5 ms·

Are you aware the US jails more of its people than any other nation? No other country comes close. Like 5% of the world's population but 25% of its prisoners. (

Are you aware the US jails more of its people than any other nation? No other country comes close. Like 5% of the world's population but 25% of its prisoners. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarcerat...) As you can verify by digging deeper into the data, the US is highly racist; massive numbers of Blacks are incarcerated. (This is what happens when a society was recently forced to stop formal slavery, without other fundamental changes. You still have to control them.) You can imagine how this destroys Black families, as well as the pervasive racist attitudes which are necessary to keep otherwise decent people from uniting to tear the system down. The argument that racist attitudes make a difference is all the more compelling, when you consider that tech investors often make snap judgements on pitches which last mere minutes. Assuming you can even get to that point. So with all due respect, I'm not sure you have a clear view of the US. Though I have no doubt that your country is exploited by foreign powers, like the US. (People who'll do that to their fellow citizens will happily do the same — or worse — to you.) And I don't just mean relatively skilled software programmers.

grammaton 15y ago
I'm terribly sorry, but you're making a huge leap here. The fact that "massive numbers" of blacks are incarcerated does not automatically imply pervasive racism. The one does not necessarily imply the other.
- Rariel 15y ago
  What about the fact that Black men were disproportionately executed for rape, so much so that they stopped making the death penalty an option for rape cases? Is that institutionalized racism or just bad luck?
  - grammaton 15y ago
    I was under the impression that it was actually poor men who were executed disproportionately for rape. And while we're tossing stats around, how about the general amount of crime committed by said Black men? It is higher per capita, is it not? Is that due to racism too?
    - Rariel 15y ago
      You are incorrect, it is not poor men. "Of the 455 men executed for rape in the United States between 1930 and 1967, 90 percent were African American." Although I'm sure the vast majority of those men were poor. re: stats please provide some if you'd like some in return because you've made a huge generalization and I'd say that it's your bias speaking (not racism). In response to your question, if it is true that black men commit more crimes I'd say that the situation of blacks in america is directly tied racism, slavery and the like so yes, it is due to racism too.
      - grammaton 15y ago
        "Between 1930 and 1967" You're going to have to do better than citing stats that are 44 years old. All this proves is that 44 years ago, there was a problem, which is not exactly a point of contention among most sentient beings at this point. "you've made a huge generalization and I'd say that it's your bias speaking (not racism)." Seriously? These are not obscure statistics I'm talking about here. Here, check this one out: "As of 2005, statistics show that offending rates for blacks were more than 7 times higher than the rates for whites." Taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States#Characteristics_of_offenders http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States#Char... Or how about: "These specific facts about the Bell shooting are just a few of the hundreds of thousands of data points that reveal a hard truth: any given violent crime in New York is 13 times more likely to have a black than a white perpetrator. While most black residents are law-abiding and desperately deserve police protection, the incidence of criminal activity among young black males is off the charts." Taken from http://www.city-journal.org/html/eon2007-04-02hm.html http://www.city-journal.org/html/eon2007-04-02hm.html And that was with five minutes of Googling. I'm not making some wild, off the wall assertion here. This is a well known and exhaustively documented fact. "I'd say that the situation of blacks in america is directly tied racism, slavery and the like so yes, it is due to racism too." I figured you would. Slavery ended 150 years ago, so if you want to assert that some 7 generations later it's still having effects, I welcome you to provide data to that effect. This, right here, is the problem in a nutshell - the minute these facts are mentioned, the hue and cry of racism and slavery goes up, and all further thought on the matter stops. The causes of this situation are complex, and reducing them to one dimensional truisms does no one any favors.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - pandaman 15y ago
