Asymmetrical Information

Exactly right. People use stereotypes because it works! In an unknown situation, with nothing else to go on, resorting to "knowledge" based only on stereotypes has survival value. That's why everyone uses stereotypes to some extent or other. Unfortunately, not everyone is willing to change their stereotypes based on observed behavior.

Stereotyping and discrimination are incredibly useful tool that have gotten a bad rap because of their rampant abuse. Since we rarely have complete information and almost always make decisions based on little or no detailed information, we have to use something. Stereotypes are useful when we have nothing else. Discrimination is merely the act of selecting on the basis of some criteria. Racial discrimination is probably not the best method of discrimination in all cases, but probably is in somee.

The biggest abuse of stereotyping and discrimination based on group membership is using them to evaluate a given individual for a specific purpose. Once you get away from group behavior and begin looking at specific individuals (such as in hiring an employee, selecting a service providor, or getting to know your neighbors), stereotypes become less useful and other tools are more useful.

The existence of the latter abuse, though, does not eliminate the former use of stereotypes. Acting like all stereotypes and all discrimination is bad forces people to either become hypocrites as they deny what they do automatically or to become irrational as they attempt to treat everyone the same no matter what (such as strip-searching granny because she had a knitting needle and letting the Iranian band "America Killa" through security unmolested because you don't use racial stereotyping in selecting potential threats and they were very clean cut and obeyed all the rules perfectly).

SEXIST!

What's frightening is how rational you think you all are. Have any of you been, beaten, hung or whipped because you were who you were?

Attacked for no reason, yes.

But you are missing the point. You are evidently referring to "racial discrimination" or "racial hatred", whereas we are referring to sterotyping of whatever kind for whatever reason. I avoid gangs of male teens no matter what their color. Odds are they wouldn't hurt me, but why take the chance? Is this acting on a stereotype? You bet it is. But in the absence of any more knowledge than "male" and "teens", acting on the stereotype is rational behavior.

Judson,

This is a violent world. People have been beaten, hung, whipped, raped, burned, you name it, and it still happens everyday. I admit that I am prejudiced. There are very few people that I trust completely and I do rely on my instincts. I think this is a wise and rational view of human nature. Would it be better if we all gave our fellow man the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps? You go first.

Judson,

If you are referring to gay-bashing for instance, the answer is not to decry stereotyping, and appeal to the moral impulses of straight people, absolutely in vain, but to modify the stereotype. People bash gays for a cluster of reasons, but the operative one is that they think they can get away with it. They see gays as easy targets - fragile and unresisting . That is easy to change, very easy. The bashers should never be able to tell who is carrying a weapon. It is conceivable that an innocent breeder now and then will get snuffed, although they can avoid that themselves by staying back and away, but even incidents of that sort will change everyone's attitude. in economist's terms, bad money drives out good.

I wonder what effect the Black Panthers' posturings did to end lynching. It was on the decline, but far from ended in the 60's. I find it hard to believe that Southern juries simultaneously all had the same change of heart and started convicting mebers of lynch mobs.

Stereotypes are statistically valid generalizations; Jane did a great post on this back in January sometime, in re Larry Summers.

However, stereotypes are far more nuanced than it might seem. I lived for many years in Northfield, Minn., which is home to St. Olaf and Carleton colleges and hardly any African Americans except Northwest pilots and students/professors (not for any reason related to hostility on the part of Northfield residents, let it be clear). The same people who might be leery of a group of young men (of whatever race) idling on a street corner in Minneapolis wouldn't give a second glance to the same group sauntering down Division Street in Northfield because everybody knows, without even thinking about it, that they're Carleton students.

I've never heard the "libertarian economists can't do math" stereotype (at least not any more than I've heard it about economists in general).

Earnest Iconoclast writes:

>>>"Racial discrimination is probably not the best method of discrimination in all cases, but probably is in somee..."

That's very interesting in light of former Education Secretary William Bennett's statement yesterday:

>>>"BENNETT: Well, I don't think it is either, I don't think it is either, because first of all, there is just too much that you don't know. But I do know that it's true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could -- if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down. That would be an impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down. So these far-out, these far-reaching, extensive extrapolations are, I think, tricky."

http://mediamatters.org/items/200509280006

This is the "morality czar" of America, and resident Fox News contributor, but you know what? From what I've seen from some of the blog posters in here recently, with the application of genetic components to poverty, intelligence and stereotypes I would NOT BE SURPRISED at all if the defense of William Bennett's OUTRAGEOUS statements doesn't begin right HERE.

--Cobra

--Cobra

I don't like Bill Bennett, but why does Cobra think that the following is outrageous?

"That would be an impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down."

Cobra, I'm a little confused about the source of your outrage. Is it because you perceive that Bennett chose to present an argument as to why abortion as a crime prevention technique is wrong, instead of just responding emotionally to the issue?

Of course, Bennett isn't really trying to make an argument of any sort about abortion as crime control; instead he's trying to make a point about stereotypes and their use. Specifically, many stereotypes do have predictive power. Trying to pretend otherwise because you don't like the implications of that fact is foolish. It leads you to make policies for the world you wish you lived in, instead of the world you do live in. On the other hand, the point Bennett is trying to make, mainly to the people who have already accepted the first point, is that reasoning based on stereotypes has costs as well as benefits. Whether it be the cost of inflicting a punishment on people on the basis of what they might do, or the cost of the resentment people might feel for being harassed or inconvenienced on the basis of stereotypes that they personally don't happen to fit.

