Black people twice as likely to be charged with drugs possession – report

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Originally Posted by RandBlade

Go on compare it. You said compare it so do so please.

What great privilege does a white child of a trailer-park single mother have over the black child of two wealthy and successful Harvard Law School graduates? You pointedly refused to ever answer this in that thread so if you are now talking about "crying" about "reverse racism" I'm guessing you are implying that such privileges do exist and/or that in your opinion racism is perfectly acceptable in the right circumstances?

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I haven't answered it because I hadn't yet figured out how to explain to you that you were attacking something that doesn't really exist, namely a situation in which "black skin" trumps all other considerations in selecting a prospective student or an employee. Oh look, I guess it was easier than I thought it'd be, so easy that I'm surprised you couldn't figure it out in your own head :confused:

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Maybe. Need further information.

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You don't have further information, that's all you get. Based on fears and trends etc. it may be perfectly all right for a woman walking home alone at night to distance herself from a random unknown man also walking home alone at night in the same general direction. Does that man's walking home alone at night constitute suspicious behaviour in and of itself? Is it suspicious enough in and of itself to justify being stopped and frisked? For a very large number of NYPD's stops and gropes of innocent citizens the police could or did not even articulate a cause, perhaps because "he was black" isn't a legitimate suspicious behaviour and "I need to seem more keen" isn't a legitimate cause.

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Do you think driving home at night constitutes "suspicious behaviour"? Do you think the Police should stop and interrogate and breathalyse a man for exhibiting that particular behaviour? Do you think that should happen over and over again?

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I don't think driving home at night in and of itself constitutes "suspicious behaviour". If the driving is characteristically erratic or otherwise dangerous and illegal then that might justify a stop. I am wary of recommending screening initiatives by police unless it can be ensured that they're implemented in effective and fair ways.

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Originally Posted by RandBlade

It has nothing to do with racism. Travellers are not a race and are not identifiable by skin or accent or any such - and I never said Roma, I've never dealt with Roma. They're identifiable by behaviour.

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"Gypsies" (aka Roma) would probably say your use of language is at least a false stereotype, and quite possibly bigoted. If you're worried (or paranoid) about strangers in vehicle caravans....what do you think when motorcycle clubs, motor home clubs, or "The Carnival" comes to town? :confused:

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Then that would be a different situation. Its more common for people to live in mobile homes in the US and of course after natural disasters (which we don't get so aren't relevant) its different. :rolleyes:

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You made some wrong assumptions, based on unfounded, negative "stereotypes". Natural Disasters don't affect just "mobile home" dwellers, and construction trades don't mobilize across state lines, after a tornado, just to scam people. :rolleyes:

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I've NEVER denied service to someone. I would refuse to swap change (due to "change scamming" which I've been burned by just one before) but since I've never worked in a bank that's not a denial of service. They'd be served but I'd make sure the payment went through smootly. I was a victim of a change scam once when new to dealing with cash and the public. Since then keeping precautions has prevented it being repeated.

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Okay, same could be said for any other restaurant, motel operator, or vendor concerned about "scams". Monetary fraud can appear in many forms, from cash/coins to check writing or credit/debit cards. What's your point? A few petty thieves in-person are more dangerous to businesses than organized digital/computer credit card fraud and theft that happens behind the scenes, on grander scales?

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Chavs are identifiable by appearance. Hard to exactly put your finger on it other than a "know it when you see it". Typically shaved head, particular style of clothing, etc, etc

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Sounds like the description of pornography. :bulb: How does UK police deal with this inexact group of people? I recall an attempt to ban hoodies in shopping districts and malls, which didn't turn out so well.

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Originally Posted by GGT

Yeah, let's think about what that actually means. That stat shouldn't be seen in isolation, or used to presume "black males are more likely to commit crimes". It's also a reflection of disparities in income, tax bases, and conflicts-of-interest within our police and legal systems. Public defenders are understaffed/underfunded, compared to police and prosecutors. Tax payers are more likely to vote for "tough on crime" Sheriffs, DAs, or Attorney Generals. And traditionally more willing to approve public funding for prisons/jails....even outsourcing to private for-profit entities....while cutting funds for early Education, Social Services, Mental Health, Rehab facilities, Halfway Homes, etc.

