegal foreigner)"

Illegal foreigner AND a Muslim, can't forget that part.

With a Whitey-hating Christian pastor.

[Patridam]

I'm saying they are racially profiled because they commit more crimes. It's not healthy for race relations, not really fair to the honest people of any race, but sometimes people deem it necessary: http://cnsnews.com/news/article/nyc-tax ... er-pickups

Which is circular logic. Discrimination started long before there were any statistics pointing to blacks committing more crimes. Thanks to that it became a self fulfilling prophecy because blacks were profiled against despite there being no evidence of committing certain types of crimes at a higher rate, thus leading to the ruining the lives of the victim of profiling and their family. That has a ripple effect and eventually it hinders the community in general. You can't point to the crime disparity for justification for profiling when profiling and racism caused the disparity in the first place. You'd need to compare it to an actual control group and given that we have yet to find an area where profiling doesn't exist at all, there's utterly no evidence to suggest that without profiling blacks would still commit crimes at a higher rate.

So your saying that being pulled over/frisked slightly more often than other races is what makes blacks more likely to commit crime?

[Mavorpen]

Which is circular logic. Discrimination started long before there were any statistics pointing to blacks committing more crimes. Thanks to that it became a self fulfilling prophecy because blacks were profiled against despite there being no evidence of committing certain types of crimes at a higher rate, thus leading to the ruining the lives of the victim of profiling and their family. That has a ripple effect and eventually it hinders the community in general. You can't point to the crime disparity for justification for profiling when profiling and racism caused the disparity in the first place. You'd need to compare it to an actual control group and given that we have yet to find an area where profiling doesn't exist at all, there's utterly no evidence to suggest that without profiling blacks would still commit crimes at a higher rate.

So your saying that being pulled over/frisked slightly more often than other races is what makes blacks more likely to commit crime?

No. You can try again if you like, but I'd prefer if you really read what I posted.

[Patridam]

I'm saying they are racially profiled because they commit more crimes. It's not healthy for race relations, not really fair to the honest people of any race, but sometimes people deem it necessary: http://cnsnews.com/news/article/nyc-tax ... er-pickups

I know, and I'm saying that's not the case. I highly doubt a whole race of people is just naturally barbaric, and there's a good chance you're a racist for insinuating that. I'm saying that the justice system is the source of the problem, and also huge bigots, not the general populace.

I was not chalking the greater likelihood of crime to 'natural barbarism'. Urban poverty has and likely always will lead to crime. It happened with the Irish mob and Italian mafia, its been happening with blacks in the inner city for decades. It's not their-being-black that leads to more crime, it's the being-poor-with-few-options that does. It isn't difficult to see that the urban poor of today are mostly black or hispanic.

[Scyobayrynn]

Hi there. This is my first real discussion thread, so if it comes out lopsided, I’ll work on a new one and come back later. I hope that there isn't another thread out there that covers this one, and I looked but I didn't see one. In case you’re wondering, I’m 14, one half black, and one half white. Apparently, there is some Native American in there somewhere, but I’m not really Native American, and I do not claim to understand their experience in America whatsoever and I do not know what it is like to be one at all. But anyway, I think that lately, people have been saying racism is not a problem. But I think that it is, and a very serious one at that. I point to the criminal justice system, which a lot of people apparently don’t think has any racial problems.

“The survey, which was mostly conducted before the shooting of NYPD Officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos in New York over the weekend, found similar results on perceptions of the justice system as a whole. While 41% of Americans say the criminal justice system treats blacks fairly, far more whites - 50% - see equity. Among non-whites, that figure drops to just 21%. Two-thirds of non-whites said that the criminal justice system favors whites over blacks.”
http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/22/politics/ ... e-justice/

But it definitely seems to have problems.

“Prison sentences of black men were nearly 20% longer than those of white men for similar crimes in recent years, an analysis by the U.S. Sentencing Commission found.”
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014241 ... 3789858002
http://www.vox.com/2014/7/1/5850830/war ... minorities

“Approximately 12%-13% of the American population is African-American, but they make up 40% of the almost 2.1 million male inmates in jail or prison (U.S. Department of Justice, 2009).[1]”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistics ... ican_males

There are also many issues with racial profiling.

