St.Paul: Gang Terrorizes Downtown Area

A couple of problems and an interesting way to visualize the numbers and their difference.

First, the over all homicide rate in the United States is about 5 per 100,000 of population. You suggest the non black homicide rate is 4.337 per 100,000. Total homicide in the United States is about 16,000 (2013). 52% is the number of homicides perpetrated by a black offender or 48% non black. Non blacks killed 7680 people in 2013. The population was 315,000,000. 315,000,000/100,000 = 3150. 7680/3150= 2.43

That's 2.43 per 100,000

Now for a living visual on what a homicide rate of 33.73 +/- does.

Seattle WA Has a homicide rate of 3.7
Detroit MI has a homicide rate of 55.6

Today NY City has a homicide rate of 4.0, in the early 90's it was above 31.0

Where would you rather live? Downtown Detroit or Pier 54 in Seattle?

Cheers
Labour

 

You prove my point. Sure, buy the lottery ticket at the place where you're 7x more likely to win. Your odds of winning are still so microscopically small you're basically making a donation to the state.

Let's say your chance of dying from slipping and falling in the shower is 1 in 10 million. Now let's say your odds go up 100% if you have a particular genetic defect in your feet. Should you avoid showers if you have the defect? Of course not. Because now your odds of dying in the shower are 2 in 10 million. Still way too small to spend any time worrying about it.

According to your logic wrt black homicide rates, all of us with the defect should worry about that 100% increase in our chance of dying in the shower. Rational people, meanwhile, laugh and go about their business.

Fail #1. No, we don't. Violent crime rates are at historic lows.

Fail #2. I've already pointed out that I have never made that argument. When I talk about gun control, it's in favor of common-sense measures like background checks and waiting periods, and it's because of things like accidental shootings and suicides.

Yep, it's true. And should be addressed. But that doesn't mean we should have an out-of-proportion fear of black crime. It also means you actually have to do the work to figure out WHY blacks have higher crime rates. There are all sorts of contributing factors that have nothing to do with race, including poverty, education levels, discriminatory law enforcement (such as much higher penalties for crack cocaine vs. powdered cocaine), etc. Those don't apply in all cases, and don't necessarily explain the full difference. But you have to take them into account if the goal is to address the issue.

You, of course, don't bother, because you've got your race-based narrative and that's all you care about.

More assaults are committed by whites than by blacks, simply because there are more whites.
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/uc...he-u.s.-2012/tables/43tabledatadecoverviewpdf

In 2012, whites committed 794,000 assaults of all types; blacks committed just 397,000.

Overall, whites committed 70% of the crime in the United States.

So for any given crime, the highest likelihood is that the perp is white.

But yeah, we should immediately suspect blacks instead, just because they have a higher RATE. And they're, you know, BLACK.

Did you actually read the post you linked to? Do you see where I'm mostly arguing about suicide and accidental shootings? I talk about where criminals get weapons because there was a dispute about whether background checks should be required at gun shows. But I don't claim we have high violent crime rates, nor do I try to use violent crime rates to justify gun regulation.

So thanks for proving my point, and disproving yours.

 

Um, what do you think 2.43 represents?

The numbers I gave you were actual crime statistics from the cited study. The WHITE rate is 4.337. The BLACK rate is 33.73. That doesn't cover all murders -- Hispanics and Asians kill people, too.

You appear to be trying to pointlessly re-derive a homicide rate that I already gave you, and doing it based on a faulty assumption about your starting data.

 

It doesn't prove your point. If I was going to play the lottery, I would go where I had the best chance of winning. A 700% increase in the likelihood is worth crossing the street and playing there, as opposed to the alternative. People make decisions on these kinds of statistics.

Except we aren't talking about a 1 in 10 million chance wrt to black homicide rates, are we? We're talking about 1 in ~2900.

Here's a post you made last year:

So gun related deaths are a major problem in this country, yet we don't have a violent crime problem in the country? Would you mind navigating that one?

How would a background check and waiting period help reduce an accidental shooting?

I don't buy any of that. Hispanics have a similar percentage of their population in poverty as blacks, and are actually more likely to drop out of High School and not graduate college, yet their violent crime rate is far below blacks. The poorest areas of the country are predominantly white, yet there is not a high violent crime rate. Blacks were more in poverty during the Depression, and faced more racism in 1960, yet both of these time periods show them committing far less violent crime.