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All of which is utterly irrelevant when making an instant decision about whether you are in danger. Color of skin is an easily noticeable trait, even if there's no causal impact of being black. You can't always tell whether someone is poor, violent, etc.

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If I see two young black/brown males late at night in Philly (where my son lives), your "probability" stat doesn't really mean shit. It doesn't mean much more in my home city (which BTW has a statistically higher rate of theft and violent crime, per capita, than Philly!).

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"Today, blacks are 42 percent of Philadelphia’s population and 83 percent of known murder offenders. Whites are now 37 percent of the population and 4 percent of known murder offenders."

http://www.wnd.com/2013/04/mayor-cha...ce-discussion/

In sum, your judgment skills leave a lot to be desired.

There are other groups of travelling people, eg. the Irish travellers in the UK.

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Originally Posted by Loki

In sum, your judgment skills leave a lot to be desired.

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It's probably all right, her son is white and the vast majority of black men aren't murderers anyway. While relative risk numbers are interesting we can't just ignore absolute risk.

You're assuming that a person faces only one such decision over his lifetime. Someone living in Philly has a 1.2% chance of being the victim of a violent crime and a 3% chance of being the victim of a property crime in a given year. Those numbers both skyrocket for certain neighborhoods, and presumably for anyone who's not smart enough to know where it's ok to walk at night.

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Originally Posted by Loki

All of which is utterly irrelevant when making an instant decision about whether you are in danger. Color of skin is an easily noticeable trait, even if there's no causal impact of being black. You can't always tell whether someone is poor, violent, etc.

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Isn't that what I said? Deciding "danger" by comprehensive visual clues is more valuable than judging by skin color alone. Some important variables are whether you're alone, if you're facing an individual or a group, if it's night or day time, in a familiar or strange environment...and gender.

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"Today, blacks are 42 percent of Philadelphia’s population and 83 percent of known murder offenders. Whites are now 37 percent of the population and 4 percent of known murder offenders."

http://www.wnd.com/2013/04/mayor-cha...ce-discussion/

In sum, your judgment skills leave a lot to be desired.

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:rolleyes: Your analytical skills are crap. Philly has many different areas, from the wealthy Main Line to pockets of inner city poverty. Colleges and universities can be top-notch, while being located near or around those pockets of poverty and crime. University of Pennsylvania and Temple University are two good examples.

Problems often attributed to race might be better explained by poverty. Entrenched poverty, generational poverty, institutional poverty. The kind of (white) poverty seen in farming and mining communities from Appalachia to Wyoming.

Nice of you to finally acknowledge the obvious. Note how everyone here was talking about young males. But I guess it's ok to avoid people on that basis...

And yet the murder rates in those poor mining and farming communities aren't very different to the nation as whole. Can't say the same for inner cities.

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Originally Posted by Loki

You're assuming that a person faces only one such decision over his lifetime. Someone living in Philly has a 1.2% chance of being the victim of a violent crime and a 3% chance of being the victim of a property crime in a given year. Those numbers both skyrocket for certain neighborhoods, and presumably for anyone who's not smart enough to know where it's ok to walk at night.

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I'd love to see the source thank you (not denying numbers or anything mind you).

http://www.neighborhoodscout.com/pa/philadelphia/crime/

Violent crime = 12 per 1,000 = 1.2%
Property crime = 3.9 per 1,000 = 3.9% (typo in previous post)
Combined = 5.1% chance of being the victim of a reported crime (many crimes aren't reported)

Both are annual statistics

You forgot to mention age and gender, relative to individual or group behavior, are more important than race. :donkey:

Only if you ignore every post that said "young black male"...

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Originally Posted by Loki

http://www.neighborhoodscout.com/pa/philadelphia/crime/

Violent crime = 12 per 1,000 = 1.2%
Property crime = 3.9 per 1,000 = 3.9% (typo in previous post)
Combined = 5.1% chance of being the victim of a reported crime (many crimes aren't reported)

Both are annual statistics

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As I said, using that source, my town's stats are 'worse' than Philly. Crime Index = 7. Chances of becoming a victim of violent crime = 1 in 61. Chances of being a victim of property crime = 1 in 25. :donkey:

I bet you neither reside in nor frequent the parts of town that are most responsible for that crime rate. :noob:

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Originally Posted by Veldan Rath

As I live in Maine, the teens that are dangerous are white, thus when I see a group of unruly teens I keep an eye out for trouble...thus I must hate white people. It is unreasonable for me to ready my self for trouble.

