4 ms·

"Foreign born" is really not the best judge of diversity in this context imo. I would instead look at the fraction of population that has European ancestry. I

by blix 5y ago

"Foreign born" is really not the best judge of diversity in this context imo. I would instead look at the fraction of population that has European ancestry. I have not seen many statistics linking foreign-born residents to higher crime, but locally-born oppressed minority populations (e.g. Black, Aboriginal, Native, Maori) are disproportionately represented in the criminal justice system due to ongoing legacies of systemic violence.

mpweiher 5y ago
Generally, when you correct for poverty, those differences disappear.
- laverya 5y ago
  I thought the whole point of the ongoing systemic racism debates in the US was that even after correcting for poverty, African Americans still had worse outcomes on essentially every metric from college graduation to murder rate?
  - mpweiher 5y ago
    While there are almost certainly small variations, the high order bit is economics. By a wide margin. This is almost invariably left out of the equation when these things are reported. Just like the so-called "gender wage gap", which is at best a "gender earnings gap", because pay is equivalent, dissipates almost entirely when you account for things like occupation and hours worked.
    - blix 5y ago
      Even if you accept that differences are solely economic (this a very tough sell for raical inequality imo, it's far from fully explained by economics), that leaves you with the question of why are black people disproportionately impoverished. This is a tougher question than why women tend to work fewer hours.
      - mpweiher 5y ago
        Hmmm...I used "generally" and "high order bit". Somehow this turned into "solely". Why? And I am fully aware that these facts are a "tough sell" these days, because they don't fit the prevailing narrative. Another one: yes, the criminal justice system is biased against blacks. However, it is vastly more biased against males. By a 6:1 margin. And yes, I agree that the question why black people who are not recent immigrants are disproportionately impoverished is important to answer. It is important to ask the right questions if you want to get a usable answer. And I doubt there is a unifactorial answer. Why the "who are not recent immigrants"? Black people who are recent immigrants from Africa actually do better economically than whites.
        blix 5y ago
        "Solely" is a thought experiment, just to highlight the importance of that question. It's a tough sell because statistics don't back it up; there are other significant factors at play. There are certainly some biases against men but i think you are overestimating this one. Are you accounting for the differences between men and women? The success of African immigrants suggests that the effect really has nothing to do with skin color, but other societal and cultural factors. Luckily society and culture are both mutable.
        mpweiher 5y ago
        1. When someone writes "generally" and you answer with "solely", it sure sounds a lot like you're setting up a straw-man. 2. The statistics do back it up. 3. "This gender gap is about six times as large as the racial disparity that Prof. Starr found in another recent paper." https://web.archive.org/web/20180428124536/https://www.law.umich.edu/newsandinfo/features/Pages/starr_gender_disparities.aspx https://web.archive.org/web/20180428124536/https://www.law.u... 4. Yes, skin color certainly does not appear to be a dominant factor, and maybe not a factor at all as you write.
        blix 5y ago
        A young black man in the 2nd perctile of income has the same chance of being incarcerated as a young white man in the 65th. The difference between the 1st percentile and 99th percentile young white men is smaller than between 80th percentile black men and white men. [1] I'm not sure which stats you are looking at, but the ones I see suggest that economics are not the biggest factor. The gender disparity is interesting and I wasn't aware of it's severity. Thanks. [1] https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2018/03/19/race-class-debate/ https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2018/03/19/race-class-deba...
ikr678 5y ago
Access to guns is the main source of gun crime. 'Oppressed local minority populations' or non-european diversity or whatever other racial euphemism you wish to use has nothing to do with it.

by blix 5y ago

mpweiher 5y ago

Generally, when you correct for poverty, those differences disappear.

laverya 5y ago
I thought the whole point of the ongoing systemic racism debates in the US was that even after correcting for poverty, African Americans still had worse outcomes on essentially every metric from college graduation to murder rate?
- mpweiher 5y ago
  While there are almost certainly small variations, the high order bit is economics. By a wide margin. This is almost invariably left out of the equation when these things are reported. Just like the so-called "gender wage gap", which is at best a "gender earnings gap", because pay is equivalent, dissipates almost entirely when you account for things like occupation and hours worked.
  - blix 5y ago
    Even if you accept that differences are solely economic (this a very tough sell for raical inequality imo, it's far from fully explained by economics), that leaves you with the question of why are black people disproportionately impoverished. This is a tougher question than why women tend to work fewer hours.
    - mpweiher 5y ago
      Hmmm...I used "generally" and "high order bit". Somehow this turned into "solely". Why? And I am fully aware that these facts are a "tough sell" these days, because they don't fit the prevailing narrative. Another one: yes, the criminal justice system is biased against blacks. However, it is vastly more biased against males. By a 6:1 margin. And yes, I agree that the question why black people who are not recent immigrants are disproportionately impoverished is important to answer. It is important to ask the right questions if you want to get a usable answer. And I doubt there is a unifactorial answer. Why the "who are not recent immigrants"? Black people who are recent immigrants from Africa actually do better economically than whites.
      - blix 5y ago
        "Solely" is a thought experiment, just to highlight the importance of that question. It's a tough sell because statistics don't back it up; there are other significant factors at play. There are certainly some biases against men but i think you are overestimating this one. Are you accounting for the differences between men and women? The success of African immigrants suggests that the effect really has nothing to do with skin color, but other societal and cultural factors. Luckily society and culture are both mutable.
        mpweiher 5y ago
        1. When someone writes "generally" and you answer with "solely", it sure sounds a lot like you're setting up a straw-man. 2. The statistics do back it up. 3. "This gender gap is about six times as large as the racial disparity that Prof. Starr found in another recent paper." https://web.archive.org/web/20180428124536/https://www.law.umich.edu/newsandinfo/features/Pages/starr_gender_disparities.aspx https://web.archive.org/web/20180428124536/https://www.law.u... 4. Yes, skin color certainly does not appear to be a dominant factor, and maybe not a factor at all as you write.
        blix 5y ago
        A young black man in the 2nd perctile of income has the same chance of being incarcerated as a young white man in the 65th. The difference between the 1st percentile and 99th percentile young white men is smaller than between 80th percentile black men and white men. [1] I'm not sure which stats you are looking at, but the ones I see suggest that economics are not the biggest factor. The gender disparity is interesting and I wasn't aware of it's severity. Thanks. [1] https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2018/03/19/race-class-debate/ https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2018/03/19/race-class-deba...

ikr678 5y ago

Access to guns is the main source of gun crime. 'Oppressed local minority populations' or non-european diversity or whatever other racial euphemism you wish to use has nothing to do with it.