    Rape used to be a capital offense in the USSR and no black had been executed for that. However they stopped making the death penalty an option anyways. The reason being that it turned most rapes into rape+murder.
- calibraxis 15y ago
  True, I didn't offer a mathematical proof. Though I can offer my personal experiences growing up in a racist urban environment. One of many memories which stand out was during gym class, when a 12 year old White person whispered into my ear, "It smells like niggers in honey." (Where did he come up with that?) Maybe I can recommend Tim Wise, if you wish to delve deeper? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2mjvFNOwmc&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2mjvFNOwmc&feature=relat...) But I do not think racist attitudes account for everything. Far more important is institutional racism. (Institutional analysis is by nature impersonal: if you replace all the individuals, the institutions will operate pretty much the same. Same racist outcomes.)
  - alttag 15y ago
    Even within the U.S., it's been my observation that the sort of embedded undercurrent of racism you seem to be addressing varies widely by geography and generation. For example, I grew up on the Pacific coast and went to high school in the Seattle area. I didn't observe what I would call overt acts of racism (whether it was lack of awareness or lack of incidence is another argument). There were enough people of every ancestry possible that racism seemed like a silly idea. Later (in my 20s) I lived in and visited many places in the Rocky Mountain area. In many communities there was a significant population of Hispanics. Too often, they were poor, typically as a consequence of recent immigration (generationally) or education. However, the social environment was unfortunately such that it reinforced negative stereotypes. By this I mean that if the only people of another race you encounter on a daily basis were poor (and everyone successful looks like you), subconsciously your behavior with regard to that population will change. There aren't enough teachers and school leaders (for example) of Hispanic descent in areas with high Hispanic populations. Research shows that this is because those that go to college choose not to teach because the salaries put them in near poverty conditions—something many are trying to escape via higher education. (To this point, we in the U.S. have created self-reinforcing discriminatory environment years ago with segregation, which limited educational attainment to a large population. By doing so, policy and practice practically ensured poverty and its associated ills. We're getting over it, but it will take time. Moving large groups from poverty can take a couple of generations.) In the South (I'm now in Georgia), I find that race is mostly an issue for those about 15 years older than me—those that lived during times where discrimination was more overt. As we were house hunting, more than one well-meaning (but misguided) elderly person suggested the neighborhood had gone downhill since [$race] moved in. The social conditions where we grow up matter. The presence or absence of successful people of different races matters. Geography (and local history) matters. The extent to which people have traveled or moved from where they grew up matters.
- smacktoward 15y ago
  You're right. What does imply the other is the disproportionate percentage of African-Americans in the prison popuplation, relative to the percentage they are of the overall population (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States#Minorities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_St...). African-Americans are disproportionately imprisoned in every state; in twenty states, they're imprisoned at five times the rate you would expect by their share of the state's population.
mynameishere 15y ago
Black people are incarcerated more because they commit more crime. Proportionately, they commit about 8x as many violent crimes as whites. It's not really a statistic that you should try to use to combat "racism".
- marcusf 15y ago
  Doesn't it feel slightly disingenuous and shallow to just quote that statistic outright and not look at the why's behind it? Especially in the context of this discussion?
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]

