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Comment by notrekasa | Hacker News Reader

I guess if the government stopped putting a higher rate of black fathers in jail (they may show up).

Yeah right it’s the government taking black men at random in the street and putting them in jail for the single reason they’re black, just to destroy the black community. It has absolutely nothing to do with the said individuals breaking laws (sometimes with the side effect of creating another father-less family in the process), which are the same for everyone. Also doing criminal acts is a choice, not something that happens by accident.

Well yes, that's structural racism for you. And before you judge people for committing crimes, ask yourself: would you have abstained if you had the same life story? Do you think they would fall into crime less if they had a more privileged upbringing?

Yes, I would have abstained. Mind you, my grand parents are from the very most "underprivileged" part of France, the kind of place were half of men are dead before 50. Still, what people do there was working hard, not theft, drug and robbing the few rich around.

The problem is in large part cultural. You can see it easily with East-Asian immigrants that arrived dirt poor, yet saved and send their kids in college. After one generation they are not poor anymore. In Europe, the division are the same (White+Asian vs Black+Arab) despite difference in history (no descendants of slave). Also, education and healthcare are free and there is the welfare money. So why the results are similar? Because some value education and other don’t.

Your perspective is 100% valid in a society that did not have several intentional attempts to punish a group of people because of their skin color.

The USA is a society with a long documented history of actions to undermine a population because of their skin color so unfortunately, your perspective is a little too simplistic for this situation.

Come on man. Just read:

https://www.naacp.org/criminal-justice-fact-sheet/

I know you think you are being sarcastic, but this very thing does happen, see stop and friskbl for example - white men on 5th avenue were not being "randomly" stopped.

Black men have been and continue to be systamaticly oppressed in the US. Black men serve more prison time than white men for the same crime. Black men are more likely to be charged for a crime vs dropped by the prosecutor when compared to a similar situation for whites.

This has been going on since litterly before the US existed when blacks were sold like animals for two centuries in america. Black people face institutional barriers to voting, jobs, loans, education and more.

This is a matter of fact not opinion.

Ignoring the fact that all other things being equal, Between Blacks and Whites committing the same crime, a Black person will receive a harsher sentence....

> Yeah right it’s the government taking black men at random in the street and putting them in jail

Well not as cut and dry as that, but cops harassing black kids walking the streets is an old tradition of law enforcement. Mix in some stop and frisk and you have an unfair system. I remember I made friends with some black kids in high school. I went down to their neighborhood. It didn't take long for a cop to pull up and start asking questions. I never had a cop approach me before that. It was eye opening. I lived only a mile away.

> laws...which are the same for everyone.

Oh really? Are you sure about that? There are many studies showing that black people have higher incarceration rates for the same crimes as their cohorts.

Very insightful. It becomes a vicious cycle when fathers aren’t even able to show up because they’re behind bars.

It's a system built on discrimination, the idea that people of different color are going through the exact same thing is ridiculous. People love telling other people how to fix problems they have no idea about.

I am not sure that numbers add up to support this claim. In Oklahoma, which has the highest percentage of black people incarcerated, there is approx 2.5% of the total black population imprisoned, while over 60% of black children are raised without fathers.

Need more information. E.g. 2.5% of the total black population, but what fraction of the black father population? How many kids, on average, does each black father have?

So what's the incarceration rate for black men (or black fathers) in the typical age where they have children? (I guess ~18-35?) Seems like this stat should be publicly available.

Perhaps I'm naive, but I can't imagine it to be more than 15% of this population [and that would be pretty extreme]. If that's the case, how can incarceration be considered a major cause of these fathers "failing from showing up?" (I guess we'd need a number for that, too..)

Roughly 1 in 9 black men between 20-34 are currently incarcerated (11%). It's probably a much higher percentage that have been incarcerated in the last 3 years.

https://images.app.goo.gl/YkRnZyqdV4M5dSC19

1. That's an insanely large part of that population.

2. 11% still doesn't go a long way in explaining the "fatherless issue", although we probably need firm numbers on that too.

"For boys born in 2001, the lifetime probability of incarceration is estimated to be 32 percent for young black men."

That's absolutely enough to tilt the data significantly.

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/11/mass-incarceration-statis...

Yikes. Still, it doesn't change the father-away issue fundamentally, I think?

11% may even seem like a small number until you consider that not all the black men who have been incarcerated at least once in their life are currently incarcerated. 25% of black and hispanic men will face incarceration at least once in their life[0]. The incarceration is also skewed towards younger men who are one supposes potentially more likely to miss out on the formative years of their children's lives. It's also difficult for a strong family to develop in this situation imo. Life is about getting a good start and keeping that momentum going as steadily and predictably as possible.

[0]https://bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/Llgsfp.pdf

11% is a huge and totally unacceptable number. We need to get our shit together.

I can’t say why users are tying to hide you post.

The incarceration rate for blacks is lower than the rate of fathers not being around for their offspring. That’s a fact.

Anyone arguing that the entire problem is “we’re just locking up all these otherwise-would-be-there fathers because it’s a fun game to lock blacks up” is ignoring the reality.

I don’t have a strong opinion on it either way, but I’ve seen much better arguments that the welfare system has allowed for the higher rate of non-nuclear families. That it doesn’t take two parents to provide so the rate of single parents increased. Seems logical enough.

Except - there is almost no cash welfare system in the US. Pretty much just healthcare and food stamps for the poorest.

> Except - there is almost no cash welfare system in the US

Now; there is LESS cash welfare in the US than there was. TANIF was reformed in 1996. There is still SSI/Disability, SNAP, child support as cash or cash equivalency. I support those programs, but also recognize that it is possible government handouts have contributed to the decline of the nuclear family.

While there are injustices, what percentage of the jail time is due to actually breaking the law?

Isn't it valid to put people who break the law behind bars?

I'd argue that depends on 1. laws being put I to place for strictly rational reasons, 2. arrest decisions do not depend on race and 3. punishment magnitude is equal for equal crimes.

If the law is just and fairly applied.

If you make a whole bunch of laws that huge swaths of the population violate, and then use them to put subgroups you don't like in prison... it's not so "valid".

A) The laws have been specifically designed to allow targeting of certain populations (the "War on Drugs" has had a hugely disproportionate impact on non-white Americans).

https://www.vox.com/2014/7/1/5850830/war-on-drugs-racist-min...

B) Non-whites are way, way more likely to be arrested (despite similar rates of drug use), and receive harsher penalties.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887324432004578304...

The list goes on and on... "Broken windows" policing results in targeting of minority communities. Blacks and Hispanics are significantly more likely to be targeted under "stop and frisk" laws, despite equal (or lower) hit rates for contraband discovery when compares to whites.

War on drugs. Is there a particular reason why weed is a necessity? Why isn't it fair to have banned it?

That argument is nonsensical... Just because something is "not a necessity" it's reasonable to criminalize its possession?

Eggs aren't a necessity, there are plenty of alternatives available. Should we ban them too?

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