Republican Party Convention

[Smurf]

Andrew Neil saying that there are fewer black delegates than any other time since the early 1960's.

An amazing and depressing statistic if accurate.

 

[egb_hibs]

Andrew Neil saying that there are fewer black delegates than any other time since the early 1960's.

An amazing and depressing statistic if accurate.

Depressing but not amazing. American politics are becoming more divisive than ever with too many black people stuck in the vicious circle of falling into the self defeating politics of resentment through which, along with social liberalism, the democrats keep them in their place and supplying votes. The parallels with labour and client groups are striking. And now you've got th the renegade democrat trump turning the GOP ticket into a pre 68 democrat one - ie not very black friendly either. What a mess.

 

[SKII]

Still their First Lady in waiting made a black person's speech

Did they really think nobody at Democrat HQ (or indeed Michelle) wouldn't notice?

 

[gun ainm]

Depressing but not amazing. American politics are becoming more divisive than ever with too many black people stuck in the vicious circle of falling into the self defeating politics of resentment through which, along with social liberalism, the democrats keep them in their place and supplying votes. The parallels with labour and client groups are striking. And now you've got th the renegade democrat trump turning the GOP ticket into a pre 68 democrat one - ie not very black friendly either. What a mess.

that there is resentment politics is not the fault of of the black community unless they have nothing to be resentful over..... ? Black Lives Matter (as an example of what I assume you mean) had identified a specific issue in the US. If government and wider society wont/cant address the principal issue, its hard to argue that black men and women should somehow transcend their grievance and consider the 'bigger picture'.

back to the OP - the number of black delegates the GOP has had has always been spectacularly low a few less this year does point to something but its hardly a seismic shift in representation

 

[egb_hibs]

that there is resentment politics is not the fault of of the black community unless they have nothing to be resentful over..... ? Black Lives Matter (as an example of what I assume you mean) had identified a specific issue in the US. If government and wider society wont/cant address the principal issue, its hard to argue that black men and women should somehow transcend their grievance and consider the 'bigger picture'.

blm is not really what I had in mind, though it's related. Almost the moment black people acquired full political rights, the democrats switched from being the party of lynch mobs and klansmen to being the party of rampant social liberalism. The effects of that have been grievous on the poor but particularly severe for blacks; the black family has suffered catastrophic collapse, producing the legions of fatherless boys who murder each other at battlefield casualty rates. Prior to late 60s progress, American blacks were rising faster than anyone else (because they were coming from a lower base) across a swathe of social measures. That went into reverse after the 60s sexual / social revolution. Rather than curtail their own frivolities, it suits upper class liberals to inculcate a politics of resentment rather than self improvement - to direct attention away from the real, transparent and addressable factors affecting black lives and to dope people up with hand outs that keep them dependent. The result? Other minority groups not so culturally vulnerable to social liberalism, pass blacks on the social ladder, one after another.

Of course it is difficult to break out of this cycle: when you're already in a hole, those handouts are hard to ignore at voting time. Which makes the pusher's logic of liberal dependency politics even more cynical.

Returning to BLM though, it does reflect this bigger picture - I'm not sure it has identified a specific issue, but it's a pretty classic example of the wider dynamic.

Young black men are massively more likely than the population at large to be perpetrators of homicide (over 20x in some places iirc). Black men of all ages are many times more likely than others to kill cops (approx 7x). Cops kills black men proportionately two to three times more frequently than white men.

In short, police clearly go into confrontations influenced by demographic association with risk to themselves and others. Despite that they kill whites at a far higher rate relative to the threat of lethal violence they perpetrate.

Meanwhile, the big picture is that rollback of assertive policing on the back of all the furore over shootings has led,to big upticks in homicide rates, in which the victims (and offenders) are overwhelmingly black. Additional victims dwarf the casualties from police shootings.

In a nutshell - a false narrative has been supported and propelled by the liberal establishment, which diverts attention away from where black lives are lost on a colossal scale (outside the womb where they are also lost at levels massively higher than others, btw). The immediate consequence is an even greater loss of black lives, and the long terms consequences might be deeply damaging division, the inevitable losers from which will be...black people.

None of which is to say there is not an issue with US policing, but it's not the issue being so crudely propagandised.

back to the OP - the number of black delegates the GOP has had has always been spectacularly low a few less this year does point to something but its hardly a seismic shift in representation

indeed it has been low, due to a combination of factors such as the dynamics described above, the despicable liberal demonisation of black conservative advocates of self help as uncle toms, and the republicans representation of the white working class which includes more than a few exiles from the democrats old white hooded ranks. The latter have been given new life by that whopper Trump and thus, I expect, the worse than ever representation this year.

As I said; what a mess.

 

[egb_hibs]

Ps to end on an upbeat note: poor whites are of course next most vulnerable to progress. As in the UK they are sinking to join blacks at the bottom of the heap, while more traditionally minded minorities pass them. Once the white poor are sufficiently fcked we can revel in egalitarian progress.

 

[Gareth]

Hmmm, lets some take these issues one at a time.

In a nutshell, Almost the moment black people acquired full political rights, the democrats switched from being the party of lynch mobs and klansmen to being the party of rampant social liberalism. The effects of that have been grievous on the poor but particularly severe for blacks; the black family has suffered catastrophic collapse, producing the legions of fatherless boys who murder each other at battlefield casualty rates.

You could read this very differently, the moment black Americans achieved the rights that they had been denied (achieved by struggle, not for some noble means by the US elites) there was an expectation that things would improve, that they’d now be seen as ‘equal under god’. When that too was denied some became more radical while others reached an understandable assumption that change was not possible so gave up. You put far too much cause and effect on the sexual revolution. You ignore, for example, that the early 70s onwards has been a period where wages have stagnated for the vast majority and inequality has risen dramatically. So just at the point where some black americans were able to reach the middle class, what that meant ceased to really matter, at least in material terms.

Prior to late 60s progress, American blacks were rising faster than anyone else (because they were coming from a lower base) across a swathe of social measures. That went into reverse after the 60s sexual / social revolution.

There was certainly economic progress from that low base but as I said, just at the point it might start to matter wages started to stagnate. The reason is largely increased inequality, the cause the beginning of neoliberal capitalism heralded in by Thatcher and Reagan.

Rather than curtail their own frivolities, it suits upper class liberals to inculcate a politics of resentment rather than self improvement - to direct attention away from the real, transparent and addressable factors affecting black lives and to dope people up with hand outs that keep them dependent. The result? Other minority groups not so culturally vulnerable to social liberalism, pass blacks on the social ladder, one after another.

The focus has been almost entirely on black Americans own agency so being poor (for whites as well as blacks) is seen as being your own fault. It was easier to direct attention to individual (in)action than to point to the very real structural changes occurring. The other minority groups you mention are very different in most cases. For example, many are relatively recent populations and there’s a ream of evidence that new migrant populations do ‘better’ than existing minority populations. Outside of latinos you are also talking about populations that have increasingly been selected on the basis of income, education etc, so again not comparing like with like. Finally, when talking about black Americans you are also talking about a population with generations of economic disadvantage and hardship. In the US, as here, the greatest determinant of being an adult living in poverty is to have been a child born into poverty. There is little or no ‘social mobility’. (a not great comparison might be Irish Catholics here. I don’t believe Irish Catholics suffer widespread discrimination here any longer, yet on a range of factors they are disadvantaged compared to others even of the same social class. I think this has to be viewed in relation to the ongoing impacts of their historical disadvantage)

Returning to BLM though, it does reflect this bigger picture - I'm not sure it has identified a specific issue, but it's a pretty classic example of the wider dynamic.

