USA Gun Violence: Race question

[nowarbutclasswar]

Perhaps someone who is more knowledgeable on the subject can help answer this question: What is the difference in gun homicide rates between lower class whites, latinos, and blacks. I am under the impression that there is a much higher gun murder rate for poor blacks and latinos as opposed to poor whites and am wondering if someone who has perhaps studied this issue can shed some light on the subject. If this is indeed confirmed, why is this the case?

[Blake's Baby]

Sorry, this deserves a rather more serious answer than the one I first posted here.

If someone does have a source for reliable statistics, rather than the impressionistic feeling I have, I would also be interested in finding out.

[brigadista]

found this - no idea about the website

http://www.statisticbrain.com/gun-ownership-statistics-demographics/
soz misunderstood this is about gun ownership...

[Art Vandelay]

I don't have any sources and am sure someone more knowledgeable than myself will come in and give you a good answer. I would only stress that crime rates (including gun violence) is not an issue that can be divorced from class.

[GiantMonkeyMan]

According to this (http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/homicide/race.cfm), 41.9% of gun related homicides were commited by white people, 56.4% by black people and 1.7% by 'other'. I'm not sure what they are constituting as 'black'.

For comparison, wikipedia puts the percentage of those living in poverty as 9.9% of white people, 12.1% of asian people, 26.6% hispanic people and 27.4% of black people. In numbers terms, that's 46.2 million people in poverty overall, 19.6 million are white, 10.6 million are black, 1.8 million are asian, 13.4 million are hispanic and I can't be arsed to figure out the rest.

I think this shows a correlation, namely that rates of crime and homicide are directly related to rates of poverty. It was explained best to me in a documentary called The House I Live In about the US justice system and drug laws. Basically one thing someone said was along the lines of 'joining a gang or selling drugs in some communities is literally people's only rational choice and can be compared to people getting jobs in factory towns: it's some peoples' only option'.

[Decolonize The Left]

Perhaps someone who is more knowledgeable on the subject can help answer this question: What is the difference in gun homicide rates between lower class whites, latinos, and blacks. I am under the impression that there is a much higher gun murder rate for poor blacks and latinos as opposed to poor whites and am wondering if someone who has perhaps studied this issue can shed some light on the subject. If this is indeed confirmed, why is this the case?

Well let's look at it materialistically, shall we? Since we know that blacks/latinos are not predisposed to gun violence, we need to know what percentage of these population sub-sets live in poverty, i.e. conditions which encourage violence.

I think it's safe to say that a higher percentage of blacks and latinos live in poverty as opposed to white people, and so you'd find a higher percentage of violence within this sub-set. Yet when you consider that whites are a the largest racial sub-set in terms of population, you'd expect to see a good percentage of violence from this sub-set as well given that a certain percentage of it is in poverty as well.

I can't get the stats at the moment but that's the general logic behind it.

[nowarbutclasswar]

here are some statistics:

total population: 308,745,538
white: 223,553,265 - 72.4%
black: 38,929,319 - 12.6%
hispanic: 50,477,594 - 16.4%

living in poverty - total: 55,876,800
white: 25,865,700 - 46% (12% of subset)
black: 12,876,400 - 23% (33% of subset)
hispanic: 17,134,700 - 31% (34% of subset)

homicide rates - total: 9,013
white: 715 - 7% (0.32 per 100,000)
black: 4,866 - 54% (12.5 per 100,000)
hispanic: 3,432 - 38% (6.8 per 100,000)

http://www.statehealthfacts.org/profileind.jsp?rgn=1&ind=14
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_States#Race_and_ethnici ty
http://voxday.blogspot.ca/2012/12/hispanic-firearms-homicide-rate.html

[BIXX]

While I can't really pull up any stats to prove what I'm about to say, it is what I feel:
Due to the general racism in the USA, I feel that when the Black/Latino/other minority population is in poverty, it is in a way worse than when the White population is in poverty, because they also have that extra added oppression. I feel like this leads to these groups ending up with a higher likelihood of being involved in gun (and probably other, non gun related) violence. Just because worse conditions tends to equal higher chances of being involved in violence.

(let me know if none of that made sense)

[leninstalin1988]

its blacks that have the highest crime statistics

[BIXX]

its blacks that have the highest crime statistics
Because they suffer a higher level of oppression... Because historically white people have done everything in their power to remove their rights.

I can't tell if your post is blaming the black population for having the highest crime statistics...

[leninstalin1988]

Im not blaiming or judging anybody im just going by facts

and im not talking about history im talking about now

[BIXX]

Im not blaiming or judging anybody im just going by facts
Alright, I just think it is important to include with those facts the reason behind it, but if you aren't saying it's their fault, I don't care.

[Blake's Baby]

Some contextualising of the 'facts' is necessary... for instance, in the UK young black men are statistically over-represented in Police stop-and-search figures, to the point (allegedly, I've heard this but don't have accurate figures to hand) that more young black men have been stopped and searched in London, than actually live in London.

Which suggests that, for instance, if more young black men 'commit crimes', it's because they are much more likely to get picked up; so the higher levels of crime detection are pretty much entirely due to racism on behalf of the Metropolitan Police.

Is the situation very different in the US?

[Os Cangaceiros]

No it's similar. Stop-and-frisk policies have led to inflated drug arrests for minorities but I don't think it effects the homicide rate.

[BIXX]

I still think higher crime rates as whole result from higher levels of oppression.

[Blake's Baby]

No it's similar. Stop-and-frisk policies have led to inflated drug arrests for minorities but I don't think it effects the homicide rate.

Sure, someone is dead and 'detection' of that fact is independent of their race. My point was more about the general criminalisation of young black men than anything else, realted to EchoShock's comment that it was 'oppression' that gave rise to inflated crime statistics among certain minority groups. One obvious example of that oppression is the example I cited, that young black men are many times more likely to be stopped and searched than young white men - by predominantly white police officers.

Sociological labelling theory pretty strongly suggests that one of the effects of that general criminalisation of young black men is to produce a group that positively identifies with criminal behaviour (a defensive attitude of 'they think we're criminals anyway, we may as well act like criminals' which promotes a sub-cultural identification with gang culture and other aspects of socially-deviant behaviour), and this in turn re-inforces the dominant narrative that 'most young black men are criminals'.

Of course, more criminals are also poor than rich, so the more poverty there is among any section of the community there is also likely to be more crime. Because black people are generally over-represented statistically as regards poverty, it's hardly surprising that crime figures among black communities are higher than among whites in general. This would be the case if (keeping everything else the same) you removed the whole racist power-structure of the police force and the justice system in general.

All of these things work together in a feedback loop.

[Yazman]

MODERATOR ACTION:

leninstalin1988 - Please try not to doublepost in future. It's a little disruptive. If you have anything extra to add, please try to edit it into your post rather than making another one immediately after. I've merged your doublepost together - please don't do it again.

Also remember to try and contribute more substantially when you post. One line posts are generally discouraged. I'm not going to warn you for it since you're so new but please be mindful of this when you post.

This is not a warning.

[RevInfiniti]

Im not blaiming or judging anybody im just going by facts

and im not talking about history im talking about now

You cannot address any current black issues in America without addressing its historical context.

For example, we can not talk about black poverty without acknowledging that blacks had their wealthy financial communities "bombed" by their oppressors.

We cannot talk about black crime rates without acknowledging the CIA's roles in those crimes.

Then there there is the crack epidemic that was designed by the CIA to control these people (RIP Gary Webb) and increase the inmate rates for the prison industrial machine.

These are the facts, my friend.