Marxist analysis of crime statistics

[RevUK]

Since I suspect we all reject the notion that some races are inherently smarter or more civilised than others, how should a Marxist explain the variations between crime rates? The low Asian crime rate, medium white crime rate, high black crime rate?

Our basic reaction is to look that things from a class perspective and blame poverty for the discrepancy. However, poor whites commit less crime than poor blacks.

[Bala Perdida]

However, poor whites commit less crime than poor blacks.Having been around poverty all my life, I've never seen any examples of this being true. What I have seen is that poor whites are less likely to be persecuted for their crimes because their race sets them apart.

[John Nada]

Get the fuck out of here with that racists bullshit! Allegedly abiding to bourgeois laws written by white bourgeoisie doesn't determine "intelligence" or "level of civilization"!

[RevUK]

Get the fuck out of here with that racists bullshit! Allegedly abiding to bourgeois laws written by white bourgeoisie doesn't determine "intelligence" or "level of civilization"!

That's what I fucking said, you thick çunt.

We REJECT the idea of certain races having greater intelligence or levels of civilisation built into their DNA. I'm looking for socioeconomic and cultural analysis.

Read the post before you reply with stupid comments.

[Creative Destruction]

Having been around poverty all my life, I've never seen any examples of this being true. What I have seen is that poor whites are less likely to be persecuted for their crimes because their race sets them apart.

Yeah, this exactly. I've lived in poor majority-black and poor majority-white communities for a good part of my life, and that's the major difference I saw. White communities don't get policed often, even when it's known that there's a huge drug problem, and all the ills that come with that. Thus, less arrests. Poor white communities tend to also be rural and have less of a police force anyway, like the town I grew up in. And what police come into town are basically Keystone cops. When I moved into a black, urban neighborhood, it was entirely different. There were "heightened enforcement" areas or something like that, where there was a stronger police presence than anywhere else. Most of the time, if not all the time, these areas were black communities.

[RevUK]

Yeah, this exactly. I've lived in poor majority-black and poor majority-white communities for a good part of my life, and that's the major difference I saw. White communities don't get policed often, even when it's known that there's a huge drug problem, and all the ills that come with that. Thus, less arrests. Poor white communities tend to also be rural and have less of a police force anyway, like the town I grew up in. And what police come into town are basically Keystone cops. When I moved into a black, urban neighborhood, it was entirely different. There were "heightened enforcement" areas or something like that, where there was a stronger police presence than anywhere else. Most of the time, if not all the time, these areas were black communities.

Murder is always policed seriously and blacks commit more murders than whites.

How are we to explain this?

[Creative Destruction]

Murder is always policed seriously and blacks commit more murders than whites.

How are we to explain this?

Look at the reasons and conditions that make it so that blacks are 4x more likely to be murdered.

Also, lol, murder isn't always policed seriously. There's a huge disparity in the quality of investigations when a black person is murdered vs. when a white person is murdered.

[RevUK]

Look at the reasons and conditions that make it so that blacks are 4x more likely to be murdered.

Which are what? Again, "poverty" alone is not an adequate explanation. Nor is "racism" as black-on-black crime is more of a problem than black-on-white crime. They are not lashing out at an institutionally racist society.

[Creative Destruction]

Which are what?

In poor urban communities, you tend to have gangs. Gangs are an expression of a lack of social support and tend to fill the role of social supporters. In order to exist, gangs usually participate in crime, since economic opportunities that forced the gang situation to exist in the first place also keeps gangs from obtaining legit funds. Much funding comes from drugs. Drugs, being an illegal enterprise, tend to have a lot of attendant violence.

I don't know how much time you've spent in a poor white community, but there's a lot of violence, even and especially in Appalachia. I don't know if you've been to Appalachia, but I would be willing to bet an arm and a leg that the reason there aren't as many murders as there could be there is because the population are relatively sparse in the extremely poor areas. It's also difficult terrain to get around and there isn't much opportunity to have gangs and turf wars. But, I mean, that is where the classic American blood feud originated. The Hatfields and McCoys were the original Bloods and Crips. If Appalachia was one city, and it had the poverty rate it did, you'd better believe that there would be an instant increase in violence. Same could be said about Indian reservations. If you look at the crime rate in rural counties that are poor and black, you'll more than likely find a low murder rate, as well (take a look at the "Black Belt" of the United States; as an example, Issaquena County Mississippi has 2,274 people living there (smaller than the town I lived in), 64% black... I can't even find crime rates for this county.)


Again, "poverty" alone is not an adequate explanation.

Since 27% of black households are in poverty, compared to 8.9% for white households, I'd say it's more than an adequate explanation. Poverty forces people into these situations. Systemic racism, which has cut the feet out from under many black families and blocked their access to wealth, goes in-hand with this, as well.


Nor is "racism" as black-on-black crime is more of a problem than black-on-white crime.

Racism and poverty both force these kinds of conditions. It's not exactly a surprise that in a country as segregated as the United States, intra-racial conflicts will happen more often. 88% of white people murdered were white-on-white crimes, for example.


They are not lashing out at an institutionally racist society.

