Blacks Aren’t Too Fucking Broke To Be Republicans, Hell Yeah!

Flashback Friday (on Saturday)

I saw a Youtube Channel for Hip Hop Republicans (I didn’t save the link, Google it or whatever) . . . celebrating Meg Whitman and other such nonsense… and I don’t feel like writing today, so here:

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Tags: A Bird In The Hand, african-american, black, conservative, Dead Prez, democracy, Hell Yeah, Hip Hop, Ice Cube, Republicans, United States
Category Music |

Message to the Grassroots

Mos Def reads Malcolm X, “Message to the Grassroots” (November 10, 1963) from Voices of a People's History on Vimeo.

Mos Def reads from Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove’s book Voices of a People’s History of the United States, November 11, 2006, at the Berkeley Community Theatre, Berkeley, California. For more information, visit: http://www.peopleshistory.us.

Tags: Berkeley, black, civil rights, defense, equal rights, equality, Howard Zinn, liberty, Malcolm X, Mos Def, Negro, non-violence, People's History of the United States, Violence, Voices of a People's History of the United States
Category Main category, Racism |

Oh, people can come up with statistics to prove anything. 14% of people know that.

It is quite often claimed that Black Americans or Chicano Americans are more prone to be criminals in the United States.  Usually this claim is accompanied by statistics.  I often wonder if people really just pick and choose statistics to support what they “want” to prove, or if they look at statistics and make a conclusion from gathering the evidence.  I think we all know that the prior is much more common than the latter.

First, Let us look at the statistics.

From the US Census Bureau (2008):
The American population is 304,059,724.
257,116,111 people are not Hispanic or Latino.
199,491,458 people are White.
37,171,750 people are Black Americans/African Americans/Negro (was on the 2010 Census)
2,328,982 people are Native American
13,237,698 people are Asian
434,561 people are Hawaiian
4,451,662 people are “two or more races”
46,943,613 are Latino or Hispanic (and are broken up among various other races)

According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics:  “In 2008, over 7.3 million people were on probation, in jail or prison, or on parole at year-end — 3.2% of all U.S. adult residents or 1 in every 31 adults.” and “In 1997, 9% of the black population in the U.S. was under some form of correctional supervision compared to 2% of the white population and over 1% of other races. “

What does this say?  Well, it does say that Black Americans are disproportionally arrested in the United States. It doesn’t quite clearly say much else.  You can infer that it means that Black people are criminals.  You can also infer that it means a racist society will tend to prosecute those at the receiving end of the racism.

After a few hours of combing through statistics at the Bureau of Justice Statistics, I remembered again why I hate numbers.  They give me a headache.  I can reprint a ton of information, but I really don’t want to.  A bunch of it can be found here:  http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=1743
It basically says that Whites are more often the victims of crimes, overwhelmingly.  What does that say?  Well, for once, it says that crimes are reported by whites much more frequently than by anyone else.  Does that mean they aren’t more often the victims of crimes?  Not at all.  Does it mean they are?  Not at all.  There are a lot of things you can infer from statistics, but it doesn’t always make them legitimate until you can correlate them and provide farther evidence.

So, yeah, I got really tired of those pages and pages of charts and numbers.  Then I found the National Crime Victimization Survey that was started under President Nixon.  “A key finding of the survey was the realization that many crimes were not reported to the police.”

The survey also found that ‘in the period 1992-2000, significantly less than half (43%) of all criminal acts reported through victimization surveys were also reported to police.‘  Hart & Rennison (2003:3)

So, when you look at the DOJ statistics, it states that 4,176,440 Whites were the victims of crimes in 2007 and 794,220 Blacks were the victims of crimes in the same year.  With a “rate per 1,000 persons age 12 and over” of 20.5 for Whites and 26.1 for Blacks.

Again, what do we conclude by this?  When 43% of crimes are not even reported, does this give an accurate picture?  The Uniform Crime Report has numbers very similar to the National Crime Victimization Survey, but the UCR is only reported by police.

I’m getting tired, so I’m just going to rip this line from Wikipedia, but it is a summary of the FBI Expanded Homicide Data – Crime in the United States 2008. Link here.

