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Comment by itjustdontwork | Hacker News Reader

Unfortunately

Why is it unfortunate?

No white person in their right mind would honestly prefer to live in a half-black community over an all-white community. Sure, they may say they would to save political face, or to look benevolent or "tolerant" and progressive, but deep down? No. The difference in crime rates and quality of life is just astounding. To prefer to live amongst more blacks is to prefer to be more at risk of having a violent (or other) crime committed against you and having your property values diminish greatly.

Yes there are lots of bad white people out there but they're much less concentrated within the race.

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I spent quite a few years in a nearly all-white area when I was growing up.

It was full of folk taking heroin and hitting each other with bottles.

I never could understand where they could muster the energy for so much fighting given the amount of heroin they were on.

Nearly everywhere I have lived since has both been a lot more culturally mixed and a hell of a lot less bat-shit psycho.

>No white person in their right mind would honestly prefer to live in a half-black community over an all-white community.

Well, some do. In their right minds et all. And could not care less about such racist BS. Except if you mean that the black neighborhood is poorer and less developed, so they might prefer the richer one.

Here's a well known example:

[Johny Otis] grew up in a predominantly black neighborhood in Berkeley, California, where his father owned a neighborhood grocery store. Otis became well known for his choice to live his professional and personal life as a member of the African-American community. He wrote, "As a kid I decided that if our society dictated that one had to be black or white, I would be black.

What's unfortunate is this attitude of "just face it, everybody stays away from (poor|black|stupid|ugly|martian) people, anybody who denies it is a hypocrite". Speak for yourself, own up to your prejudices, don't project them on others.

I've lived in "half-black" (wtf?? more like just "black") neighborhoods in Brooklyn, and Oakland CA. I prefer it to lily-white neighborhoods. Got carjacked once, have bars on my windows currently, projects are nearby. There's also a vibrancy to the neighborhood, in the music, the clothes, the attitude, that is precious. There are cultural differences, if you talk to folks on the street it's best to be sensitive and aware of nuances of communication. The reward is fresh perspectives, genuine encounters with different people. It's just plain stimulating. And no Starbucks either.

Sure, my ideal neighborhood would be less impacted by poverty, but I would slit my wrists if I lived in Park Slope or the Upper West Side.

> No white person in their right mind would honestly prefer to live in a half-black community over an all-white community.

I think the problem here is that you confusing "who shares my personal preferences" with "in the right mind". The two concepts are radically different.

I don't know about you, but I'm inclined to think that there are some pretty big socio-economic issues at play here.

I think you need to take a look at crime statistics again. They're income-based, not race-based. In the United States, poor often also means minority, but it's not race that makes inner cities violent. It's destitution, and the desperation it causes.

I'm not remotely defending his thesis (and my life choices contradict his claims pretty well) but you are simply wrong about the crime stats. To choose one category of crime, blacks make up about half of of murderers. However, there are twice as many poor whites as there are poor blacks.

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2012/c...

http://kff.org/other/state-indicator/poverty-rate-by-raceeth...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_Sta...

Further, international comparisons suggest you are wrong about American-style "destitution" causing crime. I know many professionals (I live in India) who are far more "destitute" than any poor American (at least in terms of goods and services they can afford). Strangely they don't turn to crime at anywhere near the rates Americans (of any race) do.

>To choose one category of crime, blacks make up about half of of murderers. However, there are twice as many poor whites as there are poor blacks.

Those whites don't have the same heritage of poverty, bad education and racism against them though. Nor are over-represented by a huge margin in incarceration rates.

>Further, international comparisons suggest you are wrong about American-style "destitution" causing crime. I know many professionals (I live in India) who are far more "destitute" than any poor American (at least in terms of goods and services they can afford). Strangely they don't turn to crime at anywhere near the rates Americans (of any race) do.

"American style" is not just about being poor / destitute and not being able to afford things.

It's about the particular flavor of being that, in the context of the general societies attitude, prevalent climate, ways to deal with it, etc. So people in India being "far more destitute" doesn't mean they share the "American-style "destitution"".

Moron4hire stated a very clear theory: the disparity in crime rates is caused by income/poverty. That particular theory is wrong.