Young black men are massively more likely than the population at large to be perpetrators of homicide. Black men of all ages are many times more likely than others to kill cops. Cops kills black men proportionately two to three times more frequently than white men. In short, police clearly go into confrontations influenced by demographic association with risk to themselves and others. Despite that they kill white at a far higher rate relative to the threat of lethal violence they perpetrate.

Meanwhile, the big picture is that rollback of assertive policing on the back of all the furore over shootings has led,to big upticks in homicide rates, in which the victims (and offenders) are overwhelmingly black.

I think this is much more complicated than you present, that black people kill more so the police are more likely to be on edge when dealing with black people. Why are homicide rates higher among the black American population? Class and poverty explains some of it, racism some of it but I think there must be more. The increasingly militarised nature of the US police alongside gun culture alongside racism make it a complicated and dangerous mix. This also does not explain, for example, the increased likelihood of being arrested and imprisoned for the same crime if you are black than if you were white. BLM also highlight this and are papped off by platitudes by liberals like Clinton and ignored completely by republicans.

 

[egb_hibs]

Hmmm, lets some take these issues one at a time.

You could read this very differently, the moment black Americans achieved the rights that they had been denied (achieved by struggle, not for some noble means by the US elites) there was an expectation that things would improve, that they’d now be seen as ‘equal under god’. When that too was denied some became more radical while others reached an understandable assumption that change was not possible so gave up. You put far too much cause and effect on the sexual revolution. You ignore, for example, that the early 70s onwards has been a period where wages have stagnated for the vast majority and inequality has risen dramatically. So just at the point where some black americans were able to reach the middle class, what that meant ceased to really matter, at least in material terms.

nonetheless the facts remain that social progress was reversed as the black family collapsed, sewing all manner of disastrous social consequences. I'm not putting too much emphasis on it at all - I'm discussing why black social trajectories changed, not general economic conditions which affected all.

There was certainly economic progress from that low base but as I said, just at the point it might start to matter wages started to stagnate. The reason is largely increased inequality, the cause the beginning of neoliberal capitalism heralded in by Thatcher and Reagan.

Not only does this fail to explain why black America in particular has suffered, it does not coincide with reversal of fortunes, which pre date Reagan and Thatcher.

The focus has been almost entirely on black Americans own agency so being poor (for whites as well as blacks) is seen as being your own fault. It was easier to direct attention to individual (in)action than to point to the very real structural changes occurring. The other minority groups you mention are very different in most cases. For example, many are relatively recent populations and there’s a ream of evidence that new migrant populations do ‘better’ than existing minority populations. Outside of latinos you are also talking about populations that have increasingly been selected on the basis of income, education etc, so again not comparing like with like. Finally, when talking about black Americans you are also talking about a population with generations of economic disadvantage and hardship. In the US, as here, the greatest determinant of being an adult living in poverty is to have been a child born into poverty. There is little or no ‘social mobility’. (a not great comparison might be Irish Catholics here. I don’t believe Irish Catholics suffer widespread discrimination here any longer, yet on a range of factors they are disadvantaged compared to others even of the same social class. I think this has to be viewed in relation to the ongoing impacts of their historical disadvantage)

and yet it remains a fact that communities obliterated by the collapse of the family sink to the bottom here and in the US while minority groups less culturally vulnerable to that, and with more traditional approaches to education et al, do better. Notable among these - given the subject - are recent black immigrants to the UK and US who do far better than indigenous black populations. As you note, new populations who have not been immersed in the last 50 years of progress, tend to do better.

I think this is much more complicated than you present, that black people kill more so the police are more likely to be on edge when dealing with black people.

precisely my point - or one of them - and yet: a) entirely disguised by BLM and b) cops still kill white people far more versus the statistical threat they represent

Why are homicide rates higher among the black American population? Class and poverty explains some of it, racism some of it but I think there must be more. The increasingly militarised nature of the US police alongside gun culture alongside racism make it a complicated and dangerous mix. This also does not explain, for example, the increased likelihood of being arrested and imprisoned for the same crime if you are black than if you were white. BLM also highlight this and are papped off by platitudes by liberals like Clinton and ignored completely by republicans.

actually, blacks are underrepresented in prisons for the most violent offences given rate of perpetration. As their victims are overwhelmingly black it could be argued that an undersized black gaol population demonstrates black lives don't matter - how do you think that one will play?

Of the list of questions you ask - I think most are of secondary significance next to the homicide rates one. For instance, blacks no doubt get more police attention due to the far higher rates of violent crime they commit and arrests for other offences may proceed from that. On the other hand, the police are notorious for lack of presence in some troubled black areas (the 'one time' call-out you may have heard in some rap songs originates in a taunt to police making their single daily pass through such communities) something the blm campaign seems determined to increase.

Clearly gun culture is central to homicide rates - London has more street violence than many American cities but lack of guns means far lower conversion rate to lethal effect. Then again Canada has similar preponderance of guns; it suffers from common US problems if to a less degree - spree and school shootings - but is absent the catastrophic black on black homicide rates that raise US totals to exceptional levels.

So we're back to your most important question. Unless you subscribe to a genetic contributor (and while that's actually not something that can be discounted scientifically - we celts, for instance, have form form for violence wherever we go - I think we should discount it here for 101 reasons with #1 being the as yet blessed lack of maturity of the field...) then cultural factors must play a part given economic disparities are insufficient and indeed economic (mis)fortunes have trailed cultural change.

That lethal violence proceeds from seried ranks of young men whose only male role model is each other or gangsta rap fuckwits, whose adolescent male predilection for mischief and disdain for education has gone unchallenged on the poisonous and racist identity politics trope that this represents 'authentic black culture', who have been encouraged to believe that a racist society rather than manifestly self destructive behaviour holds them back, who have easy access to serious weaponary...should be no surprise to anyone.

Sadly the pattern is now being replicated in the likes of south London though thankfully limited access to guns make it less lethal by a factor. Nevertheless look at the depressing catalogue of youth homicide and victims and perpetrators are overwhelmingly black and coming from a social context similar to US peers in all but the things liberals like to hang their arguments on: slavery and its legacy.

For me the final analysis question can be taken from the sloganeering; do black lives matter enough to challenge liberal shibboleths, or do they only matter enough to provide the basis for some morally pleasing #hashtagging or so far as they perpetuate captive votes? I fear the answer looks pretty clear.

- - - Updated - - -

Ps no time for more now - thanks for your thoughtful response. Will get back to you later if subject develops.

- - - Updated - - -

Pps - this is well worth a read: https://books.google.com/books/about/Ghettoside.html?id=oFLOygAACAAJ&hl=en

 

[Gareth]

nonetheless the facts remain that social progress was reversed as the black family collapsed, sewing all manner of disastrous social consequences. I'm not putting too much emphasis on it at all - I'm discussing why black social trajectories changed, not general economic conditions which affected all.