Not really. Hispanics are included in the "white" category. Starting this year (I believe) they will start counting them separately. It will be interesting to see just how disproportionate the black crime rate is once crime committed by whites isn't inflated.

You're including white collar crime and other non-violent crimes, which are important for sure, but we are discussing violent crime (see OP). But I don't think the "they're a small percentage of the population, so who cares?" defense really works, here. If blacks were 63-70% of the population, we would have a much higher amount of crime. Just because they are in the minority doesn't mean we shouldn't talk about why their crime rate is so high.

So violent crime isn't one of the factors you consider in your push for gun control? You're more concerned about accidental shootings and people who want to die using a gun to kill themselves? Sounds like you are not being honest about your true motivation.

 

I've heard about gang problems in certain parts of the Cities. Seems like it was north Minneapolis, but I'm not sure now.

 

I didn't say white you did, now please answer the question. Where would you rather live?

The high crime rate and the high homicide rate are indicia of deeper problems. You can shrug it off but the reality remains. Areas with crime rates in this range are corrupt or incapable of self governance. Crime influences all of society and infects the head as well.

While I prefer to blame most of it on the War on Drugs, failed, something else is at play. Progressive programs?

Cheers
Labour

 

The fact that people delude themselves into thinking as you do is irrelevant. The point is that it is a delusion. Increasing my chances of winning the lottery by 7x doesn't change the fact that I have almost no chance of winning the lottery. In point of fact, it's not worth buying the ticket, and certainly not worth the risk of crossing the street.

Buying a lottery ticket is an irrational decision from the start. Within that context, sure, you'll seek out the store that gives you the best odds. But that doesn't suddenly make the decision rational.

I buy lottery tickets now and then, when the jackpot hits whatever size I need to say it's worth my time. But I don't pretend it's a rational decision. I refer to it as "paying more taxes".

Yep, but the point stands. Your chances of being murdered by ANYONE, black or white, are stupidly small. And among all the factors that determine whether someone poses a threat to you, race isn't in the top 10. Or top 20.

If you walk down the street, see a black guy, and think he poses a meaningfully bigger threat to you on that basis alone, you're being an idiot.

How does "gun-related deaths" translate into "violent crime" for you? Especially when the post you're quoting from spends nearly all of it's time talking about accidental deaths and suicides?

Hint: gun-involved accidents and suicides are "gun-related deaths".

Would you just re-read the post you quoted? The answers are there (hint: background checks would help in every instance EXCEPT accidental shootings). And then you could continue the gun discussion in the gun thread, not here.

*Shrug*. I'm shocked that you don't buy anything that might explain racial crime statistics other than "race". :eyeroll:

Typically, an observed difference in two groups (such as whites and blacks) is not fully explained by a single factor. So first you control for things you can control for -- age, income, education, etc. What's left is the difference that might plausibly be attributed to race.

Except that what's most likely the case is that there's a factor we haven't recognized and controlled for.

Your problem is twofold. Number one, you want to blame everything on race, full stop. Number two, you have no falsifiable causation hypothesis. In other words, you can't explain WHY it's all because they're black, and you certainly can't do so in a way that can be tested.

Incorrect. Hispanics can be either white or black.

Talk about it, sure. Seek to address it, sure. But keep in mind that the average perp is white.

BTW, you can calculate any breakdown you want from the link I gave you. If you restrict to violent crimes (murder, assault, rape, robbery), you'll see that whites committed 63.47% of all violent crimes.

You really, really prefer the strawman in your head to reality, don't you?

What does my "true motivation" (as imagined by you) matter? If I don't use violent crime as a major part of an argument in favor of gun control ... then violent crime is not a major part of my argument in favor of gun control.

But to be clear, I never said I don't refer to violent crime. It is, of course, a consideration in any gun control debate -- for both sides (as an example, gun proponents like to cite their need for self-defense against the teeming hordes of rapists and murderers outside their doors).

But for me it's not the biggest factor by far. It's a distant #3 or #4. Or maybe #5.

What I do not do, which you claimed I did, is cite "high violent crime rates" as a justification for gun control.

