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Off-topic, but sometimes statistics can certainly be deemed as "racist". For example, in many European countries it would not be tolerated to report crime rates
by kbart 9y ago
Off-topic, but sometimes statistics can certainly be deemed as "racist". For example, in many European countries it would not be tolerated to report crime rates by nationality. Not sure if it's illegal or falls under media self-censorship duty though.
- adjkant 9y agoThe statistic is not the "racist" part. It's the context, which is usually reflective of other conditions that certain races are exposed to, often through racism, that leads to lower income levels, worse housing and neighborhoods from a sociology standpoint, and eventually increased crime rates. I suspect that the countries refrain from reporting crime rates by race because most people will not look at those deeper causes but take them to imply that race X is more delinquent than race Y. You see that type of logic all the time in the US. I would say the solution is to add that context to the statistics when reporting them instead of not reporting at all, but I don't think even whoever is choosing to not report the crime rates by race believes the statistics themselves are racist.
- kbart 9y agoYou are right, of course, statistics without context cannot possibly be racist (how could it be? it's just a bunch of numbers after all). That's why I said "deemed as" not "can be".