Any reasonable policy decision must take into account both of those factors if it is to be an effective policy for the world we live in, as opposed to some fantasyland. Also, it wouldn't hurt if the debate surrounding those policy decisions were to leave the OUTRAGE and SHOUTING at the door, but perhaps that's too much to ask.

-rpl

Cobra-

I let the defense of Bill Bennett's statement begin over at that raging libertarian/conservative/racist Matthew Yglesias blog on the Talking Points page... oh wait, he's a libera. Damn.

http://yglesias.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/9/29/16450/9195

Peter

Of course, Bennett isn't really trying to make an argument of any sort about abortion as crime control; instead he's trying to make a point about stereotypes and their use.

Bennett's point is that you shouldn't support abortion just because it has good effects on society as a whole. He was responding to someone who said that abortion was good because it made it easier for the government to pay for Social Security.

Cobra writes:

>>>" From what I've seen from some of the blog posters in here recently, with the application of genetic components to poverty, intelligence and stereotypes I would NOT BE SURPRISED at all if the defense of William Bennett's OUTRAGEOUS statements doesn't begin right HERE."

It only took about 90 minutes. I should change my screenname to "Owl."

Let's have the facts established here for the defenders of Bennett.

In the total transcript of the conversation, the phone in caller to Bennett's show made NO mention of race.

In the section of the "Freakonomics" book that the caller refers to regarding social security and abortion, there is NO mention of race.

It is only WILLIAM BENNETT who brings the issue of RACE into this, with the most blatant STEREOTYPE (see, I'm staying on thread topic) in this key statement:

>>>"But I do know that it's true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could -- if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down."

http://mediamatters.org/items/200509280006

Bennett didn't say, "I read somewhere"..."I've seen research illuminate,"... "I've funded studies that show"...oh no.

Mr. Bennett said "I DO KNOW".

The implication is, of course, something that is extremely familiar to readers of Asymmetrical Information: that Bennett believes Blacks are genetically predisposed to criminal activity--congenital criminality, and if you got rid of them all, "your crime rate would go down." Call it, the "final solution to crime."

Now, to Peter, I don't give a damn who DEFENDS this notion, whether they be liberal, conservative, libertarian, or vegetarian. I don't give a damn what race of person is who DEFENDS this circus of eugenics, because I'm sure the parade of "paid black conservative commentators" are already making their rounds on cable news programs.
They are all FOOLS on the facts about genetics and crime statistics in America at BEST. At worse...don't get me started.

But go ahead, people. Let's hear the "educated" and "informed" opinions about genetics and crime statistics.

Let's just see how this works into a thread about"fighting discrimination the hard way."

Bring it on.

--Cobra

Cobra.
You're wrong, again.

There must be some kind of fun in maximizing the number of people you can accuse of racism. Hey. Do you get paid by somebody for it?
Jeez. With energy like that, you should sell life insurance.

Bennett is not saying anything about genetics. He's speaking of current facts projected from fifteen to thirty years. That is, the disproportionate number of crimes committed by blacks. There are any number of reasons, one being as Thomas Sowell said, the celebration of the disfunctional cracker culture as authentically black. Others are single-mother parenting and poverty and lousy education.
Whatever the reason, that's the fact.
So Bennett was right on the statistics.
He's also right to chide the caller about aborting people based on some projected social improvement.
You have a problem with that?

- The implication is, of course, something that is extremely familiar to readers of Asymmetrical Information: that Bennett believes Blacks are genetically predisposed to criminal activity--congenital criminality, and if you got rid of them all, "your crime rate would go down." Call it, the "final solution to crime."

Actually he could believe that blacks are predisposed to be the victims of violence, and if there were fewer (or none) there would be less crime.

In any case he was demonstrating that a given outcome of a policy (less crime) does not justify the means (aborting black babies).

As to the soundness of his argument, (aborted black babies = less crime) it is probably true (possibly because of the overlap of black and poor). Would anyone wager crime would actually rise or stay the same? Of course if abortion is considered murder then the crime rate would go up!

Cobra, let me run it down for you. It is an irrefutable fact that blacks are more likely to become criminals than non-blacks are, even after controlling for economic status (and no, I do not know why this is true). It is also an irrefutable fact that reducing the supply of criminals reduces the amount of crime produced. So, yes, Bennett's conclusion is obvious -- reducing the number of people who are more likely to become criminals will reduce the amount of crime. It is simple math. You would get a similar effect, as others noted, but aborting all men, or all children of poor people, or all non-Jews, or everyone whose parents don't have a PhD. Eliminate the most likely criminals and you reduce future crime, plain and simple.

Your attempt to paint this as a racist slur against blacks is sad, pathetic, and entirely typical. Bennett quite explicitly said that targetting blacks for abortion would be grossly immoral. You have no basis for complaint here, not that that ever stops you from trolling.

Ironic that Cobra is posting in a thread about being bad at math, because Bennett is being good at it. Though only at a grade school level. If you remove a group of above average performers from a larger group, the laws of arithmetic tell us that the remaining group will have a lower average.

This is true of everything, not just crime rates. If Bill Gates and I are at a party, and he leaves, that will reduce the partiers average net worth. If I leave, probably not.

There's an interesting example of how this principle works in various homeschooling communities.

Educated, solidly middle/professional-class homeschoolers who are homeschooling for primarily academic reasons really like to bitch about homeschool stereotypes. We write letters to television stations about negative portrayals of homeschooling families; we fill up people's blogs squealing that we've been misrepresented; we go for the jungular in conversation when someone makes a crack.