And as you point out, the American white working class have moved in a downward trajectory at the same time. And as I also said I’d also link it to history.

Not only does this fail to explain why black America in particular has suffered, it does not coincide with reversal of fortunes, which pre date Reagan and Thatcher.

But placed alongside longstanding economic disadvantage it just might. The trajectory did indeed predate Thatcher and Reagan, they took that trajectory and turbo-boosted it.

and yet it remains a fact that communities obliterated by the collapse of the family sink to the bottom here and in the US while minority groups less culturally vulnerable to that, and with more traditional approaches to education et al, do better. Notable among these - given the subject - are recent black immigrants to the UK and US who do far better than indigenous black populations. As you note, new populations who have not been immersed in the last 50 years of progress, tend to do better.

That’s not quite what I said, my historic trajectory is a good deal longer than 50 years. New populations tend not to suffer the intergenerational poverty related disadvantages for obvious reasons. What do you mean when you say groups ‘less culturally vulnerable’?.

precisely my point - or one of them - and yet: a) entirely disguised by BLM and b) cops still kill white people far more versus the statistical threat they represent

How are you measuring statistical threat? BLM are of course presenting a one-sided view given that it’s the side that really has not been presented at all. I accept there is a lack of nuance but I think its justifiable given the forces that they are up against.

actually, blacks are underrepresented in prisons for the most violent offences given rate of perpetration. As their victims are overwhelmingly black it could be argued that an undersized black gaol population demonstrates black lives don't matter - how do you think that one will play?

Can you provide verifiable evidence that blacks are underrepresented in incarceration rates for violent crime? Not sure what to make of your second comment to be honest. Its not BLM committing these crimes.

Of the list of questions you ask - I think most are of secondary significance next to the homicide rates one. For instance, blacks no doubt get more police attention due to the far higher rates of violent crime they commit and arrests for other offences may proceed from that. On the other hand, the police are notorious for lack of presence in some troubled black areas (the 'one time' call-out you may have heard in some rap songs originates in a taunt to police making their single daily pass through such communities) something the blm campaign seems determined to increase.

But unless you think there is something biological in the incidence of homicide rates there remains the question of why those rates. You put it all down to family breakdown. I think that’s reductionist in the extreme. And the fact remains that the police in the US do treat populations differently, arrest differently, categorise crimes differently, charge differently and the criminal justice system then imprisons differently, with blacks the victims of worse treatment on all counts.

Clearly gun culture is central to homicide rates - London has more street violence than many American cities but lack of guns means far lower conversion rate to lethal effect. Then again Canada has similar preponderance of guns; it suffers from common US problems if to a less degree - spree and school shootings - but is absent the catastrophic black on black homicide rates that raise US totals to exceptional levels.

Some of that is true, though I must admit I hate the term black on black crime. There are no other demographic group who are described similarly, white on white crime etc.

So we're back to your most important question. Unless you subscribe to a genetic contributor (and while that's actually not something that can be discounted scientifically - we celts, for instance, have form form for violence wherever we go - I think we should discount it here for 101 reasons with #1 being the as yet blessed lack of maturity of the field...) then cultural factors must play a part given economic disparities are insufficient and indeed economic (mis)fortunes have trailed cultural change.

Some of that I agree with, though I do think we discount genes as a cause of violence. My view is that the economic factors alongside historical and entrenched disadvantage relative to even other disadvantaged groups leads the cultural. As we’ve argued before, you think the cultural leads all else.

Ps no time for more now - thanks for your thoughtful response. Will get back to you later if subject develops.

No worries

Pps - this is well worth a read: Google Books

Cheers, will check it out once I get through the stack of books I ‘just must read’

 

[jock3]

So Trump gets the Republican Party nomination. When a pillar of capitalism collapses, it can manifest in a surge to the left or the far right. We can see in the UK the crisis has turned the political landscape upside down. In the US the sad thing is; haven't they learned from the bunglings of that arch f*ckwit Bush(father and son!)? Trump has succeeded on a loony, racist, far right programme. Can you imagine this buffoon with his finger on the nuclear missile launch button? The success is partly owed to Trump's multi-million dollar publicity campaign and the incompetence of the other candidates. What does it say about the US population? Look to the rise of Bernie Sanders for part of the answer; finally there was a socialist alternative, and his message resonated with hundreds of thousands of people. Sadly he couldn't compete with Clinton's hugely expensive campaign; maybe next time Bernie!

 

[egb_hibs]

And as you point out, the American white working class have moved in a downward trajectory at the same time. And as I also said I’d also link it to history.

on a slower trajectory, tracking the slower collapse of the family unit in those communities.

But placed alongside longstanding economic disadvantage it just might. The trajectory did indeed predate Thatcher and Reagan, they took that trajectory and turbo-boosted it.

i don't think there is evidence for that. It remains the case that destinies within minorities are substantially affected by their own cultural values and choices. Fewer things have had more immediate and dramatic correlation than 60s reforms, the collapse of the family structure and reversal of fortunes within affected groups. Moreover cultural groups who do not participate prosper markedly better while affected by the same economic conditions.

I'm not there are no other factors - what I am saying is this is demonstrably among if not the most significant and the most readily addressable and the one most affectable by individual agency if people are not misdirected.

That’s not quite what I said, my historic trajectory is a good deal longer than 50 years. New populations tend not to suffer the intergenerational poverty related disadvantages for obvious reasons. What do you mean when you say groups ‘less culturally vulnerable’?.

i mean arriving from cultures where more traditional values maintain (and which in turn also varies by culture - the East Asians for instance do particularly well for
an immigrant culture and one that suffered targeted discrimination in the past.)

How are you measuring statistical threat?

Racial demographics of perpetrators of a) homicide and b) cop killing , based on multiple sources but easiest and most comprehensive upon which to base your own analysis would be fbi and US government data available on their websites.

BLM are of course presenting a one-sided view given that it’s the side that really has not been presented at all. I accept there is a lack of nuance but I think its justifiable given the forces that they are up against.

its not nuance its counter factual and leading to more black deaths

Can you provide verifiable evidence that blacks are underrepresented in incarceration rates for violent crime? Not sure what to make of your second comment to be honest. Its not BLM committing these crimes.

covered in the book I recommended. BLM are misrepresenting tragic events as a racist assault on the black population without reference to evidence. The general narrative with which this corresponds is one of a black gaol population that is also evidence of racism. The facts in respect of the latter are at best debatable.

But unless you think there is something biological in the incidence of homicide rates there remains the question of why those rates. You put it all down to family breakdown. I think that’s reductionist in the extreme.

not half as reductionist as the catch all thatcher / Reagan explanation for all the worlds ills especially when it demonstrably doesn't explain things here, in terms of both timeframe and plight of different demographics. Nor am I arguing it's the only factor - rather that it's probably the most material and almost certainly the most influenceable.

And the fact remains that the police in the US do treat populations differently, arrest differently, categorise crimes differently, charge differently and the criminal justice system then imprisons differently, with blacks the victims of worse treatment on all counts.

can you back that up with evidence?

I don't doubt there is some discrimination going on, but in terms of the big picture it doesn't appear to be the most significant factor
by a long chalk.