 

North Minneapolis is probably the highest-crime area in the metro. St. Paul has its own gang problems -- the Frogtown neighborhood has been a trouble spot for a long time. There are other areas (Powderhorn Park neighborhood in Minneapolis also has issues), but those are the two main ones.

In North Minneapolis it's largely black gangs. In St. Paul there are also Hmong and white supremacist gangs, along with some Latin Kings.

Most of the associated violence is gang-on-gang, so it has limited outside effect. Not in a gang? Not likely to be a problem. But some of the gangs are associated with national criminal gangs like the Crips. They run drugs or do protection rackets and other things that affect the larger community.

 

As I said, you made an incorrect assumption. You assumed the 4.337 rate was "non-black" when it was actually "white". Hence your math, which was pointless to begin with, was based on a faulty premise.

All things being equal, I prefer to live someplace with a lower crime rate. But things are rarely equal. I prefer living in big cities, which necessarily involves a higher crime rate. One of the most interesting places I ever lived was Jersey City, N.J. Poor, high crime -- but right across the river from Manhattan, and a fascinating mix of cultures and races. I loved it; stayed there for four years.

I'm not shrugging anything off. I'm not suggesting anything should be ignored. I'm just pointing out that y'all are focused on factors that are not very relevant. Namely, that the homicide rate in this country is so low that the observed racial differences in homicide rates are USELESS in terms of assessing risk. Skin color alone tells us almost nothing useful.

 

You buy lottery tickets because you know there is a small chance that you will win. You don't play the lottery to "pay more taxes".

Of course he poses a bigger threat. Your own statistics show he is 7 times more likely to commit homicide than a white person walking down the street. And we are only talking about homicide, and are not including the other crimes that blacks commit a disproportionately high amount of.

So you are not including violent crime in your analysis of "gun-related deaths"?

I see no reason to bump a year old thread. This conversation is current and ongoing.

Maybe because the excuses that apologists throw out don't hold up to any kind of scrutiny.

I never said it was.

I've already gone over 2 of those things and they fail to show why blacks commit far and away the most violent crime relative to their population size. Age isn't really a factor either , since we can rationally assume and even distribution in age between the racial groups in society.

Have fun with that strawman. I never said it was completely based on race. I've given the "why" plenty of times, and race and genetics is only a part of the reason, and not even the biggest part, in my opinion.

The overwhelming majority in the reporting are not considered black. We will see that hopefully this year when these FBI crime stats become more accurate of what is really going on. Until then, we have Chicago, a city that is pretty much split evenly between blacks, Hispanics, and whites. Blacks commit about 70-75% of the homicides, Hispanics 20-25%, whites and other 5-10%.

"The average perp" with respect to violent crime (what is being addressed in this thread) is not white. Only by lumping in every other crime could your argument be true, which you'll do, even if it means going off topic. You're that desperate to avoid the reality concerning loyal Democrat minority groups. And your argument would only be true because whites are the majority of the country's population.

Only true by including almost all crimes committed by Hispanics under the "white" category and, even then, considering how these two groups are 80% of the country's population, the number is disproportionately low. You're in for a big surprise once the FBI starts separating these out. Better work on those talking points.

Distant #3, or #4, or #5? So you're more concerned with the 600 accidental shootings than you are with the 10,000-20,000 homicides that occur? If violent crime is your #5 concern when you're actively trying to implement gun control, what are the first 4? Suicides, accidental shooters, and then what?

Your argument is like saying we need to ban alcohol because the biggest problem is that people are vomiting on the sidewalk.

 

:facepalm:

I buy lottery tickets because, even though I recognize that my chances of winning are practically nil, it's still fun to fantasize about it if the jackpot is big enough. But I'm realistic about my chances. Which is why I call it "paying more taxes."

The point being that my chances of winning are practically nil, and sestupling those chances doesn't change that: it's still practically nil.

He does not pose a MEANINGFULLY bigger threat. If you're assessing his threat status based on skin color, you are literally wasting your time. Because there is a 99.96% chance the black guy isn't a killer, which isn't much different than the 99.99% chance for white people. The difference is so small that it's not useful to worry about. His skin color tells you nothing helpful.

It's part of it. But not a big part.

Remember, you claimed I cited "high violent crime rates" as part of a justification of gun control. As you have to admit, I've done no such thing.

Well, other than this thread not being about gun control....

That doesn't mean they are considered white.