“For every 10,000 residents, about 3,400 more black people are stopped than whites, and 360 more Latinos are stopped than whites. Stopped blacks are 127% more likely to be frisked -- and stopped Latinos are 43% more likely to be frisked -- than stopped whites. Stopped blacks are 76% more likely to be searched, and stopped Latinos are 16% more likely to be searched than stopped whites.
Stopped blacks are 29% more likely to be arrested, and stopped Latinos are 32% more likely to be arrested than stopped whites.
Now consider this: Although stopped blacks were 127% more likely to be frisked than stopped whites, they were 42.3% less likely to be found with a weapon after they were frisked, 25% less likely to be found with drugs and 33% less likely to be found with other contraband. We found similar patterns for Latinos.
Not only did we find that African Americans and Latinos were subjected to more stops, frisks, searches and arrests than whites, we also found that these additional police actions aren't because of the fact that people of color live in higher-crime areas or because they more often carry drugs or weapons, or any other legitimate reason that we can discern from the rich set of data we examined.”
http://articles.latimes.com/2008/oct/23 ... oe-ayres23

And, with the advent of DNA technology, tons of people were exonerated. The vast majority of the wrongfully convicted were black.
http://www.innocenceproject.org/Content ... onwide.php
A few other links to consider:
https://www.americanprogress.org/issues ... ed-states/
http://www.sentencingproject.org/templa ... cfm?id=122

After looking through this, I’d say race is still a pretty serious problem in the US, and not talking about it won’t solve anything, just make it worse. I think people are touchy and uncomfortable when it comes to talking about race, because there’s a chance they could be called racist, and a racist is something that society at large generally says is bad, although I think tons of people are still racist. But this wouldn’t be much of a thread if I didn’t ask: what do you think? What racist experiences have you gone through?

EDIT:
Let me revise this, so people can post a little bit more.
A problem, but how serious a problem? Who do you think is its source? How ingrained is it? Are you a racist? (I want a little more than the generic statement, 'yes, it's a problem')

Yes its a problem.
Its a complex problem, deeply complex.
I want to give you more, but I can't.

Yes, in spite of being wholeheartedly against ethnocentric bigotry, I am guilty of prejudices based on ethnicity. Illogical prejudices, stereotyping, and basically contributing to what I believe is a serious problem.

[Patridam]

So your saying that being pulled over/frisked slightly more often than other races is what makes blacks more likely to commit crime?

No. You can try again if you like, but I'd prefer if you really read what I posted.

Mav, the only thing I can glean is that you believe everything is the fault of continued systematic racism (presumably committed by hordes of bigoted whites in power of the legal system), and the only thing that could ever potentially convince you otherwise would be a comparison/test that requires circumstances that are likely impossible.

[Mavorpen]

No. You can try again if you like, but I'd prefer if you really read what I posted.

Mav, the only thing I can glean is that you believe everything is the fault of continued systematic racism (presumably committed by hordes of bigoted whites in power of the legal system), and the only thing that could ever potentially convince you otherwise would be a comparison/test that requires circumstances that are likely impossible.

Nope. You can go for a third try if you like. Keep going and maybe you'll understand what I actually posted.

[Patridam]

Mav, the only thing I can glean is that you believe everything is the fault of continued systematic racism (presumably committed by hordes of bigoted whites in power of the legal system), and the only thing that could ever potentially convince you otherwise would be a comparison/test that requires circumstances that are likely impossible.

Nope. You can go for a third try if you like. Keep going and maybe you'll understand what I actually posted.

This is precisely why most people fled rather than discuss things with you. Unrivaled condescension, unnecessarily pompous terminology, and an unwillingness to concede to anything - even if the it is just a restatement of your argument bringing to light its flaws.

[Mavorpen]

Nope. You can go for a third try if you like. Keep going and maybe you'll understand what I actually posted.

This is precisely why most people fled rather than discuss things with you. Unrivaled condescension, unnecessarily pompous terminology, and an unwillingness to concede to anything - even if the it is just a restatement of your argument bringing to light its flaws.

Why would I concede a straw man?

Are you going to actually read what I posted or not?

[Soldati Senza Confini]

Which is circular logic. Discrimination started long before there were any statistics pointing to blacks committing more crimes. Thanks to that it became a self fulfilling prophecy because blacks were profiled against despite there being no evidence of committing certain types of crimes at a higher rate, thus leading to the ruining the lives of the victim of profiling and their family. That has a ripple effect and eventually it hinders the community in general. You can't point to the crime disparity for justification for profiling when profiling and racism caused the disparity in the first place. You'd need to compare it to an actual control group and given that we have yet to find an area where profiling doesn't exist at all, there's utterly no evidence to suggest that without profiling blacks would still commit crimes at a higher rate.

So your saying that being pulled over/frisked slightly more often than other races is what makes blacks more likely to commit crime?

No, it is the fact that people get discriminated and profiled more often that this happens.

If you tell a child he's stupid and because he's a nigger he'll never amount to anything because they gotta keep the white man happy, what do you think it's going to happen? What these children will believe?

The very fact society has looked down to minorities is the fact that minorities are seen as inferior and the reason why we expect the worst of them and so minorities are more targeted which in turn creates the self-fulfilling prophecy that minorities are inferior. Not the simple fact that some actions specifically are more prone with one race than another, but rather the expectation that this should be the case.