Some of that is true, though I must admit I hate the term black on black crime. There are no other demographic group who are described similarly, white on white crime etc.

well there is no 'white lives matter' either, and more importantly there is no catastrophic level of homicide by white youngsters against white youngsters. You're right not to like the term because it describes a truth that is a disgrace and from which many would like to turn their gaze away - as above it calls in to question their own values.

Some of that I agree with, though I do think we discount genes as a cause of violence. My view is that the economic factors alongside historical and entrenched disadvantage relative to even other disadvantaged groups leads the cultural. As we’ve argued before, you think the cultural leads all else.

sorry I'm not the anti Gareth! Because I put culture first where it appears to me to be the most significant factor doesn't make me some equivalent to the Marxist location of everything in economics. There are plenty of things where culture is not the most important element - I just doubt this is one of them.

No worries




Cheers, will check it out once I get through the stack of books I ‘just must read’

Really is worth reading - an up close account of grim realities that offers little sops to any political disposition or social theory.

 

[Gareth]

on a slower trajectory, tracking the slower collapse of the family unit in those communities.

or alternatively those communities didn’t suffer quite the same historic disadvantage so their disadvantage has taken time to catch up and in some cases equalise. And incidentally, there was a major report in 1965 (Moynihan I think) that linked single parenthood in African American families to many of the problems we are discussing, widely disparaged but nevertheless suggests that these arguments predate the so called sexual revolution.

i don't think there is evidence for that. It remains the case that destinies within minorities are substantially affected by their own cultural values and choices. Fewer things have had more immediate and dramatic correlation than 60s reforms, the collapse of the family structure and reversal of fortunes within affected groups. Moreover cultural groups who do not participate prosper markedly better while affected by the same economic conditions.

And this is the point I made earlier, the ignoring of structures and placing all the causes of problems down to individual choice. As you know causation is not causality so there are also correlations with economic inequality rising from the late 60s. And again this ignores the very real issue of expectations that achieving civil rights leading to full participation being squashed. Imagine you are a youngish African American who has fought for civil rights on the basis that achieving them solves most of your communities problems. And then it doesn’t. what do you do?

i mean arriving from cultures where more traditional values maintain (and which in turn also varies by culture - the East Asians for instance do particularly well for an immigrant culture and one that suffered targeted discrimination in the past.)

yes but vulnerable to what? And the east Asian community didn’t suffer the massive historical way that African Americans did. The only minority community historically that might compare is native Americans, and they too suffer multiple disadvantages. More recently Latinos might compare, minus the historical part obviously.

Racial demographics of perpetrators of a) homicide and b) cop killing , based on multiple sources but easiest and most comprehensive upon which to base your own analysis would be fbi and US government data available on their websites.

So there is nothing statistical about calculations as cops go into potentially volatile situations, instead they are based on hunch, racial profiling and in some cases racism. What could ever go wrong?

its not nuance its counter factual and leading to more black deaths

its far from counterfactual, and how are BLM responsible for more black deaths?

covered in the book I recommended. BLM are misrepresenting tragic events as a racist assault on the black population without reference to evidence. The general narrative with which this corresponds is one of a black gaol population that is also evidence of racism. The facts in respect of the latter are at best debatable.

I’ve just had a look at academic literature in google scholar and found nothing supporting that view, indeed all I have thus far read argued the complete opposite.

not half as reductionist as the catch all thatcher / Reagan explanation for all the worlds ills especially when it demonstrably doesn't explain things here, in terms of both timeframe and plight of different demographics. Nor am I arguing it's the only factor - rather that it's probably the most material and almost certainly the most influenceable.

Not so much thatcher and Reagan but the onset of economic policies that led to massively rising levels of inequality and wage stagnation. If that’s demonstrably wrong then you thus far haven’t demonstrated it.

can you back that up with evidence?

Most behind paywalls I’m afraid but Mona Lynch on the culture of control. Maybe more directly addressing this is ‘Rehabilitating criminal justice policy and practice by
Andrews, D. A.; Bonta, James. Interesting as it is not directly about this issue but that is the backdrop. So, for example “Blacks are twice more likely to be imprisoned for robbery than Whites”. So that’s the people who are caught. There’s loads more, look up the carceral state. There are issues with most of the studies I can see is that the data relies on government agencies to provide it, and many don’t capture the data in a form that allows such work to be fully comparative. Nevertheless it seems there is a mass of evidence there.

I don't doubt there is some discrimination going on, but in terms of the big picture it doesn't appear to be the most significant factor
by a long chalk.

But that’s your political perspective, mine is that race and class explains a lot of it.

well there is no 'white lives matter' either, and more importantly there is no catastrophic level of homicide by white youngsters against white youngsters. You're right not to like the term because it describes a truth that is a disgrace and from which many would like to turn their gaze away - as above it calls in to question their own values.

And there are proportionately fewer young whites being murdered by the state. And in this country organised violence tended to be the preserve of young white lads but it was never described as such, the class element was deemed more important, hence schemies etc.

sorry I'm not the anti Gareth! Because I put culture first where it appears to me to be the most significant factor doesn't make me some equivalent to the Marxist location of everything in economics. There are plenty of things where culture is not the most important element - I just doubt this is one of them.

We have had masses of debates on this website, in almost all you locate problems in relation to culture, in almost all I locate them in relation to economics. It’s a pretty uncontroversial thing for me to say.

 

[egb_hibs]

or alternatively those communities didn’t suffer quite the same historic disadvantage so their disadvantage has taken time to catch up and in some cases equalise. And incidentally, there was a major report in 1965 (Moynihan I think) that linked single parenthood in African American families to many of the problems we are discussing, widely disparaged but nevertheless suggests that these arguments predate the so called sexual revolution.

Im not sure what your point is? Black and white communities have seen a reversal of progress as their family structures have collapsed following 60 changes. The same is the case elsewhere including the UK. Black America has suffered worse than others, and the same pattern is starting to present in parts of black Britain.

You can speculate all you like on why black communities were most susceptible to negative impact from 60s changes, but at one level so what? They are merely in the vanguard of disasterous consequences for less affluent communities across the west, and it's still a huge / the main driver of the catastrophic black youth violence we see. At most you are saying - and you may well be right - that prior tendencies to family dissolution or non-formation in black communities made them most vulnerable; these patterns apparently exist is Africa never mind pre 60s America.

But again, so what? That amounts to the beginning of an explanation as to why black communities have been particularly negatively affected - which subtracts nothing from identifying the triggers for those effects. I'm really not sure why you are committed to the improbable task of de-coupling things from 60s changes when a comparison of family data from prior to that point and now could not be more dramatic. If your argument was that those changes intersect with other things so that the poor are more affected, I'd say, damned right. Inherent in this is that less affluent communities have been destroyed, and the bases for social advancement obliterated, by things which not only have nowhere near the same impact on the the affluent, but which suit them nicely; that's why nothing will change any time soon. As with other things, such as global capitalism, the status quo is actively enabled by a middle class left, so change will not come from those quarters.