The group of people who homeschool for religious reasons is much more diverse. You get a lot of less educated people, people who are not middle-class, and a lot of rural people who could get away with not teaching their kids a damn thing because they're so far away from any state agent who'd take notice.

This community exerts heavy, heavy social pressures to prevent that from happening. Rural Christian homeschoolers make sure they strengthen their weakest links. They know that keeping their liberties depends on not letting anyone blow it.

Attention Bennett supporters:

You see, here's what you're doing in a nutshell. You're attempting, JUST LIKE BENNETT, to assign a GENETIC COMPONENT to criminal activity. You've fallen prey to the same stereotypes. Rember exactly what Bennet said in his quote:

"But I do know that it's true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could -- if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down."

Which crime rate? Certainly not these "crimes"

>>>"
The FBI has not observed any major changes in criminal trends relating to Corporate Fraud. It is anticipated that the number of cases will continue to flourish. The FBI is committed to this problem. It remains the #1 priority within the Financial Crimes Section. There are presently 405 Corporate Fraud cases being pursued by FBI field offices throughout the United States. This represents a 100 percent increase over the number of Corporate Fraud cases pending at the end of Fiscal Year 2003. Eighteen of the current pending cases involve losses to public investors which individually exceed $1 billion. The volume of cases has yet to reach a plateau, with three to six new cases being initiated each month.

Corporate Fraud investigations involve the following activities:

(1) Falsification of financial information, including false accounting entries, bogus trades designed to inflate profit or hide losses, and false transactions designed to evade regulatory oversight;

(2) Self-dealing by corporate insiders, including:

(a) Insider Trading;
(b) Kickbacks;
(c) Misuse of corporate property for personal gain; and,
(d) Individual tax violations related to self-dealing;

(3) Fraud in connection with an otherwise legitimately-operated mutual or hedge fund (including, for example, late trading, certain market timing schemes, falsification of net asset values, and other fraudulent or abusive trading practices by, within, or involving a mutual or hedge fund); and,

(4) Obstruction of justice designed to conceal either of the above-noted types of criminal conduct, particularly when the obstruction impedes the inquiries of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), other regulatory agencies, and/or law enforcement agencies. "

>>>"

Select corporate fraud investigations conducted by the FBI throughout Fiscal Year 2004 include Enron, HealthSouth, Cendant Corporation, Credit Suisse First Boston, Computer Associates International, Worldcom, Imclone, Royal Ahold, Peregrine Systems, and America On-Line. The above-highlighted ten investigations have resulted in 120 indictments/ informations and 79 convictions.

Currently the former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of HealthSouth is on trial in Alabama. Several additional high-profile trials are anticipated, to include the trial of Enron's former CEOs and Chief Accounting Officer, anticipated to begin in January 2006."

...>>>"

A recent survey commissioned by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) estimated the number of consumer victims of identity theft over the year prior to the survey (which was completed in May 2003) at 4.6 percent of the population of U.S. consumers over the age of 18 (9.91 million individuals) with losses totaling $52.6 billion (47.6 billion to businesses and $5 billion to individual victims). However, over half of these victims experienced only the take-over of existing credit cards (5.17 million consumers) which is generally not considered identity theft. New account frauds, more generally considered to be identity theft, were estimated to have victimized 3.23 million consumers and to have resulted in losses of $36.7 billion ($32.9 billion to businesses and financial institutions and $3.8 billion to individuals). Recent research replicating this study for a subsequent twelve-month period obtained similar numbers."

http://www.fbi.gov/publications/financial/fcs_report052005/fcs_report052005.htm#a1

Waitiminute, from the details of these reports, it would appear that the people being probed, investigated and indicted for these crimes are almost exclusively WHITE, and the damage done by these crimes run up somewhere around a hundred BILLION DOLLARS. How can this be? I mean, are white people GENETICALLY PREDISPOSED to committing crimes? Is that the conclusion that can be reached?

Oh, but Cobra...hold on, son. This is about SEMANTICS. When Bennett and his defenders on this blog talk about "crime", they must mean VIOLENT CRIME (a distinction Bennett never made in his diatribe) and DRUG OFFENSES.

Surely FBI statistics will show that African Americans are commit more violent crimes and drug offenses, and shut me up for good!

Whoops...

Assault is the most prolific violent crime in America. The facts?

>>>"Assault rates have steadily risen over the past several years. It's a crime that occurs in both urban and rural areas. A disproportionate number of those arrested are white males; specifically, 82% were male and 18% were female, while 60% were white, and 38% were black. The pattern of criminal assault is quite similar to homicide, except that common everyday stress tends to be more closely associated with the reasons for assault. Motorists sometimes assault one another in something called "road rage" (see this Aggressive Driver Checklist from AAA). Angry passengers experiencing unnecessary delays in airports, bus stations, and other transportation hubs have been known to suddenly turn on workers and each other. Sporting events and other public ceremonies often involve brawls or "hooliganism". "

http://faculty.ncwc.edu/toconnor/300/300lect06.htm

>>>"

The marked racial disparities in drug arrests did not reflect racial differences in violations of drug laws prohibiting possession and sale of illicit drugs. Statistical as well as anecdotal evidence indicate drug possession and drug selling cut across all racial, socio-economic and geographic lines. Yet because drug law enforcement resources have been concentrated in low-income, predominantly minority urban areas, drug offending whites have been disproportionately free from arrest compared to blacks.