In a way they are, but, nevermind, that's never been the argument. They're responding to their surroundings that have been molded by an institutionally racist society.

So, what you're getting at here isn't that you're concerned about "crime statistics" as such, because that would imply that you'd be willing to grapple with the issues of drugs and what not.

[John Nada]

That's what I fucking said, you thick çunt.

We REJECT the idea of certain races having greater intelligence or levels of civilisation built into their DNA. I'm looking for socioeconomic and cultural analysis.

Read the post before you reply with stupid comments. So you're sexists too. Nice.

I gave you an answer, read. It's a artifact of your racists society. Laws written by racists imperialist don't mean shit. Arbitrary measurements of intelligence or civility made up by racist imperialists don't mean shit.

[RevUK]

Since 27% of black households are in poverty, compared to 8.9% for white households, I'd say it's more than an adequate explanation. Poverty forces people into these situations.

But blacks are only 10% of the population in the United States. Yet 52.5% of homicide offenders from 1980 to 2008 were black according to the US Department of Justice.

You can't say that's anything but massively disproportionate.

[Bala Perdida]

Gangs are definitely a big problem for minorities. Similar to that, laws exist to rack up charges against gang members simply for being in a gang. Today, this easily manifests itself as a modern day example of systemic racism. Being that for being hispanic, living in a neighborhood that has a certain gang controlling it, and having friends or family in that gang, you could be easily labeled an affiliate.

[Creative Destruction]

But blacks are only 10% of the population in the United States. Yet 52.5% of homicide offenders from 1980 to 2008 were black according to the US Department of Justice.

You can't say that's anything but massively disproportionate.

Yeah, yeah. You're completely discounting what I'm saying, which I explained the reason for this being. Are you going to have an honest conversation about this, or should I just disregard your opinion as racist trash?

[RevUK]

Yeah, yeah. You're completely discounting what I'm saying, which I explained the reason for this being. Are you going to have an honest conversation about this, or should I just disregard your opinion as trash?

You're discounting what I'm saying. Blacks are only 10% of the population. I've seen no evidence that there are a greater number of blacks living in close proximity than whites living in close proximity. Given how many more non-blacks there are, I'd be surprised if that were true.

As for drugs, whites use them, and I suspect deal them, at a similar rate.

So, that only leaves your "racism" explanation, which is highly unconvincing.

Single parent households are a more obvious cause of poverty than institutionalised racism. I find it hard to blame white people for that or gangster culture.

[Creative Destruction]

You're discounting what I'm saying.

lol, good god. there's nothing for me to "discount" in your posts because you're not arguing anything.


Blacks are only 10% of the population.

Already explained why this is irrelevant. The disproportionality is a sexy number to throw around with racists, but it says absolutely nothing about what is going on.


I've seen no evidence that there's a greater number of blacks living in close proximity than whites living in close proximity.

Which isn't the point.


Given how many more non-blacks there are, I'd be surprised if that were true.

Which isn't the point.


As for drugs, whites use them, and I suspect deal them, at a similar rate.

Enforcement of drug laws is historically racist. Whites do, in fact, use drugs at a higher rate than blacks do and are more likely to have drugs on them at any given moment; however, black people are arrested at greater numbers for drug offenses than white people.


So, that only leaves your "racism" explanation, which is highly unconvincing.

lol, but you can't provide any argument against it.


I find it hard to blame white people for gangster culture and black fathers abandoning their children. Single parent households would seem to me to be a more obvious cause of poverty than institutionalised racism.

Welp. You've shown yourself unwilling to actually deal with the arguments laid out here, so I'm not sure it would be worth it for me address any of this to you. You're either just naturally dishonest, trolling or incredibly stupid. Make an effort to genuinely and honestly deal with the argument that I've laid out, and I'll see if it's worth responding to you.

[RevUK]

The disproportionality is a sexy number to throw around with racists, but it says absolutely nothing about what is going on.

If the subject is the black crime rate, it shows exactly what is going on.


Which isn't the point.

It's the point you made.


Enforcement of drug laws is historically racist. Whites do, in fact, use drugs at a higher rate than blacks do and are more likely to have drugs on them at any given moment; however, black people are arrested at greater numbers for drug offenses than white people.

I don't dispute this but it's irrelevant. You're changing the subject.

You said: "Drugs, being an illegal enterprise, tend to have a lot of attendant violence."

So, if drugs and violence go together, and whites use and deal drugs at a similar rate, why are are blacks disproportionately violent?


Welp. You've shown yourself unwilling to actually deal with the arguments laid out here, so I'm not sure it would be worth it for me address any of this to you. You're either just naturally dishonest, trolling or incredibly stupid. Make an effort to genuinely and honestly deal with the argument that I've laid out, and I'll see if it's worth responding to you.

Do black people ever take personal responsibility in your world? Or is it always whitey's fault?

Why can't you admit that single parent households are a significant factor in poverty? And perhaps black fathers abandoning their children is an important point in this discussion?

[Creative Destruction]

This is really the only point you ventured to try and interrogate with any honesty, so this is the only one I'm going to address. You need to try harder with everything else, because it's treading really close to being just racist dreck (blaming single parent households, black fathers etc.)