And this is the point I made earlier, the ignoring of structures and placing all the causes of problems down to individual choice. As you know causation is not causality so there are also correlations with economic inequality rising from the late 60s. And again this ignores the very real issue of expectations that achieving civil rights leading to full participation being squashed. Imagine you are a youngish African American who has fought for civil rights on the basis that achieving them solves most of your communities problems. And then it doesn’t. what do you do?

i didn't say all problems were down to individual choices - I said that the contribution of family breakdown to social problems is one that is most affectable by individual agency. And it is - no one of us can change macro economic conditions but we have a lot more control of our personal life. As such, the discouragement of the very cultural values - family, hard work, deferred gratification - that have seen one after another minority group prosper, in favour of a self defeating victim-politics, is damnable.

I find it improbable that anyone would have believed that attainment of civil rights would somehow transport them to affluence and influence - how could it, when all it did was remove wicked external constraints? I have picked out above - indeed its central to my point - the tragedy inherent in this step forward being immediately followed by the multiple steps back that proceeded from collapse of the family. That the democrat party went from the being the party of the racism defeated, to the party of the ruinous ideology that snatched dependency from the jaws of emancipation, is, at minimum, ironic.

Finally on correlation vs causation - agreed, but it's also become an Internet canard levelled when ideology meets facts. You can't prove any causation in human affairs because you can't conduct falsifying experiments in a lab. Consequently, strong correlation is the best evidence you will ever have. And it doesn't get much stronger than changing cultural views on the family being followed - everywhere those changes take place and otherwise uniquely from a historical PoV - with the erosion or collapse of the family, and then a raft of social problems proceeding immediately from those collapsed structures. It's hypothetically predictable and has manifested immediately and everywhere - that's as close to proof of causation as you will ever get in social matters.

yes but vulnerable to what?

vulnerable to living in accord with post 60s western cultural norms in respect of sexual relations and family formation. In other words, not protected from the same by alternative cultural values that still hold sway in many minority groups.

And the east Asian community didn’t suffer the massive historical way that African Americans did. The only minority community historically that might compare is native Americans, and they too suffer multiple disadvantages. More recently Latinos might compare, minus the historical part obviously.

you might want to read up on the 'yellow peril' - East Asians have been subject to systematic discrimination second (and it's a distant second) only to blacks. I still don't get your point? I'm suggesting that East Asians prosper through keeping families together, prizing education, working hard...ie the way that anyone, ever, advanced themselves. I'm not clear what your point amounts to here - it can't be that because blacks have been subject to historical oppression that today's blacks are discouraged from these things and to stew in self defeating resentment that keeps them dependent (and providing captive votes)?

So there is nothing statistical about calculations as cops go into potentially volatile situations, instead they are based on hunch, racial profiling and in some cases racism. What could ever go wrong?

seriously, what are you saying here? Feels like a random veer into PC know-nothingism in the face of facts.

The facts are - and you can go and check - that black men, and especially young black men, are statistically far more likely to be cop killers, and far far more likely to be killers, than other citizens the police will get into confrontations with. You can bet your last dollar the police are very much aware of this given their lives are on the line, and that it affects their disposition going into situations. And given black men's disproportionate involvement in serious crime, they are disproportionately likely to be involved in volatile police confrontations to begin with. The results should be a surprise to noone - except they are. Despite all this, police kill white people in far higher ratios relative to white people's representation in cop killing or general killing: a white person is 1/7 likely to be a cop killer but between 1/2 and 1/3 times as likely to be killed by a cop.

its far from counterfactual, and how are BLM responsible for more black deaths?

it is counterfactul as the whole narrative rests on black men being disproportionate victims based on racism - this is not supported by facts surrounding police shooting. It has been the cause of more black deaths because where policing has been rolled back due to the heat generated, homicided rates have reliably shot up - the victims of which are overwhelmingly black. I've said all this above.

I’ve just had a look at academic literature in google scholar and found nothing supporting that view, indeed all I have thus far read argued the complete opposite.

smashing. Do you want to share any of that?

Not so much thatcher and Reagan but the onset of economic policies that led to massively rising levels of inequality and wage stagnation. If that’s demonstrably wrong then you thus far haven’t demonstrated it.

the onus is on you to demonstrate how they could have had an effect years before they happened, and how that effect could be common across countries that adhered to them and countries which didn't. After all you must surely admit that changing views on marriage directly preceding corresponding changes to marriage, and this two-step happening consistently across countries where the first step happened...has Occam's razor on its side versus your time travelling general purpose explanation for all?

Most behind paywalls I’m afraid but Mona Lynch on the culture of control. Maybe more directly addressing this is ‘Rehabilitating criminal justice policy and practice by
Andrews, D. A.; Bonta, James. Interesting as it is not directly about this issue but that is the backdrop. So, for example “Blacks are twice more likely to be imprisoned for robbery than Whites”. So that’s the people who are caught. There’s loads more, look up the carceral state. There are issues with most of the studies I can see is that the data relies on government agencies to provide it, and many don’t capture the data in a form that allows such work to be fully comparative. Nevertheless it seems there is a mass of evidence there.

ta - anything I can get access to?

But that’s your political perspective, mine is that race and class explains a lot of it.

sorry I find this genuinely odd; it reads like you're suggesting you set out to conform or map reality to ideology. I'm doing something very different - I'm following the evidence and exploring conclusions it suggests. Perhaps that's why I've been able to offer clear patterns that are as solid as anything in the affairs of men, and reference specific data which measures the incidents we are talking about.

Tbh you've disputed this with no reasons or argument given for contesting what is so heavily backed up, and have offered as an alternative your universal answer despite it not fitting in time or space.

And there are proportionately fewer young whites being murdered by the state.

not checked the numbers on young whites specifically but re white males generally you are incorrect when the proportions assessed are their own likelihood to deploy lethal violence.

And in this country organised violence tended to be the preserve of young white lads but it was never described as such, the class element was deemed more important, hence schemies etc.

i think if young white males were slaughtering each other out of all proportion to any other group it would get attention - unless you are saying white lives don't matter. You seem to have got yourself into a position where both attention and inattention are evidence of the same thing - a common end result when identity politics sets out to confirm an ideological caste of mind rather than follow the facts.

The other reason I guess the term is relevant is because we have a context where self serving poltiical agendas are intent on focussing on focussing attention on a tiny proportion of killings of blacks and wrap them up in a race narrative - therebye directing attention away from the colossal levels of carnage elsewhere and their own causes. I'm sure there are some racist police, but compared to the catastrophe of black deaths by violence, they are not the first order of business.

Finally, lethal youth violence in the UK is of course actually tracking the American way, absent the history of US slavery and constitutional racism, but very much in line with common cultural issues and familial implosion. We celts are holding up our end as well as our distant kin are also over represented in white violence in the US.

We have had masses of debates on this website, in almost all you locate problems in relation to culture, in almost all I locate them in relation to economics. It’s a pretty uncontroversial thing for me to say.

but it looks like it's your goal to bend everything to fit your view? That's not what I do - where I believe economics are problematic I'll say so (calamitous labour policy or global capitalism for instance) where I think it's cultural I'll go with that, where it's something else, something else. You seem determined to arrived at a unified theory for all problems, which happens to correspond to your politics. I don't think we approach things the same way.