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services calculates drug use trends from data gathered through the federal National Household Survey on Drug Abuse (NHSDA).79 In a report based on NHSDA data for 1991, 1992, and 1993, SAMHSA estimated that 3.1 percent of non-Hispanic blacks and 2.4 percent of non-Hispanic whites over the age of 12 had used cocaine in the past year. Because there are far more whites than blacks in the national population, these use rates translate into 3,727,680 non-Hispanic whites who had used cocaine compared to 720,130 non-Hispanic blacks.80 That is, there were five times as many non-Hispanic whites as blacks who were cocaine users.

According to the most recent NHSDA survey, in 1998 there were an estimated 9.9 million whites (72 percent of all users) and 2.0 million blacks (15 percent) who were current illicit drug users in 1998.81 There were almost five times as many current white marijuana users as black and four times as many white cocaine users. Almost three times as many whites had ever used crack as blacks. Among those who had used crack at least once in the past year, 462,000 were white and 324,000 were black.82 Only among current crack users did the number of blacks exceed the number of whites -- and this was a change from previous years in which the number of current white crack users had exceeded the number of black users (Table 17).83 SAMHSA also estimated that in 1998 there were 4,934,000 whites who used marijuana on 51 or more days in the past year, compared to 1,102,000 blacks, and 321,000 whites who had used cocaine on 51 or more days in the past year compared to 171,999 blacks84 "

http://www.hrw.org/reports/2000/usa/Rcedrg00-05.htm#P323_67487

We don't want to talk about organized crime, racketeering, serial killers, and the demographics of registered sex offenders, do we? I know, I know.

I DO get it, though. I get what Bennett and you guys are talking about. And I understand you. Violent black crime is more SENSATIONAL for you. It's a far more prurient, and provocative story to tell at at the water cooler . Chad having his wallet stolen by a rap-music chanting black gangbanger with baggy pants and corn-rows is just more LURID and SEXY than Chauncey having his bank account emptied by a skinny white emo-boy from his dorm room computer at State U.

Some people just can't bring themselves to admit that their white daughters, by statistics, are in more jeopardy from their white fraternity classmates then a black stranger on the street in regards to sexual assault.

But hey, that's what STEREOTYPES are all about, right?

--Cobra

So let's all just assume that racism is real. As just about everyone on this site is saying in one way or another that it is, let's just accept that it is. Generally speaking, we're uncomfortable in each other's presence and probably always will be.

First, is this a problem? Yes, it probably is. As long as we just mind our own business, there is no problem. But given the fact of limited resources and competition for those resources, minding our own business in not always an option. So there is or soon will be a problem - at least for those who don't do as well in the competition. So my advice is for the losers. Learn how to compete successfully - or get comfortable with losing - because it is unwise to count on the mercy of the winners.

Lesson one: Emulation works. Envy doesn't.

You see, here's what you're doing in a nutshell.
[approximately 1,300 susequent words of ranting, projection, statistical fallacy, and general-purpose axe grinding omitted]

That's quite a nutshell. Maybe I can park my car in it, too?

You see, here's what you're doing in a nutshell. You're attempting, JUST LIKE BENNETT, to assign a GENETIC COMPONENT to criminal activity

Who do you think you're going to convince with that ridiculous assertion? Pretty much all of the readers of this blog except you can understand simple written English.

I wonder, would you start snivelling about racism if I said "Nigerians are more likely to be poor and diseased than Swedes are"? Probably.

with the application of genetic components to...intelligence

Because OBVIOUSLY genetics has no influence whatsoever on intelligence or the propensity for violence.

This is why humans, man eating lions, and stalked plants have *exactly the same* threshold for violence. And *exactly the same* ability to think abstractly.

Get with the program, people! Evolution and genetic science just don't apply to humans. Darwin was wrong. Stephen Jay Gould told me so 25 years ago, even before the human genome came out, and of course new information means nothing. Nothing to see here. Especially not in the following papers. They do not exist.

http://news.com.com/2163-11395_3-5856528.html

Two genes involved in determining the size of the human brain have undergone substantial evolution in the last 60,000 years, researchers say, suggesting that the brain is still undergoing rapid evolution.

The discovery adds further weight to the view that human evolution is still a work in progress, since previous instances of recent genetic change have come to light in genes that defend against disease and confer the ability to digest milk in adulthood.

The new finding, reported by Bruce T. Lahn of the University of Chicago and colleagues in the journal Science, could raise controversy because of the genes' role in determining brain size. New versions of the genes, or alleles, as geneticists call them, appear to have spread because they enhanced the brain's function in some way, the report suggests, and they are more common in some populations than others.

...Last year Lahn, one of a select group of researchers supported by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, showed that a group of 20 brain-associated genes, including microcephalin and ASPM, had evolved faster in the great ape lineage than in mice and rats. He concluded that these genes may have played important roles in the evolution of the human brain.

As part of this study, he noticed that microcephalin and ASPM had an unusual pattern of alleles. With each gene, one allele was much more common than all the others. He and his colleagues have now studied the worldwide distribution of the alleles by decoding the DNA of the two genes in many different populations.

They report that with microcephalin, a new allele arose about 37,000 years ago, although it could have appeared as early as 60,000 or as late as 14,000 years ago. Some 70 percent or more of people in most European and East Asian populations carry this allele of the gene, as do 100 percent of those in three South American Indian populations, but the allele is much rarer in most sub-Saharan Africans.

With the other gene, ASPM, a new allele emerged some time between 14,100 and 500 years ago, the researchers favoring a mid-way date of 5,800 years. The allele has attained a frequency of about 50 percent in populations of the Middle East and Europe, is less common in East Asia, and found at low frequency in some sub-Saharan Africa peoples.

