What would be some fact that, while true, could be told in a context or way that is misinfomating or make the other person draw incorrect conclusions?

  • grue@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    The real bottom line is that when you create an underclass of people whose neighborhoods get firebombed or bulldozed when they get too affluent (see e.g. “Black Wall Street” in Tulsa and Auburn Avenue (formerly “the richest Negro street in the world”) in Atanta, respectively) and had generations of absent fathers due to persecution for things like “vagrancy”, of course they’re going to stop giving a shit about laws that bind but do not protect them! It’s entirely rational that people systematically excluded from being able to get ahead while acting within the law, and whose behaviors are deliberately criminalized in order to target them, would end up committing crimes at higher rates than the people benefiting from their oppression did. In other words, even if it’s true that they actually commit crimes at higher rates (as opposed to being accused at higher rates or being less likely to avoid conviction, as you pointed out, which just make the statistical bias even worse by compounding on top), even that is disingenous because it ignores that the disparity is caused by classism and institutional racism, not anything intrinsic to their race itself. The fiction that it’s somehow their own fault is like a society-wide version of “stop hitting yourself.”

    • OwenEverbinde@reddthat.com
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      1 year ago

      Oh 100% this. The main accomplishment of Tulsa and Auburn was keeping black people impoverished, and…

      “About 60 [academic] papers show that a very common result of greater inequality is more violence, usually measured by homicide rates,” says Richard Wilkinson, author of The Spirit Level and co-founder of the Equality Trust. - source

      For as long as society insists on high inequality with one race forcefully held at the bottom, no rational person can expect that race to be peaceful.

      It’s just… I have a hard time bringing this concept to the table in a debate with people who believe “personal responsibility” can somehow magically indemnify society against its impact on people.

      In fact, I am generally speechless when debating such people. It’s such an alien worldview to me. How can personal responsibility actually make society irrelevant? And since when?

      The kinds of people who spout the 13-50 argument basically believe NOTHING society does can increase or decrease murder (except, when convenient, being “too soft on children” or “soft on crime.”)