[Mavorpen]

So your saying that being pulled over/frisked slightly more often than other races is what makes blacks more likely to commit crime?

No, it is the fact that people get discriminated and profiled more often that this happens.

If you tell a child he's stupid and because he's a nigger he'll never amount to anything because they gotta keep the white man happy, what do you think it's going to happen? What these children will believe?

The very fact society has looked down to minorities is the fact that minorities are seen as inferior and the reason why we expect the worst of them and so minorities are more targeted which in turn creates the self-fulfilling prophecy that minorities are inferior. Not the simple fact that some actions specifically are more prone with one race than another, but rather the expectation that this should be the case.

Careful with that unnecessarily pompous terminology.

[NeoColumbia]

A country founded in white nationalist beliefs that had a 90% white population at the peak of its racist sentiment not many decades ago has major problems of white supremacist portions of populace oppressing the disadvantaged minorities? Color me shocked!

Implying this is a problem. The only problem is that this isn't the case anymore.

America has ceased to be a Nation and is now a Job location with requirments at achieving higher levels of "diversity". i.e. less white people.

[Patridam]

This is precisely why most people fled rather than discuss things with you. Unrivaled condescension, unnecessarily pompous terminology, and an unwillingness to concede to anything - even if the it is just a restatement of your argument bringing to light its flaws.

Why would I concede a straw man?

Are you going to actually read what I posted or not?

I have read it, I just don't feel that you are correct. In summary: Profiling and racism started before anyone could provide evidence that blacks were committing crimes at a rate higher than anyone else. This profiling continues to the present day, and it is what causes the disparity of arrests between races. The only way to prove otherwise would be to observe a society that has never had any sort of racial profiling to see if the disparity still exists, but such a society doesn't exist.

[Mavorpen]

Why would I concede a straw man?

Are you going to actually read what I posted or not?

I have read it, I just don't feel that you are correct. In summary: Profiling and racism started before anyone could provide evidence that blacks were committing crimes at a rate higher than anyone else. This profiling continues to the present day, and it is what causes the disparity of arrests between races. The only way to prove otherwise would be to observe a society that has never had any sort of racial profiling to see if the disparity still exists, but such a society doesn't exist.

If you don't feel that I'm correct then attack what I actually posted rather than straw men.

[Edgy Opinions]

A country founded in white nationalist beliefs that had a 90% white population at the peak of its racist sentiment not many decades ago has major problems of white supremacist portions of populace oppressing the disadvantaged minorities? Color me shocked!

Implying this is a problem. The only problem is that this isn't the case anymore.

America has ceased to be a Nation and is now a Job location with requirments at achieving higher levels of "diversity". i.e. less white people.

What is white people and what is so speshul about them?

[NeoColumbia]

Implying this is a problem. The only problem is that this isn't the case anymore.

America has ceased to be a Nation and is now a Job location with requirments at achieving higher levels of "diversity". i.e. less white people.

What is white people and what is so speshul about them?

They Built the country, and no Harvesting cotton is not building.

[Patridam]

I have read it, I just don't feel that you are correct. In summary: Profiling and racism started before anyone could provide evidence that blacks were committing crimes at a rate higher than anyone else. This profiling continues to the present day, and it is what causes the disparity of arrests between races. The only way to prove otherwise would be to observe a society that has never had any sort of racial profiling to see if the disparity still exists, but such a society doesn't exist.

If you don't feel that I'm correct then attack what I actually posted rather than straw men.

Which is evidently impossible, because if I apply your statements to their logical implications, then you just spout 'that's not what I said', and refuse to address anything.

You are stating that the greater amount of arrests among blacks vs whites is due to racial profiling. Racial profiling is institutionalized racism on the part of the police and the legal system. Therefore, institutional racism *must* be the cause of the arrest disparity.

Have you considered that blacks are arrested for more crimes because they commit more crimes?

[Soldati Senza Confini]

If you don't feel that I'm correct then attack what I actually posted rather than straw men.

Which is evidently impossible, because if I apply your statements to their logical implications, then you just spout 'that's not what I said', and refuse to address anything.

You are stating that the greater amount of arrests among blacks vs whites is due to racial profiling. Racial profiling is institutionalized racism on the part of the police and the legal system. Therefore, institutional racism *must* be the cause of the arrest disparity.

Have you considered that blacks are arrested for more crimes because they commit more crimes?

My problem with using the arrest rate is because we're not using the rate of conviction, which is more relevant.

As you may very well know many cases fall through the cracks and judges only see very few cases per year compared to the reports. I bet if we look at initial report and escalation we'll find a clearer pattern than just arrests.