Dan writes:

>>>"I wonder, would you start snivelling about racism if I said "Nigerians are more likely to be poor and diseased than Swedes are"? Probably."

Simply put, Nigerians and Swedes are not racial designations. They're descriptions of citizenship and or national origin. Your analogy doesn't hold water here.

Anony-mouse:

What is statistically fallacious about the reports on crime I presented?

Blah,

Cut to the chase. Do you believe that blacks are inferior to whites?

--Cobra

cobra

cut to the chase. Does evolution apply to humans or not?

Are you a creationist, Cobra?

Nigerians and Swedes are not racial designations

Guess those dumb scientists are wrong again. Please go and email them. Tell them there are no genetic differences of importance between people, and they're wasting their time, because Cobra says so!

Obviously if you said "GENETICS" you must be a RACIST because there are no GENETIC differences between people. Nope. None. Don't even look. Don't go there. Because we already know the answer. The answer is what Cobra says it is. Bruce Lahn and Science magazine are all liars, Cobra is the real professor round these parts.

And these other scientist guys? Totally retarded for thinking there's any "genetic" difference between "northwest Europeans", "Han Chinese", and "Yorubans from Ibadan, Nigeria". It's all socially constructed, dontcha know, and anyone who contends otherwise MUST think blacks are "inferior" and is probably a Republican and a "neocon Jew" and a Zionist to boot.

All the smart people are creationists nowadays and like Cobra, don't believe evolution applied to humans.

http://www.hapmap.org/hapmappopulations.html.en

The DNA samples for the HapMap have come from a total of 270 people. The Yoruba people of Ibadan, Nigeria, provided 30 sets of samples from two parents and an adult child (each such set is called a trio). In Japan, 45 unrelated individuals from the Tokyo area provided samples. In China, 45 unrelated individuals from Beijing provided samples. Thirty U.S. trios provided samples, which were collected in 1980 from U.S. residents with northern and western European ancestry by the Centre d'Etude du Polymorphisme Humain (CEPH).

Simply put, Nigerians and Swedes are not racial designations

So noting any correlation between race and anything else makes a person a racist and genetic determinist? If I say "blacks are more likely to listen to rap music than whites are" you'll accuse me of thinking that being a rap fan is genetic? Heh.

What is statistically fallacious about the reports on crime I presented?

For one thing, you quoted a lot of absolute figures about drug use among racial populations without noting in the slightest how these figures compare with the size of the population as a whole.

To use a completely abstract example, if a population of fifteen wildcats contains ten cheetahs and five ocelots, and four cheetahs and three ocelots smoke crystal meth regularly, then in absolute terms we have more cheetahs doping up than ocelots. But on the other hand, drug use is a much more serious problem among the ocelot population.

(We also have seven wildcats that can outrun a Corvette, but that's the hazard of using indirect analogies.)

Blah:

Where's your intellectual courage and honesty? Why, there are any number of "scientists" from past and present who tout the inferiority of the negroid race for you to reference and quote from.

It's a simple question, Blah. Do you believe that blacks are inferior to whites?

Dan writes:

>>>"So noting any correlation between race and anything else makes a person a racist and genetic determinist? If I say "blacks are more likely to listen to rap music than whites are" you'll accuse me of thinking that being a rap fan is genetic? Heh."

No. It would depend on what context you're making the statement in. You see, this is the where the power of stereotypes takes over.

>>>"The origins of hip-hop music can be traced to DJ Kool Herc's turntable wizardry in the mid-1970s, but the culture formed as break dancing, graffiti art, and deejaying converged. Popular in urban America, hip-hop remained an underground phenomenon until the Sugarhill Gang's "Rapper's Delight" became the first song in this genre to hit the pop charts in 1979, peaking at No. 36 on the Billboard charts. Despite its popularity and the success of Old School acts such as Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five, Kurtis Blow, and Run-DMC, critics argued hip-hop music would be just another fad. Roughly 25 years later, it has become more than a music genre. It's a culture that is embraced by youth worldwide. It's no longer a black thing; whites purchase roughly 60% of hip-hop records.

In fact, hip-hop music sales made up 89.2 million, or 11.7%, of the 762.8 million albums sold in the U.S. in 2001--ranking it the third bestseller behind rhythm &blues and alternative music, according to SoundScan, a White Plains, New York-based firm that monitors U.S. album sales. At an average of $12 per CD, that's more than a billion dollars in hip-hop music sales alone. The Hip-Hop economy slumped in 2001 when the U.S. slid into recession, but sales were more robust in 2000, totaling 101.5 million of the 785.1 million albums sold in 2000 for a total of $1.2 billion. When these revenues are combined with clothing, film, and television revenues, the market grows exponentially.

This sector goes beyond American shores. Its influences can be found in clubs, clothing, and the attitude of youth from Germany to Japan. "It's always been big overseas," says Kim Osorio, music editor for The Source, a publication that's considered hip-hop's bible. "If you go to Japan, the influence hip-hop has on the culture is crazy. It's different, though. They're still break dancing."

http://www.blackenterprise.com/Archiveopen.asp?source=/archive2002/05/0502-23.htm

Dan, I offer you the same question I made to Blah.

Do you believe that blacks are inferior to whites?

Anony-mouse writes:

>>>"To use a completely abstract example, if a population of fifteen wildcats contains ten cheetahs and five ocelots, and four cheetahs and three ocelots smoke crystal meth regularly, then in absolute terms we have more cheetahs doping up than ocelots. But on the other hand, drug use is a much more serious problem among the ocelot population."