Anyway I've spent enough time repeating myself on the above - the ball is with you to move us forward. I've provided pretty strong evidential basis for an unfolding tragedy. You have disputed it without arguing the evidence or logic, have dismissed likely starting points without giving reason (ie attitudes to marriage affecting marriage) and tabled alternatives which don't fit and without any attempt to demonstrate why they pertain. So, like I say, yours to move it on otherwise I've said my piece.

Finally, I think the priority for the wider world should be trying to stem this horror rather than serve political agendas.

 

[Gareth]

Im not sure what your point is? Black and white communities have seen a reversal of progress as their family structures have collapsed following 60 changes. The same is the case elsewhere including the UK. Black America has suffered worse than others, and the same pattern is starting to present in parts of black Britain.

The point is that that is your assumption, that this progress was halted due to the changes in cultural values you locate in the 1960s. my assumption is that growing levels of inequality and wage stagnation alongside intergenerational poverty explains a lot of it.

You can speculate all you like on why black communities were most susceptible to negative impact from 60s changes, but at one level so what?

But that’s not what I’m doing, I’m questioning your assumption that todays problems are caused by changes in the 1960s.

If your argument was that those changes intersect with other things so that the poor are more affected, I'd say, damned right. Inherent in this is that less affluent communities have been destroyed, and the bases for social advancement obliterated, by things which not only have nowhere near the same impact on the the affluent, but which suit them nicely; that's why nothing will change any time soon. As with other things, such as global capitalism, the status quo is actively enabled by a middle class left, so change will not come from those quarters.

But again, your assuming this is down to cultural change. Look at Detroit for example, much of it is now a post industrial wasteland with accompanying poverty and crime. Your assumption is that the neoliberal economics of the US from the early 70s at least do not explain the social problems of the US but social liberalism in sexual relations and family composition do. I think that’s wrong.

And it is - no one of us can change macro economic conditions but we have a lot more control of our personal life. As such, the discouragement of the very cultural values - family, hard work, deferred gratification - that have seen one after another minority group prosper, in favour of a self defeating victim-politics, is damnable.

Hard work is difficult in the absence of any work. Look at post industrial wastelands here too, it creates hopelessness. That’s not victim politics, it’s the lived reality for those affected.

I find it improbable that anyone would have believed that attainment of civil rights would somehow transport them to affluence and influence - how could it, when all it did was remove wicked external constraints?

I think your wrong there. I think there was a very real and tangible feeling that when African Americans could enjoy civil rights then they would be equal. That equality was then illusory and many when the existence of rights was at a distance from the ability to actually use them. then what happens, anger, despair, keep fighting, all of the above and all of which were roundly condemned by the political and media elites.

Finally on correlation vs causation - agreed, but it's also become an Internet canard levelled when ideology meets facts. You can't prove any causation in human affairs because you can't conduct falsifying experiments in a lab. Consequently, strong correlation is the best evidence you will ever have. And it doesn't get much stronger than changing cultural views on the family being followed - everywhere those changes take place and otherwise uniquely from a historical PoV - with the erosion or collapse of the family, and then a raft of social problems proceeding immediately from those collapsed structures. It's hypothetically predictable and has manifested immediately and everywhere - that's as close to proof of causation as you will ever get in social matters.

This is partly true but there is also such a thing as logical fallacies, where two things that happen simultaneously are assumed to be linked. I think you do a lot of that here.

vulnerable to living in accord with post 60s western cultural norms in respect of sexual relations and family formation. In other words, not protected from the same by alternative cultural values that still hold sway in many minority groups.

Vulnerable to national culture then? Maybe they’d have been better not to have integarted

you might want to read up on the 'yellow peril' - East Asians have been subject to systematic discrimination second (and it's a distant second) only to blacks. I still don't get your point? I'm suggesting that East Asians prosper through keeping families together, prizing education, working hard...ie the way that anyone, ever, advanced themselves. I'm not clear what your point amounts to here - it can't be that because blacks have been subject to historical oppression that today's blacks are discouraged from these things and to stew in self defeating resentment that keeps them dependent (and providing captive votes)?

I have read plenty on the ‘yellow peril’, it doesn’t substantiate the point you’re trying to make. Incidentally, east Asians doing well might well be an argument for minority communities not integrating.

seriously, what are you saying here? Feels like a random veer into PC know-nothingism in the face of facts.

You used language that assumed some sort of scientific basis for cops decision making, and there is nothing scientific about it. And feck off with the pc bollox please.

it is counterfactul as the whole narrative rests on black men being disproportionate victims based on racism - this is not supported by facts surrounding police shooting. It has been the cause of more black deaths because where policing has been rolled back due to the heat generated, homicided rates have reliably shot up - the victims of which are overwhelmingly black. I've said all this above.

Ok, on the first point in terms of the police killing young black men not involved in any violence, can you show that young white men are killed in proportionately similar numbers? On the second point, are you suggesting nobody should complain, protest etc when the police effectively murder people? And on the last point, I’d like to see evidence of that too.

smashing. Do you want to share any of that?

A simple google scholar search will turn it up some, like this, THE INTERACTION OF RACE, GENDER, AND AGE IN CRIMINAL SENTENCING: THE PUNISHMENT COST OF BEING YOUNG, BLACK, AND MALE - STEFFENSMEIER - 2006 - Criminology - Wiley Online Library age, race and gender determine sentences, RACE, RACIAL THREAT, AND SENTENCING OF HABITUAL OFFENDERS - CRAWFORD - 2006 - Criminology - Wiley Online Library, this one says race less consequential in violent crime but that African americans are still treated marginally worse. Much worse in other crimes.

the onus is on you to demonstrate how they could have had an effect years before they happened, and how that effect could be common across countries that adhered to them and countries which didn't. After all you must surely admit that changing views on marriage directly preceding corresponding changes to marriage, and this two-step happening consistently across countries where the first step happened...has Occam's razor on its side versus your time travelling general purpose explanation for all?

ok, the thatcher and Reagan comment that you’ve fixated on was a little throwaway. Neoliberal economics is what I am talking about, the impacts pre-dated the gruesome twosome but they pushed them vigorously. And these processes, although most advanced in the UK and US are evident in pretty much all western states.
What changes to marriage are you talking about that happened in all of these countries and explains the social problems in each?

ta - anything I can get access to?

I’ll have a gander later, after the game if I still feel in a good mood.

sorry I find this genuinely odd; it reads like you're suggesting you set out to conform or map reality to ideology. I'm doing something very different - I'm following the evidence and exploring conclusions it suggests. Perhaps that's why I've been able to offer clear patterns that are as solid as anything in the affairs of men, and reference specific data which measures the incidents we are talking about.

Oh come on eeg, the way we both see political issues is at least in part pre-determined, don’t pretend otherwise.

Tbh you've disputed this with no reasons or argument given for contesting what is so heavily backed up, and have offered as an alternative your universal answer despite it not fitting in time or space.

Post industrial decay fits the timescale quite closely actually. And I don’t think anything you’ve said could be described as ‘so heavily backed up’.

not checked the numbers on young whites specifically but re white males generally you are incorrect when the proportions assessed are their own likelihood to deploy lethal violence.