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In Maine, the only dangerous places are the 7-Eleven on Riverside and the Denny's on Congress.

Although if you're worried about middle-aged drunk white men, the old port has its moments.

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Originally Posted by sheadunne

In Maine, the only dangerous places are the 7-Eleven on Riverside and the Denny's on Congress.

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Or between you and a coed.

Trust me, in the days before I had a car, and walked from the theater to my apartment in Portland after midnight, there were a few nights of trepidation...and I had to either cross streets or take even different streets.

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Originally Posted by Loki

I bet you neither reside in nor frequent the parts of town that are most responsible for that crime rate. :noob:

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Wrong. :p I live between two college campuses (drunken fights or property crimes) that are close to the city's low-income housing, but also the medical campus with high-income housing. Most of the drug busts (meth and heroin) are in rural areas.

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Originally Posted by Aimless

http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...rug-possession

I can think of at least one possible explanation that doesn't have to do with racism and prejudice but i haven't yet gone through the report or the relevant laws to test that hunch

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Independent of all other factors, hockey players wearing dark colors get penalties at a higher rate than players wearing lighter colors. You have to wonder if dark skinned people in majority white societies get singled out this way in every country. Do blacks in England, for example, get charged with crimes at a higher rate than whites? Does anyone even bother to look at that data anywhere else besides the US?

Using that logic, why are Indian-Americans and Indian-Brits far less likely to get charged with crimes? Why are literal African-Americans (recent immigrants from Africa) succeeding at roughly the same rate as whites?

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Originally Posted by Loki

Using that logic, why are Indian-Americans and Indian-Brits far less likely to get charged with crimes? Why are literal African-Americans (recent immigrants from Africa) succeeding at roughly the same rate as whites?

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The appropriate comparison to the hockey-player situation would be, I think, to see if dark-skinned people get more negative attention than do white people in the same situations. Indians keep their heads down :downcast:

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Originally Posted by Loki

Using that logic, why are Indian-Americans and Indian-Brits far less likely to get charged with crimes? Why are literal African-Americans (recent immigrants from Africa) succeeding at roughly the same rate as whites?

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Who, me? I was asking questions, not answering them.....

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Originally Posted by Aimless

The appropriate comparison to the hockey-player situation would be, I think, to see if dark-skinned people get more negative attention than do white people in the same situations. Indians keep their heads down :downcast:

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It can't simply be the skin tone - though it would be interesting to see if very dark African Americans are charged with more crime than the lighter. Around where I live Indians sometimes look Arabic and so are probably disproportionately feared as terrorists. Sometimes? That comes down to dress, I think.

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Originally Posted by EyeKhan

Independent of all other factors, hockey players wearing dark colors get penalties at a higher rate than players wearing lighter colors.

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I don't know much about hockey, but doesn't the jersey color depend on whether they're home or visiting team? If the home team usually wears whites, it'd be hard to tell if penalties are colors or "home advantage". :bulb:

For once, I am in agreement with GGT. :noob: It's an interesting fact that in most major sports, referees are nicer to the home team.

:D Sounds like some kind of anthropological phenomenon inherited from ancestors....when nighttime was pitch black and boogie man scary. Black Hat/White Hat syndrome? Interesting to note that many sports referees wear both black and white, in even and symmetrical stripes.

Not sure what that meant for B & W striped prison garb though. :noob:

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Originally Posted by GGT

I don't know much about hockey, but doesn't the jersey color depend on whether they're home or visiting team? If the home team usually wears whites, it'd be hard to tell if penalties are colors or "home advantage". :bulb:

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I didn't look at the study itself, only heard the reporting on it, and the reporting said "home team advantage" was corrected for.

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Originally Posted by GGT

:D Sounds like some kind of anthropological phenomenon inherited from ancestors....when nighttime was pitch black and boogie man scary. Black Hat/White Hat syndrome? Interesting to note that many sports referees wear both black and white, in even and symmetrical stripes.

Not sure what that meant for B & W striped prison garb though. :noob:

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I find black spiders in my house much more frightening than the creamy colored ones. And the tiny black and white striped jumping spiders don't scare me at all.