Can you extrapolate from your equation that "ocelots are genetically prone to smoke crystal meth." Would you make a statement hypothesizing that the extinction of ocelots would lower the rate of all animal illegal drug use, including smoking crystal meth,--even taking into account the existance of animal illegal drug use in environments that don't have any significant ocelot populations?

--Cobra

Can you extrapolate from your equation that "ocelots are genetically prone to smoke crystal meth." Would you make a statement hypothesizing that the extinction of ocelots would lower the rate of all animal illegal drug use, including smoking crystal meth,--even taking into account the existance of animal illegal drug use in environments that don't have any significant ocelot populations?

Now we get back to that "projection" issue. You were and still are arguing a point that, on most points, nobody here has made.

Cobra:
Nobody is going to answer your questions if you don't answer blah's question:
"Does evolution apply to humans or not?"

If you haven't noticed by now, nobody else here is on your side, and that isn't going to change if you never answer that simple question.

Dog of Justice writes:

>>>"If you haven't noticed by now, nobody else here is on your side,"

I don't believe that blacks are inferior to whites or any other race. If that means that "nobody here is on my side", that's far more a statement on YOUR beliefs and those of other posters than mine.
Also, I'm a minority in America. I'm no stranger to people "not being on my side."

--Cobra

Cobra,

In my opinion, your question, "Do you believe that blacks are inferior to whites?", is of very little value.

Try these;

On average, are blacks less well off in America than whites? Yes, that's what the statistics seem to indicate.

Do you want me to care? I think so, yes.

Do I care? No.

Is there anything you could say that would make me care? No. I'm cared out. I've been listening to this for many years, I've heard all I need to hear, and I've learned how to tune it all out.

Is your wanting me to care and my lack of caring typical of our communities? I think so, yes.

My conclusion; that the special problems of the black community in America are going to have to be solved by the black community in America.

Cobra: "Are blacks genetically inferior."

A. Define inferior. In evolution, fitness is defined only relative to the environment; change the environment and the animals best adapted to it suddently become unfit. So, in collecting Olympic medals, blacks currently seem to be superior. In any of the college programs with tough and objective standards (engineering, medicine, law), the percentage of blacks in the graduating class seems to almost always be far less than the percentage that started the program. IF there's a genetic basis to this difference (and I'll talk about that in another post), one might guess that in the past in Africa, the ability to kill a lion with only a spear was more important than the ability to gain abstruse knowledge from books. But it's hard to see a reason why the ancestors of English- or Chinese-Americans would have needed abstract thinking any more than Africans did. (The Mandarin system did reward this by handing out jobs according to Chinese literature test results, but 2700 years shouldn't have been long enough for the Chinese to evolve into better test-takers.)

2. "Genetically inferior" isn't the problem. The problem is that African-Americans are more likely to behave in self-destructive ways. I've got neighbors I call "poor white trash" who behave the same, but they are a tiny percentage of whites. Whether it's genetic, cultural, or whatever doesn't matter. What does matter is that they do it - and I know of no way I can change it, nor is there anything anyone can do to help someone who persistently fouls up every opportunity to improve their life. What's the point of "caring" about something you can't change?

On the other hand, I see no reason that black leaders, ministers, and mothers couldn't be doing a much better job of encouraging their young to behave better. Instead, I see one group of potential leaders who spend their time singing songs glorifying violence and degradation (when not indulging in it themselves), another group of leaders too busy cashing in on liberal white guilt to do anything about their people, the mothers often helpless to hold their boys against the pull of the sick culture just out the front door, and only Bill Cosby trying to do what all their leaders should be doing.

About race and IQ: This is a nearly unexplored topic. Since some terribly flawed (and quite racist) work before WWII, the only studies I have read or heard about have been done by people who were not social scientists, and hence perhaps weren't able to devise a sufficiently effective way of separating cultural effects from genetic ones.

So, from this layman's view, this is a topic where the scientists most qualified to work on it avoid it like a third rail. It's very, very obvious why no one wants to do a race and IQ study that says that blacks have lower IQ's because of genetics. So why aren't I hearing of sociologists doing studies that prove the opposite? Or do they think that any well-conducted study is going to come up with conclusions that they don't dare publish?

and only Bill Cosby trying to do what all their leaders should be doing.

Well, Will Smith has also been saying it, but he only gets copy space when something he says can be usably spun by the usual white-guilt-proponent suspects.

"So noting any correlation between race and anything else makes a person a racist and genetic determinist? If I say "blacks are more likely to listen to rap music than whites are" you'll accuse me of thinking that being a rap fan is genetic?"

No. It would depend on what context you're making the statement in. You see, this is the where the power of stereotypes takes over

I see what your problem is, then. To me, the important question is "is it true that blacks listen to rap more often than whites do". To you, the truth is irrelevant; the relevant question, to you, is "does saying that blacks listen to rap music more than whites play into negative stereotypes".

This is why we're never going to agree. I say "black people commit more crimes than white people do, on average" because it is factually true. You are unconcerned with whether it is true; your concern is solely that the statement matches negative stereotypes, and must therefore be denied and shouted down regardless of its truth.

Markm writes:

>>>"A. Define inferior. In evolution, fitness is defined only relative to the environment; change the environment and the animals best adapted to it suddently become unfit. So, in collecting Olympic medals, blacks currently seem to be superior. In any of the college programs with tough and objective standards (engineering, medicine, law), the percentage of blacks in the graduating class seems to almost always be far less than the percentage that started the program."

Now we're getting somewhere. This is a good premise in which to begin. Again, stereotypes are at work, here, albeit a bit more subtly. The Olympics are a PERFECT example.