In the 2000 census, 17 million Hispanics identified as white. 19 million Hispanics identified as "other" or a mix of 2 or more races.

And until you control for age, income, education, etc., those percentages have very little meaning.

Yes he is.

Didn't do that.

Yet more strawmen. You really like straw. Are you a cow?

Of course it's because they're a majority. But that's sort of the point. You want to talk about the danger posed by black criminals, when it's white criminals you really need to watch out for, because you're more likely to be victimized by a white person. Sure, each *individual* white person is less likely to victimize you than the average black person, but there are so many white people that if you had to put money on who the criminal was going to be, you'd have to pick "white".

That doesn't make much sense to you, does it? Which is, again, sort of my point. Getting focused on skin color is stupid. The white trash hoodlum is a bigger threat than the black doctor. You should be assessing threats based on meaningful factors, not near-irrelevancies like race.

If I'm in a bad neighborhood, I don't need to use skin color to assess the people around me. I have far more useful information to draw on: demeanor, proximity to me, activity they're engaged in, whether they're armed, etc. Skin color is a useless gauge compared to such things.

Okay.

60% of all gun-related deaths are suicides. That's the #1 by far.

Accidental deaths are #2. It's not that they're a bigger cause of death than homicides; it's that steps to reduce them should be a no-brainer because they are so preventable, often involve children, and can wreck entire families. And many of the steps to prevent accidental deaths (such as gun locks) also help reduce homicides.

I support background checks to make it harder for guns to land in the hands of criminals and the mentally unstable. I support waiting periods to cut down on suicides and heat-of-the-moment homicides. So those three things (Criminals, mental illness and heat-of-the-moment killings) are my next concerns. The last two fall into the category of "homicides", but I consider them tragedies, not what you normally think of when you think "murder."

So what I would term "murder" is a subset of homicides -- basically, premeditated, cold-blooded killings and things like gang-related shootings. Those are part of my gun control argument -- background checks, in particular, would make it more difficult for criminals to get weaponry -- but not a central part. Intentional gun damage can be prosecuted; I think the bigger tragedy is unintentional and/or preventable carnage such as suicide, murder-suicide, etc.

 

But it does represent an increased likelihood of winning. You play the lottery on occasion, and you would be a fool not to want a 700% increased likelihood of winning, given the choice.

It tells me lots of things, and my skin color tells him lots of things. His reaction to me is just as important as my reaction to him.

You just admitted that violent crime is one of the factors you use to justify gun control.

Neither was the other one.

Look at the crime stats you just presented. Do you see any "other" or "mix of 2 or more races" categories listed? No, you don't. "White", "black", "Native American", and "Asian or Pacific Islander" are the only choices, and Hispanics would naturally fit better into the "white" category than any other. We will get much more clarification on this with the next FBI report, hopefully.

Not at all, as I've already explained. Hispanics should be committing about the same level of violent crime, since they have about as much of their population in poverty as blacks, and are actually more likely than blacks to drop out of High School and not graduate college. However, they are not. Those excuses don't work. And why is "age" a factor? Do you have some reason why we shouldn't assume that ages are evenly distributed amongst the racial groups?

False, for reasons already explained.

Then your argument is simply wrong.

Ironic statement.

It's helpful in ascertaining who is more likely to be the hoodlum and who is likely to be the doctor, though.

Okay.

 

anyone who violates a rule in this thread will be banned from posting !! Submarinepainter

 

I said as much. But it doesn't represent a MEANINGFUL increase in my overall chance of winning. My overall chance of winning is still very, very close to zero.

Not really. In terms of his likelihood of being a murderer, his skin color tells you nothing useful. There is basically no useful information in a 3/100 of a percentage point difference.

Did I claim that we were suffering from high rates of violent crime? Yes or no?

No it's not.

Let's assume there are two people in front of you. One black, one white.

How do you determine which, if either, is a doctor?

How do you determine which, if either, is a homicidal thug?

The United States has 250 doctors per 100,000 people.
http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.MED.PHYS.ZS

So the odds of any given person being a doctor is very low. Going on skin color alone, you'd have to conclude that NEITHER person was likely to be a doctor.

So now how are you going to determine which one is the doctor and which one is the hoodlum?

See what I mean about skin color being useless as a filter?

