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My sources here aren't media channels, but every single BLM member or supporter I've engaged in debate with (n>100) until this comment (probably because this is

My sources here aren't media channels, but every single BLM member or supporter I've engaged in debate with (n>100) until this comment (probably because this is the first venue I've raised this where lead poisoning is the primary topic of conversation). To date, not a single supporter or member I've engaged with has acknowledged lead poisoning as a potential culprit when I try to raise it (probably because acknowledging lead poisoning as a cause requires one to also acknowledge the higher incidence of violent crime committed by black men, which is inconvenient to the racist police narrative they are pushing). In these debates, I usually point to this table of FBI statistics, which shows a significantly higher level of crime committed by both men (all races) and black men in particular on a per capita basis as an explanation for the disproportionate number of men and in particular black men shot by cops. https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2014/crime-in-the-u.s.-2014/tables/table-43 https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2014/crime-in-the-u.s.-... Cops are more aggressive with black people but don't actually kill them at a greater rate relative to the number of violent crimes committed. Here is Roland G. Fryer's research showing this: https://www.nber.org/papers/w22399 https://www.nber.org/papers/w22399 I'm not discounting that black lives matter. I'm supportive of it. My point is that if we really care about fixing the problems that result in increased mortality in that demographic, we should instead be focusing on likely root causes such as lead poisoning. Lead should be getting so much more attention in the BLM debate, but it does not. Why?

MichaelBosworth 9y ago
Relative to the number of violent crimes committed... according to whom? The cops who fired?
- malandrew 9y ago
  https://www.nber.org/papers/w22399 https://www.nber.org/papers/w22399
- weberc2 9y ago
  The data in the Washington Post dataset was gathered from media reports, not police sources, and it also showed no racial bias in police killings.
briholt 9y ago
BLMers will scream "murder" and "hands up don't shoot" at the top of their lungs at every chance they get, but when confronted with the evidence that the alleged victim of a police shooting was in fact a violent criminal living in violent neighborhood, suddenly the movement is about social issues and body cameras...until the next shooting and the cycle repeats. A movement genuinely pushing for reasonable police reform and replacing lead pipes (for all people of all colors) would be much better received. But the problem is the movement is self-evidently not about actually solving problems. It's about pushing racial narratives. I suspect responses to your comment will further affirm this.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > suddenly the movement is about social issues and body cameras. The movement has always, from day one, been about social issues (with equal accountability foremost among those issues.) Assuring that killers of blacks, law enforcement or otherwise, are held to account until and unless there is clear evidence of justification is central, however, to that. > A movement genuinely pushing for reasonable police reform and replacing lead pipes (for all people of all colors) would be much better received. Movements along both those lines exist and have for longer than BLM, and have beeb generally ignored (conversely, attention driven by BLM has been successful at driving general police reforms.) Those others are not much better received, no matter how many times concern trolls trot out the line that if only BLM wasn't about Black Lives it would somehow magically be better at advancing it's interests and incidentally better at other things, to.
- anigbrowl 9y ago
  You're applying the hierarchical standards of a corporation to a loose-knit network of activists united by a common vision. This would be as foolish as dismissing the open source movement because of Richard Stallman's unfortunate tendency to cut his toenails in public.
- panic 9y ago
  It doesn't matter whether they're violent criminals. Our country has a court system. The role of judge, jury and executioner does not belong to police officers.
anigbrowl 9y ago
every single BLM member or supporter I've engaged in debate with Please don't be offended by this, but perhaps your communication skills are at fault. While it may be tiring for you, people who are dealing with a lot of really difficult problems often need to vent some frustration and anger, both as stress relief and to qualify you (or not) as a sincere ally who won't fade when progress is difficult. If you're in too much of a hurry to sell your solution, notwithstanding your good intentions, your interlocutors are likely to be a bit skeptical because they've heard many such presentations before only to be disappointed by the lack of follow-through. Being right is not always as important as being receptive when you're trying to establish new structural relationships under difficult conditions, whatever those happen to be. I hope this can make your future communications more rewarding, even though it may require a greater initial investment of time and patience.
- malandrew 9y ago
  Enlighten me. How would you make the argument I'm trying to make?
  - anigbrowl 9y ago
    Listen to what they want to tell you, and ask what they think about lead as an environmental and racial justice issue. It's not your responsibility to correct statistical misapprehensions they might have about the incidence of black crime or police use of force unless you are asked, there are plenty of people doing that already. If they're interested and and question your dataset, you can reply that you went with the most scientifically conservative statistics you could find and it's still a huge problem.
    - malandrew 9y ago
      > It's not your responsibility to correct statistical misapprehensions they might have about the incidence of black crime or police use of force unless you are asked, there are plenty of people doing that already. Whose responsibility is it? If someone is debating an issue I would hope they are familiar with and understand the underlying statistics relevant to their claims. If they claim conclusion X based on statistics Y but omit (intentionally or out of ignorance) that conclusion P is also plausible based on statistics Q, it is the responsibility of anyone aware of statistics Q to inform those claiming conclusion X that X isn't the only plausible conclusion one can arrive at because statistics Q exists that suggests conclusion P. Are you seriously suggesting that someone aware of a different dataset that supports a different conclusion only bring attention to that dataset if those claiming the original conclusion are interested? That's preposterous. https://byrslf.co/the-null-hypothesis-loves-you-and-wants-you-to-be-happy-3189413d8cd0 https://byrslf.co/the-null-hypothesis-loves-you-and-wants-yo...
danharaj 9y ago
One provisional study that wasn't published in a journal (and hence wasn't peer reviewed) and furthermore was conducted by someone far afield of the issue does not make a conclusive case about any hypothesis. As an antidote for such loose rhetoric, here are some criticisms of the paper: Rajiv Sethi, Professor of Economics at Columbia University, voicing skepticism of the strength of Fryer's conclusion: http://rajivsethi.blogspot.com/2016/07/police-use-of-force-notes-on-study.html http://rajivsethi.blogspot.com/2016/07/police-use-of-force-n... Dan Hirschman, Associate Professor of Sociology at Brown University, strongly criticizing the methodology and data set Fryer used: https://scatter.wordpress.com/2016/07/11/yes-there-is-racial-bias-in-police-shootings/ https://scatter.wordpress.com/2016/07/11/yes-there-is-racial... A peer-reviewed article in a reputable journal using a different methodology whose results contradict Fryer's: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5227943/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5227943/ Abstract: Objectives. To update previous examinations of racial/ethnic disparities in the use of lethal force by US police. Methods. I examined online national vital statistics data for deaths assigned an underlying cause of “legal intervention” (International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision, external-cause-of-injury codes Y35.0–Y35.7, excluding Y35.5 [legal execution]) for the 5-year period 2010 to 2014. Results. Death certificates identified 2285 legal intervention deaths (1.5 per million population per year) from 2010 to 2014. Among males aged 10 years or older, who represented 96% of these deaths, the mortality rate among non-Hispanic Black and Hispanic individuals was 2.8 and 1.7 times higher, respectively, than that among White individuals. Conclusions. Substantial racial/ethnic disparities in legal intervention deaths remain an ongoing problem in the United States. --- It's not hard to find more of the literature that is more credible and contradicts this paper. To be honest, I don't think you're carrying this discussion in good faith. Who knows? Maybe you've even duped yourself. Maybe don't take the word of an economist doing sketchy and loose research outside of his field of expertise. Being able to wield statistics isn't a scientific superpower. Sociological research isn't a bayesian cookbook recipe.
- malandrew 9y ago
  Take your third one for example, which was the quickest to process due to the presence of an abstract: > Among males aged 10 years or older, who represented 96% of these deaths, the mortality rate among non-Hispanic Black and Hispanic individuals was 2.8 and 1.7 times higher, respectively, than that among White individuals. If this is the argument you're making, than I'm not disputing this fact at all. I'm not arguing that the mortality rate for black individuals is equal to white individuals. It's not. I'm arguing that the mortality rate relative to the frequency of violent crime is more proportional. Look at these statistics for violent crimes: https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2014/crime-in-the-u.s.-2014/tables/table-43 https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2014/crime-in-the-u.s.-...
douche 9y ago
You're thinking rationally about this, which is warning sign one.