Note the list of sports:

Summer sports

Aquatics
Archery
Athletics (Track and Field)
Badminton
Baseball
Basketball
Boxing
Canoe / kayak
Cycling
Equestrian
Fencing
Football (Soccer)
Gymnastics
Handball
Hockey
Judo
Modern Pentathlon
Rowing
Sailing
Shooting
Softball
Table Tennis
Taekwondo
Tennis
Triathlon
Volleyball
Weightlifting
Wrestling

Winter Sports:

Biathlon
Bobsleigh
Curling
Ice Hockey
Luge
Skating
Skiing

http://www.olympic.org/uk/sports/index_uk.asp

Of the 35 or so categories listed, how many routinely feature blacks from any country as gold medalists? Track and Field is certainly diversified in it's results, but don't tell Manu Ginobli of Argentina that basketball's gold medals(and NBA Championships for that matter) are an exclusively black endeavor.

The same would apply to the oft-touted conservative attack on African Americans that black immigrants are more successful in academics.

>>>"First-generation black immigrants, who come largely from the Caribbean, earn higher test scores in mathematics than native-born blacks. Second-generation blacks had the highest reading scores of the three groups. As black immigrants spend more time in their adopted country and become more aware of the ways in which society has limited the options of African-Americans, their achievement falters, the researchers found.

Immigrant parents are less likely to participate in school activities not directly related to their child's performance. "Instead, they manifest their valuation of education by attending meetings that directly impact on their child's achievement," the researchers wrote.

The data for the study were collected by the National Opinion Research Center from a representative sample of 24,599 students in 1,052 randomly selected schools nationwide. The work was part of the center's National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988, which follows the progress of students who were in eighth grade that year. The survey includes interviews with students, parents and teachers. Tienda's research was supported by the Spencer Foundation.

-- William Harms"
http://chronicle.uchicago.edu/950330/tienda.shtml

Studies such as these would indicate to me that there is a NURTURE argument to be made, and not NATURE.

--Cobra

Dan writes:

>>>"This is why we're never going to agree. I say "black people commit more crimes than white people do, on average" because it is factually true. You are unconcerned with whether it is true; your concern is solely that the statement matches negative stereotypes, and must therefore be denied and shouted down regardless of its truth."

No, Dan...our problem is that we're working with two sets of "facts." Truth be told, you have limited your definition of "crime" to ONLY those that are disproportionately committed by African Americans. I have posted information here on this blog, from the FBI and other reputable sources that contradicts that belief, and shows the more accurate picture. Also, given the crime rate in
Central and Eastern Europe:

>>>"Consider the countries of central and eastern Europe. Throughout the region there was a marked rise in criminality at least until 1992/3, as the barriers of the previous repressive regimes were removed, and this seems to have been reflected in increasing use of imprisonment. Why then the continued rise in the following four or five years when crime rates were generally fairly stable? The most commonly believed explanation is that although the overall crime rates were not rising, the public, the media and the politicians were all alarmed by the changes in the nature of crime, with the emergence of new and previously unheard of forms of criminality, such as transnational organised crime, economic crime and, in some countries, contract killings. This climate of fear, in countries where the legal provisions had not yet caught up with these new forms of criminality, led to crime in general being more likely to result in pre-trial detention, subsequent imprisonment, longer terms of imprisonment and conditional release being more sparingly allowed."
http://www.apaintl.org/Pub-Conf2000-PlenaryWalmsley-En.html

Of course, Central and Eastern Europe does NOT have a significantly large BLACK population, but the incarceration rate in Russia is similiar to that of the United States, far higher than that of many nations in Sub-Sahara Africa.

--Cobra

No, Dan...our problem is that we're working with two sets of "facts." Truth be told, you have limited your definition of "crime" to ONLY those that are disproportionately committed by African Americans

If you look at crime as a whole, blacks are criminals more often than whites. If you look at specific types of crime, blacks are more likely to commit rape, murder, theft, burglary, and domestic violence, or to be involved in drug trafficking. Would you have felt better about Bennett's claim if he had said "if you wanted to reduce the rate of rape and murder, you could abort all black children"? Somehow I doubt it.

Certainly there are some crimes whose perpetrators are, on a per-capita basis, more often white than black. It is nevertheless true that criminal activity is far more frequent among blacks than whites. So Bennett's claim is simply true, and you deny it only because you care more about the stereotype than you do about the truth.

Dan writes:

>>>"It is nevertheless true that criminal activity is far more frequent among blacks than whites. So Bennett's claim is simply true, and you deny it only because you care more about the stereotype than you do about the truth."

That's simply FALSE, Dan. Where are the statistics to support your claims? By statistics, there are more white illegal drug users than there are African Americans as a whole. Drug trafficking? Are you kidding me? Look at the nations of origin for most illegal drugs--Columbia for coccaine, Afghanistan and the far east for poppies (opium,) ecstacy (Israel) Crytal Meth, which is predominantly midwestern pheonomenum, etc. Organized crime is certainly not a predominantly black institution in America,
so how on earth can you make that statement about blacks and drug trafficking? I would AGREE with you that Rockefeller drug laws, and the targetting of police drug sweeps are issues that would give the ILLUSION that there are more black illegal drug users, and would skew the incarceration rates. The fact remains that you could probably be just as successful doing a drug sweep of college fraternity houses this weekend than you would combing the segregated housing projects of the inner city.