So this goes back to your assumption of scientific method in police decision making. It also suggests collective punishment.

i think if young white males were slaughtering each other out of all proportion to any other group it would get attention - unless you are saying white lives don't matter. You seem to have got yourself into a position where both attention and inattention are evidence of the same thing - a common end result when identity politics sets out to confirm an ideological caste of mind rather than follow the facts.

eh?

The other reason I guess the term is relevant is because we have a context where self serving poltiical agendas are intent on focussing on focussing attention on a tiny proportion of killings of blacks and wrap them up in a race narrative - therebye directing attention away from the colossal levels of carnage elsewhere and their own causes. I'm sure there are some racist police, but compared to the catastrophe of black deaths by violence, they are not the first order of business.

But the police as state bodies are the ‘legitimate’ body allowed to use force, and in the US deadly force. If your small number of racist police are killing young black men with impunity I’d say that’s a bit of an issue. And impunity is what it was until BLM.

but it looks like it's your goal to bend everything to fit your view? That's not what I do - where I believe economics are problematic I'll say so (calamitous labour policy or global capitalism for instance) where I think it's cultural I'll go with that, where it's something else, something else. You seem determined to arrived at a unified theory for all problems, which happens to correspond to your politics. I don't think we approach things the same way.

Your are right eeg, you are the one balanced contributor on this board, always providing evidence for assertions, never spewing out the same old tropes again and again. I think I am always clear when something is my view and when something I say is supported by evidence.

Anyway I've spent enough time repeating myself on the above - the ball is with you to move us forward. I've provided pretty strong evidential basis for an unfolding tragedy. You have disputed it without arguing the evidence or logic, have dismissed likely starting points without giving reason (ie attitudes to marriage affecting marriage) and tabled alternatives which don't fit and without any attempt to demonstrate why they pertain. So, like I say, yours to move it on otherwise I've said my piece.

But that’s not what I’ve done, I’ve said nothing about marriage, that’s your obsession. Other than that I agree, your ideological starting point and mine are not going to meet.

 

[egb_hibs]

Gareth, your determination to see only what you want to makes this like arguing geological records with a young earth creationist. Your determination to blame 'neo liberalism' for unrelated things that happened years before its arrival is akin to inconvenient fossils being dismissed as the Devils trickery. Your approach is so doctrinaire I find it hard to put myself in your shoes; in fact it appears you can only conceive of me, and presumably others, operating with the same intent to conform things to an ideological framework. I find that amazing. To consider marriage as a contributor to family breakdown and consequent social issues is not obsessive Gareth. Blaming the Venezuelan economic collapse or global capitalism on marriage - that would be obsessive. So also is attributing everything bad in the world to neo liberalism, even where they pre-date it; that really is obsessive.

Anyway, one last futile attempt to distil what has got lost in verbiage, some links you asked for (others you didn't) and a question:

Despite black babies being the subject of over a third of US abortions where blacks are an eighth of the population (more are aborted than carried to term in some places) 72% of blacks are born out of wedlock (more than 80%) in some places. By comparison,none figure for whites is 29% (in the region of where black births were at the start of the 60s (a bit higher)) and 17% for Asians. Hispanics are in between whites and blacks. Perhaps you note a correspondence to wider fortunes already? These numbers are the product of rapid rises beginning in the 60s well ahead of your unified cause of all problems.

The consequence of this is whole communities of fatherless young black men, with no male role models, and with predictable Lord of the Flies style consequences. This pattern is now playing out in parts of the U.K.

Despite being an eighth of the population blacks commit around half homicides and, depending on year, from a large minority to a majority of cop killings. Given their lives depend on such things, you can bet police are acutely aware of this when making risks assessments in the street - your confusion of this kind of real world decision making with your idea of an academic risk assessment is the stuff of Marie Antoinette.

Despite this, police shootings of black people are below levels proportionate to involvement in homicidal violence (killed proportionately 2x to 3x the rate of whites but 7x to 8x more likely to perpetrate homicidal violence). As you drill down into more specific areas; black youths are more than 25x more likely to be homicide perpetrators than population at large (white youth around a tenth of that - see in both cases doj report below). The guardian finds such youths are 9x more likely to be killed by police than white peers (see below for alternative analyses which conclude much higher ratios): https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/dec/31/the-counted-police-killings-2015-young-black-men

Some stats so you can explore all this to your hearts content:

FBI database on demographics of crime:

https://ucr.fbi.gov/

Department of justice crime statistics database:

http://www.bjs.gov

...and homicide trends report:

http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/htus8008.pdf

US births out of wedlock time line from US govt agency (centre for disease control!) report

And report itself:

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db18.htm

US manufacturing jobs timeline - for comparison to chart above, given your theory;

And source (federal reserve bank of Chicago):

http://michiganeconomy.chicagofedblogs.org/?m=201302

Lastly, info you asked for on roll back of policing and rising homicide. The data is obviously freshly minted here and still developing / being analysed. As such I need to rely on articles rather than government sources, but here's an example of a doj criminologist who set out to debunk the connection (why would an academic do that rather than follow the evidence?) and is finding that harder than he would like (you will note the liberal journalist interviewing trying to play down the connection throughout):

http://www.vox.com/2016/5/23/11722634/ferguson-effect-richard-rosenfeld

This also notes the paradoxical demands on the police where the black community simultaneously feels harassed by the police and under-policed / insufficiently protected from violence in the community. It also references the book I recommended to you, which is a coincidence - ie I didn't find this by searching for that. Note this article also references analysis that claims black youth are killed disproportionately to white youth at a rate far higher than the guardian finds. At 21x this is the only finding I have come across where a black demographic is killed out of proportion to homicide offences - if this analysis is correct it would mean black youths are disproportionately targeted almost to the same extent that white males are as a whole.

In summary; the evidence is that overall white people are killed disproportionately to levels of lethal violence perpetrated by whites. Black youths may represent an exception in the other direction. There is no evidence that black people are being targeted, or that overall they are victims of police killings in a way that is disconnected from the demographics of homicidal criminality. We are way short of a full understanding, incorporating elements as diverse as the localised dynamics of gang infested areas through to the impact of 'suicide by cop' on figures.

Incontestably, the black community are suffering from a collapse of family structures, way in excess of white people and minorities that are prospering better within US. In common with all demographic groups, ratios get attached to a rocket decades in advance of manufacturing decline, but absolutely in line with cultural changes.

Incontestably, the catastrophe of homicides within the black community dwarfs the horrors of police killings.

Everyone that I have read on the subject sees a connection between family breakdown and youth violence. You believe that neo-liberalism is a more likely cause.

Finally, my question: is there an ill in the world which you believe to have a man made causes other than neo-liberalism?

PS - thanks for directing me on a wild goose chase as no doubt this will end up with data on the plight of French Jewry (eyes still squeezed tight shut on that one?). But it was useful in reminding and refreshing myself on the picture. However, enough is enough. I would like to know the answer to the question though (and an evidenced articulation of your hypothesis would be even better).

 

[Gareth]

Maybe we should leave it to others to make their own minds up if you are the open minded non partisan character you seem to imagine yourself to be, that you don't see things through a particular prism and certainly never shoehorn your own personal positions into numerous discussions, many of which seem quite unrelated. I present your weird French Jewry point at the end as a possible example. Your prism has a starting point of cultural changes you oppose explaining things, mine does similarly with economics. That's not to say either of us necessarily stick to that through thick and thin, but I think it's fair to say that's the prism which we view them as a starting point.