 

So what? You'd still play the lotto at a place where you were 7x more likely to win. You wouldn't say "well my chance of winning is nearly zero in either place, so it doesn't matter where I play".

It's not just murder. Blacks are overrepresented in many crime categories.

The percentage point difference will be amplified in areas with a lot of blacks present. That's why predominantly black areas are more dangerous than predominantly white areas.

You didn't need to. You admitted that you used violent crime as a factor in your push for gun control. It would be irrational for you to use a low or virtually nonexistent violent crime rate in order to advocate for gun control, so the only logical conclusion is that violent crime is high and a problem to you, which requires that we limit gun access in some way in order to address it.

The white person would be more likely to be a doctor than the black person. The black person would be more likely to be a hoodlum than the white person.

 

I agree with many in this thread that race is a factor, but race isn't what has changed. What has changed is society, we have become too passive and to tolerant.

Before these things happen one thug likely says something about doing so to the thugs friend. The friend then didn't tell him he's a retarded A55. Cause his friends are thugs to, cause we have let this epidemic grow.

When is happened nobody stopped it or more important nobody gives chase. Often these things happen with others around, why aren't they chasing down and/or dealing with these thugs. Cause we are too passive, they're are too few willing and able to act, and even among them too many think it's the cops job, or that they will get in trouble.

After these things happen when the thug tells others why aren't they telling him off and turning him in. Not only that is friend are thugs to but there is a tolerance for it, too many chose not to get involved, and there is too large of a rift between the community that matters here and LE.

When these people are caught why aren't they locked up for a long time. Cause we are to tolerant, the legal system is too light on them, there too liberal and understanding, or reverse racists that take it easier on blacks cause they're black, etc.

 

*Sigh*. I'll see if I can come up with a different way to explain it. See below.

You'd be right if I was using crime *rates* as an argument in favor of gun control. I'm not. Cutting down on violent crime is practically a SIDE EFFECT of my argument.

Except that it's overwhelmingly likely that NEITHER is a doctor. Or a hoodlum, for that matter. So their skin color tells you nothing useful about them: the racial difference in likelihood to be a doctor (or a hoodlum) is overwhelmed by the likelihood that NEITHER is a doctor or a hoodlum. If you want to determine if one of them is a doctor or one of them is a hoodlum, you will need to use other measures than skin color.

What if the question were, "Which one is more likely to be the President of the United States"? Let's further assume you don't know what Obama looks like. You'd have to answer "the black one." But that, too, is a useless bit of knowledge, because it is overwhelmingly likely that NEITHER of them is the President. So knowing that the black person is more likely to be the president has no useful bearing on the situation, because it's overwhelmed by the likelihood that NEITHER is the president.

Here's another example. On any given day, there's a 1 in 250,000 chance of being killed by a meteorite. Let's say that during a meteor shower, the odds of getting killed by a meteorite double to 2 in 250,000. Are you going to stay inside all day? Of course not. Because the overwhelming odds in both cases are that you WON'T be killed by a meteorite, so it's not worth worrying about even though your odds doubled. There is no MEANINGFUL difference in your chances of being hit by a meteorite.

Rational people use the most effective filters first when assessing threats. You are focusing your mental energy on skin color, which is one of the least effective filters in determining threats. In technical terms, you will get false positives nearly every time. That's just dumb.

 

I also live in St Paul - that particular area has taverns where people hang out late at night when most cases of assault take place. By that time of day, most working folks are at home resting from work and other productive activity. The real question here is, where are the police to stop this nonsense?

 

Police can't be everywhere -- and we don't want them to be everywhere.

The perps in question have been arrested and charged. What more do you want?

 

How is there a meaningful difference between taking violent crime into consideration when pushing for gun control and taking violent crime rates into consideration? One creates the other. If you believe gun control will decrease the amount of violent crime, then violent crime rates would drop as well.

I disagree with your opinion. If the statistical likelihood of a black person committing homicide is as close to zero as you say, then why are black areas of the country filled with homicide? Why is homicide the #1 killer of young black males, whereas the #1 killer of young white males (and other races) is accidents? There's a reason diversity loving white progressives will not live in black communities, given the choice.

