Claim: The only reason blacks commit more crime than whites at comparable income levels is because even relatively better off blacks live in worse neighborhoods

submitted by [deleted] from self.debatealtright

Is this true? What's the best way to respond to this? Assortment of claims below:

"Although whites also suffer poverty, black poverty is more severe and more likely to correlate with crime. Seven out of ten poor whites live in stable, mostly non-poor neighborhoods, while eighty-five percent of the black poor live in mostly poor areas (Johnson, Calvin and Chanchalat Chanhatasilpa, 2003. “The Race/Ethnicity and Poverty Nexus of Violent Crime: Reconciling Differences in Chicago’s Community Area Homicide Rates)

Blacks are three times more likely to live in extreme poverty than whites (less than half the poverty line) (Sklar, Holly, 1998. “Let Them Eat Cake,” Z Magazine, November: 31), and six times more likely to live in concentrated poverty neighborhoods (Wachtel, Paul L. 1999. Race in the Mind of America: Breaking the Vicious Circle Between Blacks and Whites. NY: Routledge, 294, fn 15). Indeed, three-quarters of persons living in concentrated poverty neighborhoods are people of color (powell, john, 2001. “Socioeconomic School Integration,” Poverty and Race Research Action Council Bulletin)

Looking specifically at homicide rates, a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that crowded housing was the key to higher murder rates among blacks in the U.S. When census tracts with similar incomes, population density and housing conditions are compared, racial murder rate differences evaporate, (Pope, John, 1995, “Murder linked to dense poverty,” New Orleans Times-Picayune. June 14). because the poorest neighborhoods have similar homicide rates, no matter racial composition (Johnson, Calvin and Chanchalat Chanhatasilpa, 2003. “The Race/Ethnicity and Poverty Nexus of Violent Crime: Reconciling Differences in Chicago’s Community Area Homicide Rates,” in Violent Crime: Assessing Race and Ethnic Differences. Darnell Hawkins, ed., Cambridge University Press: 106). A 1990 meta-analysis of twenty-one different studies on homicide, covering thirty years of research found much the same thing: among all the factors positively correlated with higher homicide rates, two of the most significant were unemployment rates and community resource deprivation (Land, K., P.L. McCall and L.E. Cohen, 1990. “Structural Covariates of Homicide Rates: Are There Any Invariances Across Time and Social Space?”

African American families making $100,000 a year tend to live in neighborhoods with the same income composition as white families making $30,000 a year. To say that you have an African-American family that is middle class or upper middle class and that their experience is now so similar to that of whites that somehow the environmental atmosphere around them has equalized, I think that is something that is being missed"

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[–]Nombre27 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

On average if having more money doesn't sate one's appetite for criminal behavior, and living in a better neighborhood doesn't either, then what variable is left?

The only reason blacks commit more crime than whites at comparable income levels is because even relatively better off blacks live in worse neighborhoods

This statement negates itself and simply shows that the primary variable of the problem is blacks.

Wealthier white in any neighborhood = Lower relative crime

Poor white in poor neighborhood = Lower relative crime

Poor black in poor neighborhood = Higher relative crime

Wealthier black in any neighborhood = Higher relative crime

It's nonsensical to write-off lower income whites as living in better (per capita income) neighbourhoods, despite supposedly being as poor as they are. On average, people live in as nice an area as they can afford.

The really funny thing is that it somehow shifts the burden on to the poor neighborhood instead of the person committing the crime.

It also assumes that most higher income blacks must live in these worse neighborhoods on average instead of leaving them, which again is nonsensical.

I have no doubt that poverty increases the probability of criminal behavior, but the trend is quite clear regarding the consistent pattern of criminality and one of the driving forces behind it. To simply say that it is non-zero despite the relative differences is not a suitable null hypothesis to start from. Differences exist, therefore a difference in outcome measures should result.

[–]EuropeanAwakening14 6 insightful - 2 fun6 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 2 fun -  (2 children)

Maybe Blacks should make their neighborhoods not suck? Why can't they? Because they're actually really stupid and incapable.

[–]Brewdabier 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Or they choose the make their neighborhoods look like shit then use the race card (Psychological manipulation).

[–]douglas_waltersWhite Supremacist 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

They aren’t collectively capable of such strategy.

The useful idiots, conditioned over time through Jewish propaganda, are responsible for giving the oppression narrative any validity.

[–]asterias 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

There are places on earth where people live in poverty, yet crime rates are virtually non-existent.

[–]DragonerneJesus is white 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

What you're arguing here is that blacks are being artificially boosted beyond what their socioeconomic neighborhood relates to. This is an instance of whites being oppressed comparatively to blacks.

Another way to put the title is that despite having similar bad neighborhoods, some blacks have vastly better income. This must be explained solely because of systemic racism against whites.

African American families making $100,000 a year tend to live in neighborhoods with the same income composition as white families making $30,000 a year.

More than 3x as better off despite living in comparable neighborhoods. Systemic racism against whites in practice.

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I also don't see how 'crowded living conditions and and broken down infrastructure' drive crime higher rates of crime, so I'm dubious about these claims. These things might have some small psychological effects, but I don't see how a difference as great as the ones we see between poor blacks and poor whites could exist.

[–]MarkimusNational Socialist 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

The violent crime rate of black celebrities worth millions is probably higher than the lowest white socioeconomic category that is recorded.

Someone should get the stats on this lol

[–]Erasmus 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

It's not poverty.

The statistic that always sticks out the most to me is:

“Black men raised in the top 1 percent — by millionaires — were as likely to be incarcerated as white men raised in households earning about $36,000.”

I first came across this stat in a NYTimes article, but it has its genesis in a study by Raj Chetty's "Equality of Opportunity" organization. The article is a devastating data-based indictment of young black men as a group, and contains red pill after red pill, like:

"Most white boys raised in wealthy families will stay rich or upper middle class as adults, but black boys raised in similarly rich households will not."

and

"Gaps persisted even when black and white boys grew up in families with the same income, similar family structures, similar education levels and even similar levels of accumulated wealth."

The authors blame this on "the punishing reach of racism on black boys", despite having no evidence for this, no hypothesized mechanism for how something as vague as "racism" turns the son of a millionaire into an incarcerated criminal, and even in spite of having evidence against it. Blacks in majority black nations score the lowest on IQ and other early childhood development tests, for instance, despite the lack of "punishing white racism" there.