U of M Black Student Union wants no race mentioned in crime alerts

[OCGuy]

You always have to walk a fine line when presenting statistics like that though, because racist people will completely ignore the poverty aspect and just see "black people commit crime at a disproportionate rate to white people," and use it to justify their racism when in reality the color of one's skin is far less of an indicator of potential criminal behavior than socioeconomic status. And speaking of misrepresenting statistics, even though black people are disproportionately represented in committing crimes, the vast majority of crimes are still committed by white people, because white people make up a greater percentage of the population. We generally tend to tread on eggshells when we're discussing anything that might be perceived as a negative racial stereotype because we're terrified of being labeled racist, so it makes these conversations difficult to have; everyone is so busy trying to code their words to minimize offense that they end up skirting the issue.

The ironic part about AT P&N, is that because it is relatively hands-off as far as moderation, you can actually at least broach taboo subjects such as that.

On the other hand, it is only a matter of time before a Stormfronter or Rev. Wright Jr. bring it down to a pure racial level.

 

[werepossum]

You always have to walk a fine line when presenting statistics like that though, because racist people will completely ignore the poverty aspect and just see "black people commit crime at a disproportionate rate to white people," and use it to justify their racism when in reality the color of one's skin is far less of an indicator of potential criminal behavior than socioeconomic status. And speaking of misrepresenting statistics, even though black people are disproportionately represented in committing crimes, the vast majority of crimes are still committed by white people, because white people make up a greater percentage of the population. We generally tend to tread on eggshells when we're discussing anything that might be perceived as a negative racial stereotype because we're terrified of being labeled racist, so it makes these conversations difficult to have; everyone is so busy trying to code their words to minimize offense that they end up skirting the issue.

Thanks, that is what I suspected. Looks like I was wrong though, from a quick perusal there are a very few crimes committed more often by blacks than by whites, namely robbery, murder and (WTF?) gambling. (Note that these are arrests, which I suppose could possibly differ significantly from actual crimes committed if blacks are less likely to get away with a crime.) But overall, if one assumes that a crime's perpetrator was black absent other evidence then one is probably wrong.

 

[Geosurface]

In regards to your link: What happened to Hispanics?

That's a good question! What happened to them is that they were rolled into the white category for offenders. Here are some "white" gentlemen from the Wisconsin sex offender registry:

For reference, actual white people:

And Wisconsin is by no means unusual in this regard. This is a national practice. I'm actually more familiar with examples from California department of corrections, but the Wisconsin thing was what I could find readily after a quick search.

And yes, in case you're wondering, I think it's very safe to say that a significant chunk of the already low "white" crime rate, gang membership rate, sex offender list, out of wedlock birth rate, and just plain old birth rate - would disappear if these folks who nobody would identify as white, including themselves, were categorized differently. Particularly because the actual categories they self-identify as and which most Americans who looked at their picture would identify them as, have much higher crime rates than are tracked for whites.

And therefore actually have even higher crime rates with an even bigger gap in relation to the white crime rate, than it currently appears when giving the stats a casual look.

To what extent is this evidence of a deliberate effort to make the disparities not look quite so bad? I have no idea. A lot of it may just be funky bureaucratic standards. However, there is one thing in particular I find very telling, and that is the fact that the FBI crime stats in many categories (including homicide as you noticed) doesn't separate the white rate from the Hispanic or Arab rate, they're all under the heading of "White" - yet these groups are shown as distinct in certain victim categories, etc.

 

[notposting]

ABP's of the future.

"ABP - Be on the look out for a person in jeans and t-shirt."

I remember hearing a crime report in Montana. The suspect was a white male wearing jeans and a flannel shirt, driving a pickup truck.

 

[ThinClient]

Does anyone else see the irony here?

Also I do understand the point these organizations are making but when it comes to security we should have the best description we can and it can be a slam to the victim if you leave out details in that description.

Yep, agreed entirely. Those "black organizations" are nothing more than professionally-offended assholes who get their rocks off playing the race card.