Right, so what do we agree on, African Americans are disproportionately perpetrator and victim of homicide. African Americans are disproportionately both perpetrator and victim of fatal encounters with the cops. African Americans do worse on a series of social indicators (I haven't argued anything about kids born to lone parents etc so not sure why you think these stats put me in my place).. I think that's about it, and the stats you present don't refute much of what I suggested. The only possible one that I've not looked at (I'm currently sitting trying to get my daughter to go to sleep) is the increase in homocides you have linked a clip to.

Where do we disagree, on the police point you believe it's quite inconsequential and that the police are behaving rationally given the assumed threat. I think state bodies, especially state bodies imbued with the sole legitimate power to use lethal force should be held to account, I think the clear elements of racism and the undeserved use of lethal force on many occasions questions whether that is the case. I also think that people who claim to be anti state should be concerned about the behaviour of state bodies imbued with such power when they misuse it. You also come close to suggesting the legitimacy of collective punishment, that the disproportionate numbers of African Americans involved in homocides justifies all African Americans being treated as potential cop killers.
We disagree on whether the police and other state bodies are harsher in dealing with certain racial groups than others, though you do seem to have pulled back from that to some degree given some of the evidence I linked to, evidence I accept that you are unable to read in full.

The main issue of disagreement is assumed cause, and it as assumed by both of us. You think that the sexual revolution has led to family breakdown and consequently young black boys growing up in dysfunctional families. You haven't, as it happens, suggested why you think African American families are more 'culturally vulnerable' than others, though you do hint at a slightly worrying biological explanation.
My view, on the other hand, is that the inability to achieve real equality after the civil rights movement alongside wage stagnation from around about 1971 or 72 has made the ability to even achieve a standard middle class existence for most African Americans an impossibility, that for them there certainly is no American Dream. This then leads to despair, anger etc. The number of industrial jobs isn't the issue so your graph makes no odds, it's the quality, pay and security of those jobs that matter. So pre Reagan we have about a decade if wage stagnation which is then turbo boosted by deindustrialisation, continuing stagnation and the smashing if the only organisation capable of protecting decent paying jobs, the trade unions. The time line fits exactly and doesn't require the time machine your employing to supposedly refute what I'm saying.
Now I accept there are assumptions in my 'hypothesis', you do not seem to, however, accept the assumptions in yours. You have your afore mentioned creationists certainty that you speak only the truth. I happen to disagree, the heretic that I am.

 

[aggie]

Can I just butt in and say that I'm very much enjoying this debate. Seems to me that both of your positions contain much that's convincing. In fact, one might be tempted to say they're in fact inextricably interlinked.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[egb_hibs]

Sorry that's not the course the thread took. My starting point was that attention was being narrowly channeled into a narrative about racist police, and attention diverted from contributing factors that are far more uncomfortable for the liberal elite, namely police killing reflecting the wider demographics of violence, and social factors that underpin the latter. You have disputed - with no reason given - the impact of familial collapse and thus mass fatherless youth, which every commentator I have come across views as significant to the wider catastrophe of homicide among black youth, which in turns creates the climate for panicked police overreaction.

You offered instead some wispy allusions to neo liberal economics whic are simply untenable. Now you bring in an infantilisling suggestion that blacks, despondent at not immediately being delivered to nirvana following civil rights victories, decided to destroy their own family structures and kill each other en masse; naturally you offer no evidence for this theory. It all begs the obvious question, why are you - without reason given - ignoring the obvious and conjuring up scenarios that are highly condescending to a people well aware that things don't come handed out on plates, and who pursued a long a patient journey to civil rights victory? To state the obvious, this theory also doesn't account for the emergence of similar patterns in the UK.

Meanwhile, I have offered no reason as to why blacks have suffered faster and worse than other less affluent communities as a result of the 60s revolution. It's not necessary to my point that that suffering has taken place - and indeed other less affluent communities have suffered greatly also. I have not suggested a biological cause - you are misrepresenting where I said that could not be scientifically discounted, and it cannot. As I noted, I am glad it is a factor we don't have to consider - I am glad of that because as gene science progresses, there is a terrible risk that identification of genetic influences on behaviour will see progressive politics revert back to its pre ww2 preoccupations.

For what it's worth there are any number of social theories that may have elements of truth, from African customs to the influence of slavery; all of which boil down to black communities being particularly vulnerable to haute bourgeois experimentation with the social fabric. But only particularly vulnerable - less affluent Hispanics and whites have suffered terribly Against any yardstick bar direct contrast with black fortunes. And there's your economic dimension, yet you still recoil from it; middle class social ideas have played havoc with the less well off.

The whole thread has been a demonstration of my point that concern for US black lives, just as for the fate of poor British blacks or whites, and oany other disadvantages group, endures while their plight is pleasing to bourgeois left liberal narratives; and absolutely no further.

That is how it appears anyway. I am happy to be corrected if you are going to evidence your own theory or explain why you reject the social influences that suggest themselves as obvious, and are seen as central by pretty much all commentaries on the subject (no doubt agenda led exceptions exist)?

- - - Updated - - -

Can I just butt in and say that I'm very much enjoying this debate. Seems to me that both of your positions contain much that's convincing. In fact, one might be tempted to say they're in fact inextricably interlinked.


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Good; I'm glad it's not been a complete waste of time. Gareth strikes me as a very learned chap which is why his ideological approach is IMHO rather frustrating. We just end up shouting past each other.

- - - Updated - - -

Ps there is nothing 'weird' about the French Jewry point - i referred to it as another example where you were hell bent on not seeing what is manifestly before us, becsuse it does nor conform to a preferred narrative. that one culminated in data that confirmed which you preferred to deny - at which point you ran out of time; which is fair enough if convenient, and a little emblematic I think. The situation in France has somewhat deteriorated since then.

I don't claim to be a conduit of objective truth either, nor to be without prejudice. I would claim that I try to find that truth and try to see past or at least be aware of my own biases. Culture is far from my only starting point; no matter how many times you say that, I am perfectly happy to point out the economic follies of left wing ideology or the economic problems stemming from global capitalism. The same goes for 101 subjects and 101 contributing factors, I cite culture where culture applies. Our approach isn't the same.

 

[Gareth]

Not surprisingly I see the it slightly differently. You complained of attention given to police violence, arguing that it diverted attention away from more profound social problems in African American communities. You then located those problems in 1960s 'cultural changes', which of course you blame a great many problems on as it gives you the chance to point the finger at your favourite bette noir, 1960's 'progressives'. I pointed to an alternative 'explanation' for these social problems while maintaining the importance of police violence, and a discriminating criminal justice system. You think your focus is a completely value free and objective one, I disagree.
Re French Jewry, I think that's a slight misreading of history, I said I hadn't read anything about Jews all fleeing France. Meanwhile your political prism had you claiming George bush was a socialist because he spent lots of money. That's your attempt at value free, attempted objectivity and non predetermined analysis. I think my acknowledgement of my own lens through which I see things is more intellectually honest than your refusal to do likewise, a refusal that I think flies in the face of thousands of posts worth if evidence.
But there we are.