As we've determined, there's a 1 in 2900 chance of a black person committing homicide. If I'm in an area surrounded by 100 black men, the chance of that happening goes to 1 in 29. And that's just homicide we are talking about. Around 100 whites (which includes Hispanics), the chance is 1 in 230. You can talk about meteors and lottery winnings, but the chances of being a victim of black criminality is much higher than either of these, especially if you live in these areas.

 

Because I'm not citing "high crime rates" in explaining why we need gun control. How hard is this, really?

Do I think common-sense gun control measures (like background checks) will help reduce violent crime? Yes. Is "reducing violent crime" one of my main arguments in favor of gun control? No. Do I claim we need to do background checks because violent crime rates are high? No.

They're not "filled with homicide." The streets are not running with blood. People aren't being gunned down by the dozens in their driveways.

Because young males have a very low death rate from all other causes -- them being young and all.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/...eath-young-black-men-homicide_n_3049209.html?

The death rate by homicide for young black males is 88 per 100,000 -- meaning more than 99.9% of young black males DON'T die from a homicide.

You are, once again, taking a very rare event -- homicide -- and trying to pretend it's not rare.

You keep saying that as if you have any clue about whether it's true or not.

I spent four years living in Jersey City, N.J. I left when I got a job out of state. I wouldn't say it was the most pleasant place I ever lived, but that was because it's a poor inner city. The racial makeup of the residents was less relevant than the overall poverty and lack of resources. Still, I loved it. A lively mix of cultures and races, since Jersey City has been the initial landing spot of first-wave immigrants for a century or more. There were the "native" blacks and whites. In the 60s you had a huge influx of Cubans. They were slowly replaced by Dominicans and Puerto Ricans. And then in the 80s a big wave of Indians, largely from Gujarat. I could walk through Journal Square and hear five different languages, see people in saris or turbans talking to white housewives or black high-school students. And the restaurants were awesome.

When we moved back to Minnesota, we bought a house in Minneapolis because we like living in cities. Our neighborhood was highly diverse, both in terms of race and sexual orientation.

After we had our first child, we moved to the Hopkins area because the Minneapolis schools weren't super great. The Hopkins school district is quite diverse, but not poor overall -- which is why my children were able to attend the poorest, most diverse elementary school in the district, but still enjoy great teachers and educational resources.

I don't know. Am I being a hypocrite? Since you seem to know so much about progressives and all....

So because there's a 1 in 29 chance that *sometime during the course of the year*, SOMEONE in a random group of 100 black men will be involved in a homicide, you think that's a significant risk to take into account?

You spend a day surrounded by 100 random black people. Chance of one of them being involved in a homicide that day? 1 in 10585.

Put another way, that group of 100 random black people can be expected to produce a homicide ONCE EVERY 29 YEARS.

Worrying about it on that basis is STUPID.

 

Isn't that convenient? The main argument that the left has for restricting gun access is because of our high murder rates in comparison to the rest of the industrialized world, but that would be nothing more than a bonus for you, even though you have the same objective.

Actually they are. There are weekends (that is, 2 days of the week, Saturday and Sunday) in South side Chicago alone where upwards of 100 people are shot, 1-2 dozen killed.

Thousands die every year. It's not that rare. It's amazing how the left-wing article you site says it's a "devastating epidemic", but you're willing to shrug it off as nothing, for expediency purposes. Every other race of young men don't have homicide as their #1 cause of death. Only blacks. As the self-described protectors of these people, I would think white progressives would care about this issue, but they don't. No political benefit to be had, I guess.

The Hopkins MN area is 70% white. Is your particular neighborhood diverse?

When the chances of another group committing a homicide every 230 years is the alternative? It's a big difference. And we are talking about many millions of people in the country, which amplifies this risk. Why ignore an increased risk, if it's there? You seem to believe "bad areas" are going to be bad no matter who lives there, black or white. Those areas are bad in the first place because of the people living there, and that's the fundamental difference that I see, and you don't.

 

You really need to stop trying to assign the beliefs of other people to me. I couldn't care less what other people argue, and it's irrelevant to what I argue.

If you're in a gang-infested area, then the homicide rate will be way above the average. That's not what we're talking about. You're trying to make the case that BLACK is dangerous. I keep giving you example after example of how that's a useless filter.

88 out of 100,000 is rare. The only reason thousands die is because our population is large. It still means murder is a rare event for the average person.