African Americans were arrested more than any other race for murder in 2008, making up 36% of all arrests. African Americans, constituting approximately 12% of the general population, were significantly overrepresented in the total arrests made. African Americans were also significantly overrepresented in victimization, representing 47% of all murder victims. White Americans and individuals of Other race were significantly underrepresented in cases of murder and non-negligible homicide in 2008. Murder in White American and African American populations were overwhelmingly intraracial, with 83% of all White victims and 90% of all Black victims having been murdered by individuals of the same race. The same was true, though to a lesser degree, for individuals of Other race, with 52% having been murdered by individuals also of Other race.

So, what did we learn? So far we learned that our prisons are filling up with Blacks more than Whites, that half of all crimes go unreported, and that most people are murdered by people with the same skin color as themselves.

Finally, I want to turn to a non-government source of information.  If you have never heard of the Innocence Project, it is a noble organization that does wonderful things.  Anyone who talks bad about them is an asshole.  And this is why: 254 EXONERATED

Here is information from the Innocence Project:

• Seventeen people had been sentenced to death before DNA proved their innocence and led to their release.
• The average sentence served by DNA exonerees has been 13 years.
• About 70 percent of those exonerated by DNA testing are members of minority groups.
• In almost 40 percent of the cases profiled here, the actual perpetrator has been identified by DNA testing.
• Exonerations have been won in 34 states and Washington, D.C.

HERE IS A BIG FAT LINK TO THE INNOCENCE PROJECT.

70 PERCENT OF THOSE EXONERATED BY DNA TESTING ARE MEMBERS OF MINORITY GROUPS!

Surprise!

Anyway.  This could really go on for quite a while.  There are so many moderating and intervening variables that need to be examined.  Even IF there was concrete evidence that Black Americans were 90 times more likely to commit a violent crime, you need to isolate that to provide proof that it is due to them being Black Americans and not the social environment, class situation, environment, nutrition, prenatal care, neonatal care, et cetera.  (There is a lot of evidence that people from low-income communities were more prone to violence in the past due to children ingesting large amounts of lead paint. We DO know that lead causes violent behavior.)  I still see no evidence at all that links skin color to violence or criminal behavior.  These tendencies  have not been proven to be clustered, or linked, to skin color in any way.

Oh, nevermind.  There are several books written about it.  Like America behind bars: trends in imprisonment, 1950 to 2000  by Rick Ruddell. (You can look it up on Google Books for free, or you can come back when I update this page and click on the link to buy it from Amazon and give me a percentage of the sale.)

I really don’t like maths.

And I really get tired of using statistics to prove a point in such detail.

I guess we could all just go to Lawrence Auster’s website and read the selected incidents and news articles that he has cherry picked to prove his point and avoid doing ANY actual research.  Hell, if Sarah Palin’s research involves having someone else write her biography and give a speech about the notes on her hand, and make $12 million a year, who needs to actually look up statistical data and analyze studies?  Compiling data?  Isn’t that for the Elite?  “We don’t need no book learnin’ and ‘rithmatic!”

Especially when 99% of all statistics are wrong.

“Oh, people can come up with statistics to prove anything. 14% of people know that.” – Homer Simpson

Tags: african-american, anti, black, Constitution, Department of Justice, discrimination, equal rights, incarceration, Innocence Project, latino, lawrence auster, parole, population, prison, race, racist, sarah palin, statistics, United States, US Census Bureau, White, white dominance
Category Definitions, Racism |

The Need For Cohesion

[I have already discussed on the Left in the United States is really pretty "center Right" in the global scheme of politics.  But for the sake of this piece, we will consider the Democratic Party the "center Left."  Although I find this problematic, I just have to accept it.  Considering the Right (GOP) is farther right then the DNC, we will consider the Democratic Party to be "Left."]

Yesterday, I mentioned that I was not happy with Adsense, displaying ads such as Newsmax and anti-minorities links.  I logged into Facebook yesterday, and there was an advert to “remember in November” to “stop Obama and Obamacare.”  I don’t have a problem with allowing the Conservatives to advertise their views.  Quite contrarily, I agree with it.  Everyone should be given a venue to espouse whatever concept they wish.  (I did go to UC Berkeley, and even enjoyed the elderly, black man that would scream “Jesus wants you to be a racist!”,  the man who would scream about the Jewish Armageddon that was about to descend upon us, or the man with the anti-petrol sign that would just say to everyone “Your mother loves you.”)  But, I see these massive campaigns against the Democratic party, and all leftists.  Someone is feeding the Tea Party a steady stream of propaganda (Fox).  On the left, there is no cohesion.