FBI statistics show that most rapes and sexual assaults are INTRARACIAL in America. Since there are blatant examples of mass rape occuring in Eastern Europe (Bosnia) and the far East, (Indonesia) and prolific sex trafficking in both areas, where there are practically NO black people, how on EARTH can you make a statement that "blacks are more likely to rape?"

This is more STEREOTYPING, Dan.

Randy writes:

>>>"Is there anything you could say that would make me care? No. I'm cared out. I've been listening to this for many years, I've heard all I need to hear, and I've learned how to tune it all out.

Is your wanting me to care and my lack of caring typical of our communities? I think so, yes.

My conclusion; that the special problems of the black community in America are going to have to be solved by the black community in America."

At least your the HONEST poster, here. You clearly acknowlege the segregatory nature of American society, and show no interest in altering that nature in the future. The problem is, you seem to believe that the problems in one segment of America will never affect you, when in reality, history repeatedly tells us it will.
I'm not surprised you feel this way, Randy, and I'm certainly not attacking you for holding those views. What I will say, is that I'm glad you posted your views, which IMHO, have been a lynchpin of conservative ideology since day one.

--Cobra

Cobra,

Re; "conservative ideology"

I honestly don't see much difference between conservative and liberal ideology. They both boil down to thinking that other people should live the way I think they should - just different ideas about what the should is.

Not caring, and the right to not care, is more of a libertarian thing.

It seems to me, that in our private lives, we instinctively understand that our primary responsibility to our fellow human beings is to "leave them the hell alone". The exception being that it is okay to participate in mutually agreed upon transactions. Watch how people actually behave in their private lives and you can see it.

But in our public lives, our behavior is exactly the opposite. We suddenly believe that we have not only a right, but a duty, to interfere in the lives of others.

Where does this come from? I can suggest a source. "Am I my brother's keeper?" The answer yes, is deeply embedded in our ethical traditions. The answer no, therefore, is seen (publicly at least) as a violation of these ethical traditions. But in my opinion, the correct answer is, "I am my brother's keeper if and only if he and I both want me to be his keeper."

In other words, I not only have a right to not care - I have a duty not to interfere.

To apply this back to the race issue. I think that nearly all of the problems faced by the black community are the result of interference. Some of that interference was done with completely evil intent, and some of it with good intent. Most of the results were negative, some were positives. But the net result can only be seen as what the situation is today.

My belief is that problems created by interference will not be resolved by further interference. I believe that the only permanent solution is to end our reliance on interference. Because I believe that in all but the most extreme cases, people are capable of solving their own problems on their own.

Randy writes:

>>>"To apply this back to the race issue. I think that nearly all of the problems faced by the black community are the result of interference. Some of that interference was done with completely evil intent, and some of it with good intent. Most of the results were negative, some were positives. But the net result can only be seen as what the situation is today."

Do you believe that the African Americans fighting and dying in the Iraq War right now are part of "your community" or the "black community?"

--Cobra

What on earth does Iraq have to do with any of this?

Cobra,

Good point. I have been using the term rather generically. Those soldiers are definitely part of my community - in that I wore that uniform for 20 years and am a veteran of the Gulf War. White or black, male or female, those are my guys over there, and it bothers me often that I am not over there with them. I feel much more a part of the "military" community than of the "white community" - if there even is such a thing. I guess I use the term "black community" because I have heard it used - and it seems to me that many African Americans believe that it does exist.

Randy writes:

>>>"Good point. I have been using the term rather generically. Those soldiers are definitely part of my community - in that I wore that uniform for 20 years and am a veteran of the Gulf War. White or black, male or female, those are my guys over there, and it bothers me often that I am not over there with them. I feel much more a part of the "military" community than of the "white community" - if there even is such a thing. I guess I use the term "black community" because I have heard it used - and it seems to me that many African Americans believe that it does exist."

You make a great post here, Randy, and I agree with it. We find common ground on this, because in the military, especially during a time of war, people place their lives in each others hands, no matter the race, creed or ethnicity.
I like your post here, because it's indicative of what I feel is one of the possible solutions to the issue at hand in this blog thread. If Americans start believing en masse that they are responsible for "watching the backs" of their fellow Americans, there wouldn't be as much conflagration, discrimination or stereotyping.
This happens in the military life because your very survival depends on it. More and more Americans are waking up to the viewpoint that civilian life may have the same requirements.

--Cobra

Cobra,

Re; "This happens in the military life because your very survival depends on it. More and more Americans are waking up to the viewpoint that civilian life may have the same requirements."

Perhaps, but I think that an exactly opposite conclusion is more realistic.

The thing is, I "chose" to be a member of the military community. I care about the members of that community because I "choose" to care. I think that the idea that we can or will all care about each other, simply because we happen to have been born in the same geopolitical entity known as the United States, is wishful thinking at best. I don't think that people can be convinced to care in most cases, and certainly they cannot be forced to care. In essence, that is what current redistribution programs are, an attempt to force people to care. The result is resentment, not caring.

I believe that we'd be better off to simply accept the fact that people only care about the people they choose to care about. We'd be better off if the government's role stopped at enforcing our primary responsibility to one another - to leave each other the hell alone. Then we could stop all the resentment, start behaving ourselves in public as well as in private, start accepting responsibility for our own actions, and get on with caring about the people we care about.

Then again...

Perhaps the resentment should just be factored in. Some people need help and must be helped whether the general population cares or not. Forcing people to help those they do not care about will generate resentment, and so the trick is to balance the resentment against the help provided. And the mistake that some are making is in either refusing to factor in resentment at all, or in underestimating its effect. Thus the shock generated in those who cannot understand why anyone would resist contributing to what they consider to be an obvious social good.

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