James Taranto takes Michigan media functionary Jen Eyer to task for her guidelines on how not to discuss racial issues in the comments of her organization’s site. The things to avoid include:
- Overt racism
- Accusations of racism
- Generalizations
- Thread-jacking
- False equivalence
- Racial descriptions
- Crime statistics
Now if there were an automatic filter that could screen out the first six in that list plus “guilt by association” I am convinced that it would reduce the number of web comments by 90% or more. Not to mention blog posts.
After addressing the shortcomings of her formulations of 1—6, Mr. Taranto devotes substantial column space to a consideration of her aversion for crime statistics in discussions of race. If you’re interested in Mr. Taranto’s views, I urge you to read his column in full. I’d like to make a few remarks about the FBI crime statistics.
First, facts are not themselves racist and, when you find that facts make you uncomfortable, it’s probably time to reconsider your assumptions.
Second, sometimes it’s hard to identify when facts actually are facts. Not all statistics represent facts. Sometimes it takes a bit of digging through methodology do determine how factual the statistics actually are. However, in the case of the FBI crime statistics, my confidence that they do represent facts is pretty fair.
Third, I’ve examined the FBI crime statistics and have reached a different conclusion than Ms. Eyer has. It is incontrovertible that there is a strong racial differential in the commission of violent crimes and that the rates per 100,000 population are much higher among blacks than among whites or Hispanics. However, while race is a factor the facts do not support the view that it’s the only factor and I don’t believe that violent crime can be reduced to poverty or even race plus poverty.
Rural blacks are not notably more violent or criminal than rural whites. But the incidence of crime among urban blacks is much higher than among urban whites. My conclusion from this is that the problem is gangs and that the problems presented by gangs are particularly virulent among blacks.
We’ll never be able to cope with the problems of violent crime, problems that fall particularly heavy on blacks who form most of the victims of crimes perpetrated by blacks, without facing the facts squarely and unflinchingly. First, figure out what they are. Look at all of the facts. Then comes the hard part: doing something about it.
What I think is disappointing about the notion of ignoring crime statistics, is that it allows people to overlook the identity of not just the perpetrators, but the victims.
Gangs plus drugs. Decriminalize/legalize drugs and a lot of the difference goes away. Even after (if) we fix that I think it will take along time for things to get better. I am more convinced than ever that human capital is important and difficult to recapture once lost.
As an aside, I think people underestimate the risks of rural life. Under the broad rubric of accidental/traumatic death, which would include homicides, rural death rates are higher. WHile murder rates may be lower, rates of death from MVAs, falls and accidental shootings are high enough to more than offset urban risks. Some of this is just due to the inability to provide care quickly.
Steve
This is an area on which we disagree, Steve. I think that drugs are an effect rather than a cause with respect to gangs. If all drugs are legalized, their activities will be transferred to illegal gambling, gunrunning, human trafficking, extortion, and so on as revenue sources. They’re already diversified along these lines.
If only some drugs are legalized, their activities will be transferred to those that remain illegal. The harm done by legalizing all drugs far exceeds the benefits.
I’ll acknowledge that some of these claims are terribly hard to prove in anticipation. However, I think that we should agree that, since all drugs will not be legalized and fractional legalization is unlikely to result in even a proportional decrease in gang activities let alone a complete cessation of those activities, that we should look for other solutions.
I think Dave is onto something about the persistence of gang violence. Violent gangs have been a problem in the U.S. for at least a couple of hundred years. Alcohol abuse appears to be a big part of the problem. Also, there appears to be something about American society, probably its heterogeneity, lack of strong hierarchical institutions, and the isolation felt by its unconnected members, that promote gang organization.
When Lincoln left home to start his life in New Salem, he was essentially initiated to his new community by the Clary Hill Gang, a group of roughs that like to hassle and intimidate the weak. For amusement, they would put a drunk into a barrel and roll him down to the river, or set fire to someone’s artificial limb. Lincoln was challenged to wrestle, and we don’t know who won, but the point of the contest was to test his mettle. He not only stood up physically to the challenge, he engaged the gang with enough wit and humor that they become his supporters, not his enemy. (The Clary Gang were otherwise Democrats; gangs at this time affiliated politically, perhaps to better access pardons from the Governor)
When the wrestler’s son was implicated in a murder, Lincoln got the son acquitted in the famous Almanac trial, the background of which was a drunken brawl between three men on a moonless night too dark to convict.
Not a lot of data to prove a point, but the various histories suggest that in the 19th century a lot of young, propertyless men left their families and headed to towns, where they joined other young men for support, fellowship, drink, self-amusement, and violence. They didn’t sell drugs or alcohol, they might sell a bit of revenge, or serve as a police force.
Could be, but if you look at Chicago homicide rates, they really rocket up during the modern era when drugs are associated with gangs. Gangs involved in gambling, gunrunning, etc. dont have a history of the kind of violence seen with drug sales. Perhaps it would be different now, but then I think you have to remember that many blacks are driven into gangs and drug sales because of contact with the legal system because of drug use. As we all know, with usage rates about the same as whites, they are much more likely to be arrested, prosecuted and jailed.
Steve
The problem with the “War on Drugs” is not the drugs. It is the war. The federal government pours money into the war. This along with laws allowing police departments to keep a portion of the “ill gotten gains” has made fighting drugs profitable.
The major crime fighting is directed at drug crimes. The people in these neighborhoods cannot trust the police to protect them from criminals, and in many instances, the police are worse than the criminals.
The money also allows them to purchase fun new toys, and unless they are used, there is no point to having them.
Don’t forget to take environmental factors into consideration. There’s a growing body of evidence linking violent crime to levels of lead exposure, which has one been highest in inner cities. If urban African Americans have been disproportionately exposed to a potent neurotoxin, it would explain much.
I’m prepared to believe that lead is one of the factors contributing to violence but I doubt it’s the only one. For example, there’s some evidence that stress early in life causes excessive production of cortisone which in turn alters brain development, reducing the ability to control impulses among other effects.
Poverty is itself a stressor but so are dangerous surroundings, unsettled family circumstances, and so on.
I agree that stress in all forms can be seriously damaging to a child’s development; you don’t even have to be poor to experience it. I would sit home with an empty cupboard while my “christian” parents jetted off to drop a few grand at a coke party. Living a life not knowing what to expect the next day can warp a mind into a very dark place, even for someone growing up in what is theoretically a position of relative affluence.
That’s why poverty and abuse are so pernicious; they perpetuate and reinforce themselves across generations, resulting in enormous personal and societal damage, loss of human capital, etc. I absolutely believe we have tens of millions of people out there with the ability to make great contributions, who end up ground under before they even get the chance.
Not all gangs deal drugs. See Dave’s posts on Chicago flash gangs. Also:
“The most common explanation for the increase in youth gang problems, and one particularly favored by law enforcement personnel, centers on the growth of the drug trade. . . . This argument appears to have considerable power in accounting for the growth of gangs, and there is little doubt that the drug trade was one important factor in that growth. However, research studies on gangs and drugs have produced considerable evidence that the number of gangs directly involved in the drug trade is much smaller than claimed by the proponents of this position, that many gangs are involved only minimally with drugs, and that the development of cross-locality alliances and centralized control is much less in evidence than has been claimed.”
https://www.ncjrs.gov/html/ojjdp/ojjdprpt_yth_gng_prob_2001/chap7.html#c
May want to consider why law enforcement might favor this explanation (I think it makes their job easier, it easier to police commercial transactions than personal association).