You have the center-Left Democrats, that support a more Keynesian economic platform, than a Hobbesian “Free Market.”  You also have various Socialists, Communists, Marxists, Anarchists, and whatever other “Left” leaning ideology you can imagine.  None of these groups work together.  The Democratic Party wants no association with Ultra-Left ideology.  So, everyone left of center ends up a “marginalized fringe.”

Farther, there is no cohesion within the Ultra-Left.  The Socialists won’t work with the Marxists or the Communists.  The Black Nationalists won’t work with any other Socialists, Marxists, Communists, Anarchists, etc.  It all goes on, because everyone gets hung up on minutia.

The problem with this is that many of the primary goals of ALL of these groups is the same.  Fair labor rules, fair market regulation, equality under the law, equality in the workplace, elimination of poverty, healthcare for every citizen.  (These are just key issues, but I find there are many, many more commonalities.)  Do the Marxists want to marginalize the Latinos in America?  Surely not.  If anything, the Marxists and Socialists care just as much about fair labor rules for Latino/Chicano laborers as any other group, maybe more.  Do the Marxists or the Socialists promote racism?  Obviously not, how is that equality under the law?  Do the Anarchists support any inequalities at all?  Not in my experience.  Do the Democrats want more social stratification?  Less aid to the poor or impoverished families?  Does the DNC want less fair workplace environments, hiring policies and legal treatment?  I highly doubt it.

All of these groups have a common “enemy.”  I do not use “enemy” as a loaded term.  This is not a war.  This is not about violence, or any physical means of attack.  Its an ideological enemy.  Conservativism believes in aristocracy, class stratification, unfettered corporate progress and a “free market.”  EVERYONE on the left opposes these things.  Why can’t everyone on the Left stand against these things?  Why can’t the DNC ask the rest of the Left for support?  Well, there is one reason.

McCarthyism, and the Cold War in general, did a number of the American psyche and created memes against keywords.  As soon as the word “Socialist” or “Communist” is espoused, the Tea Party loads their guns.  The pundits on Fox and Friends decide to launch an all out attack to tear them down, and the DNC ultimately loses votes.  I understand this problem and empathize with it.  But, I really need to say, “so what?”

Pay for advertisements to explain that you don’t care if it is considered “socialist” to do something, because it is what is fair.  Explain that your goal is govern, not run a business.  Our rights are not a corporate “mission statement.”  There is no profit motive for guaranteeing equal rights under the law, the freedom to assemble, freedom of movement, freedom of speech, etc. Get the Anarchists and the Socialists and the Communists and everyone else in the Ultra-Left to support you.  Any Socialist or Marxist can explain plenty of things FOR you.  They will be the first to point out they are anti-fascism.  (Fascism is far right – this is a fact, and as debatable as gravity.)  They will also be the first to point out they are not Left Liberals.  They also can be valuable allies.

To everyone else on the Ultra-Left:  Stop fighting over ideological bullshit while your primary goals are being squandered. If you truly believe you are right, would you rather convince the Democrats that you are right, or a Tea Party rally?  Who is going to benefit you more?  If you want to promote Black Nationalism, is that ever going to happen with the GOP in power?  With the Tea Party roving around Virginia with loaded weapons?  If you are a proponent of a Socialist economy, are you ever going to convince the Far Right this is plausible?  Would you rather they be in charge?  Your lack of support for the Democratic Party is only hurting you, and everyone else.  Your fragmentation only farther marginalizes you and makes you irrelevant.  You are becoming your own worst enemy.

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Tags: african-american, anarchists, anti, black, chicano, commentator, communists, conservative, discrimination, equal, equal rights, equality, labels, labor, labor laws, latino, liberals, neocon, neoconservative, New Right, racism, racist, Radical Left, rights, social, socialists, southern poverty law center, status, white dominance
Category Radical Left |