Jack's Blog

He states:  “[A] close examination of these arguments proves that Taylor and his followers are either statistically illiterate, or knowingly deceive for political effect.“  Ok, I bet we're about to see some really obvious mistakes bared to the light of truth.  “First, as for the disproportionate rate of violent crime committed by blacks, economic conditions explain the difference with white crime rates.”  Wow.  So Wise just got done telling us how 'statistically illiterate” Taylor is, then he proceeds to admit that Taylor's first statistic is correct, but there's a justification for it.  Way to start with a knockout, Wise.  You've got him on the ropes.  Press your advantage.  “In other words, the implicit message of Taylor's report--that blacks are dangerous because they are black--is insupportable.”  Pow!  When in doubt, go with the implied message!  Nothing damns your opponent so efficiently as a viewpoint you fabricate for them.  Don't lose focus, Wise, keep on target, press your advantage!  “Secondly, to claim that blacks are more dangerous than whites because of official crime rates, is to ignore that when it comes to everyday threats to personal well-being, whites far and away lead the pack in all kinds of destructive behaviors: corporate pollution, consumer fraud, violations of health and safety standards on the job, and launching wars on the basis of deceptive evidence, to name a few.”  Holy crap, I thought we were talking about black people, but Wise has somehow managed to segue into Bush bashing.  You might wonder how this is possible, but it should be no surprise.  To a liberal, everything is a segue into Bush bashing.  Hey, Wise, aren't Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice black?  Doesn't Karl Rove have a black heart?  Regardless, it's spectacular liberal debate methodology on display.  When you can't prove your point, just prove some other point that makes you angry, and pretend that's what was being talked about.

So, in this four round fight, Wise has badly lost the first round.  He threw a lot of punches, some even aimed at the ref, but none landed.  Ding!  Round 2.  Let's do a little side by side thing:

• “Since Latino/as tend to live closer to blacks than non-Hispanic whites, this means that many "white" victims of "black crime" are Latino/a, and that in any given year, the majority of black crime victims would be people of color, not whites.” 
• “As for the claim that blacks victimize whites at rates that are far higher than the reverse, though true, this statistic is meaningless, for a few obvious but overlooked reasons, first among them the simple truth that if whites are more available as potential victims, we would naturally expect black criminals to victimize whites more often than white criminals would victimize blacks.”

So, if I'm following correctly, the logic here is that black people aren't really comitting crimes against white people, because white people don't live near black people.  On the other hand, you'd expect to see a lot of black on white crime, because there's lots of white people available for blacks to commit crimes upon.  Huh?  It's magic.  First, Wise responds to Taylor's 'statistical illiteracy' with heresay, speculation, and guesswork.  Then he contradicts the logic of his own heresay, speculation and guesswork.  Blacks never encounter whites, but whites are more available to them as potential victims.  Grok?  That's pretty awesome.  I'm still waiting for actual statistically based challenges.  Words like “more“ and “higher“ are sorta like statistics, but they're not actually statistics, Tim.

“Examining data from 2002, there were indeed 4.5 times more black-on-white violent crimes than the reverse (5). While this may seem to support Taylor's position, it actually destroys it, because the interracial crime gap, though seemingly large, is smaller than random chance would have predicted.

the odds of a given white person (or white criminal) encountering a black person are only about three percent. On the other hand, the odds of a given black person (or black criminal) encountering a white person are nineteen times greater, or fifty-seven percent.”

That's fucking amazing.  This guy has decided that crime is pretty much conducted at random, that criminals walk down the street, encountering people, and then at some random point they just lash out and violently assault somebody.  I think I'll call this the, “even though I'm supposedly racially sensitive, I've apparently never been inside a black barbershop“ model for social interaction.  People aren't like erythrocytes, bouncing around in artery streets, randomly encountering other bloodborne cells and particles...  They're people.  They are capable of self-motivation and self-determination.

I like this one, too:  “a fact that literally torpedoes the claims in The Color of Crime.“  Tim, you just said that your facts “literally torpedo“ Taylor's book.  “Literally.“  Really?  Taylor's book is not a book, it's some sort of nautical vessel?  And your facts aren't actually facts, they're in fact torpedoes?  Literally torpedoes?  Literally, Tim?  Yeah?

If that wasn't insane enough, he's told me that blacks committed 4.5 times as many violent crimes on whites as vice versa.  I was always of the impression that black violent crime was in great majority focused on other blacks.  This guy, in the process of trying to defend black people, has made me say “holy shit, blacks assault whites that much more than whites assault blacks?  That's pretty amazing.”  Notice also that he's totally thrown away his whole “black people don't live near white people“ logic.  Now he wants us to think that 57% of the people a black person meets each day are white.  Black people pretty much live in a world full of white people, whereas white people almost never see blacks, like they're bigfoot or something.

But, lets get it straight.  Wise is responding to this:  “Black criminals usually choose white victims and are far more likely to victimize whites than whites are to victimize blacks.”  In doing so, he admits that blacks are far more likely to victimize whites than vice versa, which is really the critical point, and then spends a great deal of words, and suspect statistical methodology “proving” that whites use race as more of a motivator in violent crime than blacks do.  Basically the logic here is, “duh, we already know blacks are extremely violent, but at least they don't pick out whites as targets as often as some questionable logic might indicate they would.”  That's comforting, Tim, thanks.  But, I suppose to a liberal, it is comforting.  Liberals don't really care how many people you kill, so long as you don't do it based on race.  Since black people are apparently willing to violently victimize blacks comparitively more often than they violently victimize whites, it's really all good.  After all, I'm not worried about getting shot, so long as the shooter remembers to shoot two members of his own race before me.  Right?  Right?  Yeah...

I really don't have any more time for you Tim.  You make me sad.  Instead, I will provide you with a link Hussain wanted me to post.