grammaton 15y ago

I'm terribly sorry, but you're making a huge leap here. The fact that "massive numbers" of blacks are incarcerated does not automatically imply pervasive racism. The one does not necessarily imply the other.

Rariel 15y ago
What about the fact that Black men were disproportionately executed for rape, so much so that they stopped making the death penalty an option for rape cases? Is that institutionalized racism or just bad luck?
- grammaton 15y ago
  I was under the impression that it was actually poor men who were executed disproportionately for rape. And while we're tossing stats around, how about the general amount of crime committed by said Black men? It is higher per capita, is it not? Is that due to racism too?
  - Rariel 15y ago
    You are incorrect, it is not poor men. "Of the 455 men executed for rape in the United States between 1930 and 1967, 90 percent were African American." Although I'm sure the vast majority of those men were poor. re: stats please provide some if you'd like some in return because you've made a huge generalization and I'd say that it's your bias speaking (not racism). In response to your question, if it is true that black men commit more crimes I'd say that the situation of blacks in america is directly tied racism, slavery and the like so yes, it is due to racism too.
    - grammaton 15y ago
      "Between 1930 and 1967" You're going to have to do better than citing stats that are 44 years old. All this proves is that 44 years ago, there was a problem, which is not exactly a point of contention among most sentient beings at this point. "you've made a huge generalization and I'd say that it's your bias speaking (not racism)." Seriously? These are not obscure statistics I'm talking about here. Here, check this one out: "As of 2005, statistics show that offending rates for blacks were more than 7 times higher than the rates for whites." Taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States#Characteristics_of_offenders http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States#Char... Or how about: "These specific facts about the Bell shooting are just a few of the hundreds of thousands of data points that reveal a hard truth: any given violent crime in New York is 13 times more likely to have a black than a white perpetrator. While most black residents are law-abiding and desperately deserve police protection, the incidence of criminal activity among young black males is off the charts." Taken from http://www.city-journal.org/html/eon2007-04-02hm.html http://www.city-journal.org/html/eon2007-04-02hm.html And that was with five minutes of Googling. I'm not making some wild, off the wall assertion here. This is a well known and exhaustively documented fact. "I'd say that the situation of blacks in america is directly tied racism, slavery and the like so yes, it is due to racism too." I figured you would. Slavery ended 150 years ago, so if you want to assert that some 7 generations later it's still having effects, I welcome you to provide data to that effect. This, right here, is the problem in a nutshell - the minute these facts are mentioned, the hue and cry of racism and slavery goes up, and all further thought on the matter stops. The causes of this situation are complex, and reducing them to one dimensional truisms does no one any favors.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- pandaman 15y ago
  Rape used to be a capital offense in the USSR and no black had been executed for that. However they stopped making the death penalty an option anyways. The reason being that it turned most rapes into rape+murder.
calibraxis 15y ago
True, I didn't offer a mathematical proof. Though I can offer my personal experiences growing up in a racist urban environment. One of many memories which stand out was during gym class, when a 12 year old White person whispered into my ear, "It smells like niggers in honey." (Where did he come up with that?) Maybe I can recommend Tim Wise, if you wish to delve deeper? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2mjvFNOwmc&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2mjvFNOwmc&feature=relat...) But I do not think racist attitudes account for everything. Far more important is institutional racism. (Institutional analysis is by nature impersonal: if you replace all the individuals, the institutions will operate pretty much the same. Same racist outcomes.)
- alttag 15y ago
  Even within the U.S., it's been my observation that the sort of embedded undercurrent of racism you seem to be addressing varies widely by geography and generation. For example, I grew up on the Pacific coast and went to high school in the Seattle area. I didn't observe what I would call overt acts of racism (whether it was lack of awareness or lack of incidence is another argument). There were enough people of every ancestry possible that racism seemed like a silly idea. Later (in my 20s) I lived in and visited many places in the Rocky Mountain area. In many communities there was a significant population of Hispanics. Too often, they were poor, typically as a consequence of recent immigration (generationally) or education. However, the social environment was unfortunately such that it reinforced negative stereotypes. By this I mean that if the only people of another race you encounter on a daily basis were poor (and everyone successful looks like you), subconsciously your behavior with regard to that population will change. There aren't enough teachers and school leaders (for example) of Hispanic descent in areas with high Hispanic populations. Research shows that this is because those that go to college choose not to teach because the salaries put them in near poverty conditions—something many are trying to escape via higher education. (To this point, we in the U.S. have created self-reinforcing discriminatory environment years ago with segregation, which limited educational attainment to a large population. By doing so, policy and practice practically ensured poverty and its associated ills. We're getting over it, but it will take time. Moving large groups from poverty can take a couple of generations.) In the South (I'm now in Georgia), I find that race is mostly an issue for those about 15 years older than me—those that lived during times where discrimination was more overt. As we were house hunting, more than one well-meaning (but misguided) elderly person suggested the neighborhood had gone downhill since [$race] moved in. The social conditions where we grow up matter. The presence or absence of successful people of different races matters. Geography (and local history) matters. The extent to which people have traveled or moved from where they grew up matters.
smacktoward 15y ago
You're right. What does imply the other is the disproportionate percentage of African-Americans in the prison popuplation, relative to the percentage they are of the overall population (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States#Minorities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_St...). African-Americans are disproportionately imprisoned in every state; in twenty states, they're imprisoned at five times the rate you would expect by their share of the state's population.

mynameishere 15y ago

Black people are incarcerated more because they commit more crime. Proportionately, they commit about 8x as many violent crimes as whites. It's not really a statistic that you should try to use to combat "racism".

marcusf 15y ago
Doesn't it feel slightly disingenuous and shallow to just quote that statistic outright and not look at the why's behind it? Especially in the context of this discussion?
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]