Again, you need to stop using the opinions of others and acting like they're mine.

Does that actually matter? How do you define neighborhood? How do you define "diverse"?

We bought our house without checking the demographics of the street. We make decent money, and it wasn't a starter home, so it was not a poor neighborhood. But neither was it a rich one. We paid $240,000 for the house in 2002, which was just slightly above the median home price in the area at the time.

We knew it was in the Hopkins school district, which was what was important to us. we knew our children would be attending the largest, poorest, most diverse elementary school in the district.

We did our due diligence on the school to make sure our kids would get a good education -- not because we were worried about diversity, but because the school had relatively low average scores on state tests. We knew this was probably because of the higher poverty level of the students -- generally the higher the poverty level, the worse the test scores, because poor kids face a lot of barriers to academic success.

Our alternative was to opt them into the other nearby elementary school, which is roughly 96% white and heavily upper-middle-class.

What we discovered was that once you controlled for poverty, the school's test scores were fine -- in other words, the teachers and staff were great. It's just that they were educating a student body that faced more challenges.

Confident that our kids would get a good education, we gladly enrolled them in the school that actually reflected the real world, instead of the all-white alternative.

In terms of our street, it turned out that most of the residents were elderly -- many of them were the first or second owners of the home they lived in. In the intervening 10 years there has been a lot of turnover, as those homes were sold to younger families. The influx has been fairly mixed.

Again, it's not a MEANINGFUL difference. If the "risk" I face is that the group around me will produce a homicide every 29 years, that's no risk at all. It's laughable. It's not worth worrying about. In terms of affecting my day-to-day behavior, it's meaningless, background noise.

Say lowering the speed limit on highways to 40 mph would save 10 lives a year. Would we go for it? No. Because the increased risk of driving 55 mph is small enough that we don't worry about it; we prefer the time savings to the life savings. The difference is real, but so small as to be meaningless.

If you're worried because sometime in the next 29 years SOMEONE in the group around you might become a killer, you might as well stay home and never go out, because if you knew what the actual serious risks were, you'd drop dead from terror.

Those millions of people are not all in one place at one time. Large numbers mean even rare occurrences can happen frequently. It does not mean those occurrences aren't rare in a statistical sense.

Every day, somewhere in the universe, hundreds, perhaps thousands of stars go nova. Does this worry you?

I can identify a bad neighborhood by far more reliable means than the skin color of the people who live there. That's the point.

If we were to play 20 questions about a neighborhood, trying to determine if it is dangerous or not, you would lose if your first few questions were "What race are the inhabitants"? I'd win by asking about the condition of the streets and buildings, how many police are around, the number and type of businesses it has in it, the demeanor of the inhabitants, that sort of thing. I'd win without EVER asking about race.

Which demonstrates that race is irrelevant to the question.

 

Whatever you say.

Blacks are much more likely to be involved in gangs than whites. Can you find a single predominantly white city in the country where white gangs are shooting upwards of 100 people a weekend?

I'm just curious how one left-wing source can call it a "devastating epidemic" and another shrugs it off as nothing. Part of the left's power comes from their hive-minded conformity and strength in numbers. These kinds of diametrically opposed situations are rare.

I didn't ask for your life story or how much you paid for your house. I asked if your neighborhood was diverse, and based on your initial objection to the question, and rambling tangential reply, I'm guessing the answer is "not really".

The fact of the matter is that you're at an increased risk of harm around the black community. Crime is common in these areas, which is why most whites (including progressives) do not live anywhere near these areas. You may blame poverty and education, but these are not causes of black crime. If they were, we would see poor whites and poor Hispanics causing as much as crime as poor blacks, and we don't see that. Not even close. There is something unique that is going on in the black community that is causing a lot of crime. That's an unavoidable fact.

You can obfuscate with all of these other analogies, but people have a reason to be concerned with violent crime, even if it is a rare event when taking a macro view of society in general. People don't think like that. When walking down the street and seeing a group of 3 young blacks, people don't stop and think "well only 33.43 out of 100,000 commit homicide, so I shouldn't worry". The first instinct is what they go with, and for good reason.

 

You're right that is the first instinct. Where you're wrong is claiming that it's "for good reason."

Like I said, if we were to play 20 questions about the safety of a neighborhood, and you focused on race-related questions, you would lose.