Now you seem to be claiming that the disparity in crime rates is caused by some complex combination of things. Can you clearly state what that combination is and what evidence would prove your views wrong? Or are your views not even wrong?

>Now you seem to be claiming that the disparity in crime rates is caused by some complex combination of things.

Not just me. Sociologists also.

>Can you clearly state what that combination is

* Emphasis on extreme individualism (everyone for himself, or at best, his family) that destroys community bonds (that in other places serve to provide assistance to the individual, guidance etc).

* Extremely materialistic societal views, where the official national "dream" is about making loads of money.

(to prevent easy rebuttals: almost everywhere people would like to make loads of money, the difference is in how is this accepted / embedded in the collective psyche. E.g. in Japan, for an example, collaboration and being a part of something bigger is prioritized instead of "making it", whereas in some European countries an overt desire for money would be considered tacky).

In the US this also goes with the idea that those that didn't made it are "losers" -- and that they also only have themselves to blame ("didn't try enough" etc), something that's not the sentiment in other countries.

* People that have a history of little over a century of being "free" from slavery (with all that means for their chances of inheriting family fortune accrued over the years, access to good education etc), and little over 50 years of not being officially seggregated, while still being unoficially and covertly seggregated, denied jobs, targeted by police etc because of they color.

* Lack of "safety nets", a bad social services system, and a widespread contempt about the people making use of what exists (coupons, etc).

* Lack of proper education and cultural awareness in inner city schools. Those kids are mostly left to fail.

And other things besides.

>and what evidence would prove your views wrong?

Observing places with the same general conditions as described above which do not have elevated crime levels.

For example France's example with the "banlieues" is a similar case, with similar output.

>Or are your views not even wrong?*

I find this uncalled for, not to mention insulting.

India has the same general conditions as described above, and to a far greater extent than the US or France. Rather than individualism it's "every family for itself", but apart from that your description fits India better than the US.

Crime, apart from sex crime, is far lower. On many occasions I've walked around at night and been in no danger.

I'm not even sure if black Americans satisfy your criteria, actually. The US has a huge safety net - most of the bottom ventile are supported by the government. And my general impression is that black communities are far more collectivist than the rest of the nation. Do you have data on this?

Something really weird. On the one hand, the minute I heard your theory, I immediately thought "wow, this has to be overfitting". Then it took only a few minutes to realize these conditions are actually quite common and probably describe everything besides Scandinavia. And even those Scandinavian nations have subgroups with far higher crime than income levels would predict.

I'm sorry you found my question insulting. I'm simply attempting to determine if there is a real theory here; many people expressing similar mood affiliation to you have none, and I'm trying to avoid getting into a long debate about mood. My apologies.

ventile = lowest 20th = lowest 5%.

And, yes, we in Scandinavia have plenty of crime committed by our ever so wonderful freshly imported Muslims -- and it is NOT because they live in poverty.

> Not just me. Sociologists also.

Have you ever encountered a sociologist who understood statistics?

Have you ever encountered a sociologist who understood that at least part of the reason why SES is inheritable is because intelligence is?

> To choose one category of crime, blacks make up about half of of murderers.

They may make up half of all people convicted of murder, but then its been widely observed across many different categories of crime that, on similar fact patterns, blacks are more likely to be charged with a crime and are likely to be charged with a more serious crime than whites.

Check out the National Crime Victimization Survey which corroborates the conviction stats.

The NCVS, for obvious reasons [0], doesn't even track homicide (nor, from looking through the questionnaires it uses, does it appear to gather information on perpetrator race), much less corrobate the conviction stats presented for murder (and, in any case, as victims of crime often rely on law enforcement to identify the perpetrator, wouldn't really be an independent check, even for those kinds of crime it does address, on the UCR for perpetrator demographics, though it can be, for those crimes that both address, for crime incidence and victim demographics.)

[0] "In the last six months, have you been murdered?" is not a particularly viable question.

I think the point tsax meant to make is that the NCVS tracks most crimes besides homicide. For crimes besides homicide and burglary, the victimization surveys agree well with the arrest rates.

I suppose this data doesn't rule out the possibility that the UCR is not very biased for robbery/rape/assault, but is biased for murder.

If you are interested in this topic, Scott Alexander has a recent blog post on it that's well worth reading: http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/11/25/race-and-justice-much-m...

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