MichaelBosworth 9y ago

Relative to the number of violent crimes committed... according to whom? The cops who fired?

malandrew 9y ago
https://www.nber.org/papers/w22399 https://www.nber.org/papers/w22399
weberc2 9y ago
The data in the Washington Post dataset was gathered from media reports, not police sources, and it also showed no racial bias in police killings.

briholt 9y ago

BLMers will scream "murder" and "hands up don't shoot" at the top of their lungs at every chance they get, but when confronted with the evidence that the alleged victim of a police shooting was in fact a violent criminal living in violent neighborhood, suddenly the movement is about social issues and body cameras...until the next shooting and the cycle repeats. A movement genuinely pushing for reasonable police reform and replacing lead pipes (for all people of all colors) would be much better received. But the problem is the movement is self-evidently not about actually solving problems. It's about pushing racial narratives. I suspect responses to your comment will further affirm this.

dragonwriter 9y ago
> suddenly the movement is about social issues and body cameras. The movement has always, from day one, been about social issues (with equal accountability foremost among those issues.) Assuring that killers of blacks, law enforcement or otherwise, are held to account until and unless there is clear evidence of justification is central, however, to that. > A movement genuinely pushing for reasonable police reform and replacing lead pipes (for all people of all colors) would be much better received. Movements along both those lines exist and have for longer than BLM, and have beeb generally ignored (conversely, attention driven by BLM has been successful at driving general police reforms.) Those others are not much better received, no matter how many times concern trolls trot out the line that if only BLM wasn't about Black Lives it would somehow magically be better at advancing it's interests and incidentally better at other things, to.
anigbrowl 9y ago
You're applying the hierarchical standards of a corporation to a loose-knit network of activists united by a common vision. This would be as foolish as dismissing the open source movement because of Richard Stallman's unfortunate tendency to cut his toenails in public.
panic 9y ago
It doesn't matter whether they're violent criminals. Our country has a court system. The role of judge, jury and executioner does not belong to police officers.

