I am a bit unconfident about it…
Here, to give a basis of the argument I need to debunk, here’s an article from right-libertarian think tank Reason.com to respond to:
https://reason.com/volokh/2021/04/24/race-and-violent-crime/
Blacks, which here means non-Hispanic blacks, were 12.5% of the U.S. population, and non-Hispanic whites were 60.4%. It thus appears from this data that the black per capita violent crime rate is roughly 2.3 to 2.8 times the rate for the country as a whole, while the white per capita violent crime rate is roughly 0.7 to 0.9 times the rate for the country as a whole.
Note: keep in mind he’s extrapolating a certain part of the U.S, New York, to the rest of America’s national crime statistics
Something in the vein of a masterpost like Naomi’s research and rhetoric masterdoc
Easily understandable and accessible, yet with a great amount of statistics put upon it
this one in particular is a problem of framing. Obviously the statistics are made up, but let’s pretend they’re true (just pretending, not as an intellectual but to show that the conclusions they draw from 13/50 are false even if 13/50 is true). They say POC make up 13 percent of the population but “commit” 50 percent of the crimes? No. The framing should be they are convicted of 50 percent of the crimes. Because there are no real statistics for “committing” crimes. There are only conviction rates. Reactionaries love to treat conviction as synonymous with guilt, because they don’t want to admit that the justice system is racially biased, and regularly makes false convictions which are overturned at a later date (the central park 5 were all exonerated of their convictions after years of racists using them as “evidence” of POC proclivity to commit heinous crimes).
But let’s say most convictions are true. Let’s say for the sake of argument that 13/50 is really true (it isn’t obviously) and 99.9999% of convictions truly are for crimes that were really committed, and not false convictions based on shoddy evidence…
OK. And? What do the racists want us to do with this information?
Racists want us to conclude from this that POC are bad people and… well they won’t always say it out loud, but they are saying that POC should be exterminated. They want the listener to come to that conclusion. That’s why they bring up 13/50. They want to lead you to their “final solution.” But what are some other conclusions that can be made if 13/50 is true?
These above conclusions are demonstrably true based off of decades of research whether or not 13/50 is true. If 13/50 were true (it isn’t) it would simply correlate with the above, and not with the deranged genocidal fantasies of the racists.
TL;DR Never focus on the arguments racist make. They’re bullshit and a waste of time. instead focus on the conclusions they are trying to lead people to (genocide).