anigbrowl 9y ago

every single BLM member or supporter I've engaged in debate with Please don't be offended by this, but perhaps your communication skills are at fault. While it may be tiring for you, people who are dealing with a lot of really difficult problems often need to vent some frustration and anger, both as stress relief and to qualify you (or not) as a sincere ally who won't fade when progress is difficult. If you're in too much of a hurry to sell your solution, notwithstanding your good intentions, your interlocutors are likely to be a bit skeptical because they've heard many such presentations before only to be disappointed by the lack of follow-through. Being right is not always as important as being receptive when you're trying to establish new structural relationships under difficult conditions, whatever those happen to be. I hope this can make your future communications more rewarding, even though it may require a greater initial investment of time and patience.

malandrew 9y ago
Enlighten me. How would you make the argument I'm trying to make?
- anigbrowl 9y ago
  Listen to what they want to tell you, and ask what they think about lead as an environmental and racial justice issue. It's not your responsibility to correct statistical misapprehensions they might have about the incidence of black crime or police use of force unless you are asked, there are plenty of people doing that already. If they're interested and and question your dataset, you can reply that you went with the most scientifically conservative statistics you could find and it's still a huge problem.
  - malandrew 9y ago
    > It's not your responsibility to correct statistical misapprehensions they might have about the incidence of black crime or police use of force unless you are asked, there are plenty of people doing that already. Whose responsibility is it? If someone is debating an issue I would hope they are familiar with and understand the underlying statistics relevant to their claims. If they claim conclusion X based on statistics Y but omit (intentionally or out of ignorance) that conclusion P is also plausible based on statistics Q, it is the responsibility of anyone aware of statistics Q to inform those claiming conclusion X that X isn't the only plausible conclusion one can arrive at because statistics Q exists that suggests conclusion P. Are you seriously suggesting that someone aware of a different dataset that supports a different conclusion only bring attention to that dataset if those claiming the original conclusion are interested? That's preposterous. https://byrslf.co/the-null-hypothesis-loves-you-and-wants-you-to-be-happy-3189413d8cd0 https://byrslf.co/the-null-hypothesis-loves-you-and-wants-yo...

danharaj 9y ago

One provisional study that wasn't published in a journal (and hence wasn't peer reviewed) and furthermore was conducted by someone far afield of the issue does not make a conclusive case about any hypothesis. As an antidote for such loose rhetoric, here are some criticisms of the paper: Rajiv Sethi, Professor of Economics at Columbia University, voicing skepticism of the strength of Fryer's conclusion: http://rajivsethi.blogspot.com/2016/07/police-use-of-force-notes-on-study.html http://rajivsethi.blogspot.com/2016/07/police-use-of-force-n... Dan Hirschman, Associate Professor of Sociology at Brown University, strongly criticizing the methodology and data set Fryer used: https://scatter.wordpress.com/2016/07/11/yes-there-is-racial-bias-in-police-shootings/ https://scatter.wordpress.com/2016/07/11/yes-there-is-racial... A peer-reviewed article in a reputable journal using a different methodology whose results contradict Fryer's: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5227943/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5227943/ Abstract: Objectives. To update previous examinations of racial/ethnic disparities in the use of lethal force by US police. Methods. I examined online national vital statistics data for deaths assigned an underlying cause of “legal intervention” (International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision, external-cause-of-injury codes Y35.0–Y35.7, excluding Y35.5 [legal execution]) for the 5-year period 2010 to 2014. Results. Death certificates identified 2285 legal intervention deaths (1.5 per million population per year) from 2010 to 2014. Among males aged 10 years or older, who represented 96% of these deaths, the mortality rate among non-Hispanic Black and Hispanic individuals was 2.8 and 1.7 times higher, respectively, than that among White individuals. Conclusions. Substantial racial/ethnic disparities in legal intervention deaths remain an ongoing problem in the United States. --- It's not hard to find more of the literature that is more credible and contradicts this paper. To be honest, I don't think you're carrying this discussion in good faith. Who knows? Maybe you've even duped yourself. Maybe don't take the word of an economist doing sketchy and loose research outside of his field of expertise. Being able to wield statistics isn't a scientific superpower. Sociological research isn't a bayesian cookbook recipe.

malandrew 9y ago
Take your third one for example, which was the quickest to process due to the presence of an abstract: > Among males aged 10 years or older, who represented 96% of these deaths, the mortality rate among non-Hispanic Black and Hispanic individuals was 2.8 and 1.7 times higher, respectively, than that among White individuals. If this is the argument you're making, than I'm not disputing this fact at all. I'm not arguing that the mortality rate for black individuals is equal to white individuals. It's not. I'm arguing that the mortality rate relative to the frequency of violent crime is more proportional. Look at these statistics for violent crimes: https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2014/crime-in-the-u.s.-2014/tables/table-43 https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2014/crime-in-the-u.s.-...

douche 9y ago

You're thinking rationally about this, which is warning sign one.