You said: "Drugs, being an illegal enterprise, tend to have a lot of attendant violence."

So, if drugs and violence go together, and whites use and deal drugs at a similar rate, why are are blacks disproportionately violent?

You're missing a huge qualifier here. Gangs -- which are generally an urban phenomenon -- which are involved in the drug trade have attendant violence. I don't know why you decided to completely forego that qualifier, but it's an important one.

If you think about the white gangs that also deal drugs -- MCs like the Hell's Angels, white supremacist gangs like the Aryan Nation and what not -- there's a great deal of violence that happen with these groups and they're often targets of investigations and prosecutions. If you're Joe Cracker selling some pot to some suburbanite kids, no you're probably not going to experience the same level of violence as you would if you were involved in a gang-directed drug trade.

[RevUK]

You need to try harder with everything else, because it's treading really close to being just racist dreck (blaming single parent households, black fathers etc.)

Single parent families from all races suffer from higher poverty levels. Why does this stop being true and start becoming racist when we're talking about blacks? Facts can't be racist, and the fact is that black fathers abandon their children more often than fathers of other races. That is a significant cause of poverty and by extension, crime.


You're missing a huge qualifier here. Gangs -- which are generally an urban phenomenon -- which are involved in the drug trade have attendant violence. I don't know why you decided to completely forego that qualifier, but it's an important one.

If you think about the white gangs that also deal drugs -- MCs like the Hell's Angels, white supremacist gangs like the Aryan Nation and what not -- there's a great deal of violence that happen with these groups and they're often targets of investigations and prosecutions. If you're Joe Cracker selling some pot to some suburbanite kids, no you're probably not going to experience the same level of violence as you would if you were involved in a gang-directed drug trade.

Yes, violence happens because of those gangs. About 90% of people in the United States are non-black, it is fair to assume among that 90% there are more gangs than among the 10% of blacks (and if that is not true, then that also raises some big questions). If it IS true, then you are not able to explain why the black gangs are disproportionately violent.

[Creative Destruction]

Well, I already explained why there is an increase in gang activity in these places. Your refusal to accept facts is more of a personal problem than my problem or anything wrong with my argument. You should work on that. Once you're actually prepared to have this conversation honestly, then I'll come back to it.

[contracycle]

Which are what? Again, "poverty" alone is not an adequate explanation. Nor is "racism" as black-on-black crime is more of a problem than black-on-white crime. They are not lashing out at an institutionally racist society.

I don't think you understand how racism works. A persecuted group doesn't automatically develop a sort of resistance consciousness. Some of it's members will collaborate with the oppressors; some will decide it's every man for himself; some will decide that seeing as society does nothing for them, they will not stick to its rules.

So your presumption that evidence of a racist impact would only be limited to retaliatory, black-on-white crime, is badly mistaken.

[Gileson]

Do black people ever take personal responsibility in your world? Or is it always whitey's fault?

Can't you post at Stormfront or another reactionary forum if you're going to drone on about ''personal responsibility''?

[Vogel]

Actually Doxxer, RevUK brings up a point that has been far to ignored by the left, which is what has happened to families in the past few decades. We always seem to think of labor only existing at work, or outside the home. Conservatives picked up on this and went on about moral degeneration. But I think that there has actually been a class revolution inside the family, and we can only benefit from analyzing it.
Now, I do not presume to know about how families have changed specifically within different racial groups, I don’t particularly want to go that route now, but I do have an idea of what’s happened to American families in general.
Btw, upon analyzing, you’ll see that it isn’t about personal responsibility, but of class struggle.

[Creative Destruction]

Actually Doxxer, RevUK brings up a point that has been far to ignored by the left, which is what has happened to families in the past few decades. We always seem to think of labor only existing at work, or outside the home. Conservatives picked up on this and went on about moral degeneration. But I think that there has actually been a class revolution inside the family, and we can only benefit from analyzing it.
Now, I do not presume to know about how families have changed specifically within different racial groups, I don’t particularly want to go that route now, but I do have an idea of what’s happened to American families in general.
Btw, upon analyzing, you’ll see that it isn’t about personal responsibility, but of class struggle.

Well, worrying or bellyaching about the family structure doesn't lend itself to a Marxist analysis anyway. Families are social relations that have been perverted by capitalist relations. RevUK isn't interested in that kind of analysis, though. They just want someone to validate their racist view of black people.

[Vogel]

Wrong rednoise, labor happens in the family. That means surplus labor, which comes from someone and goes to someone. Even though it is labor like making the bed, cooking dinner, cleaning clothes, it is still labor.

[Creative Destruction]

Wrong rednoise, labor happens in the family. That means surplus labor, which comes from someone and goes to someone. Even though it is labor like making the bed, cooking dinner, cleaning clothes, it is still labor.

I never said this wasn't the case.

[Vogel]

Oh, alright. All I'm claiming, is that their has been a huge class revolution inside the family. From what is basically feudalism to cohabitation, or living together cooperatively, communally, equally. From exploitative (loving by all means though), to non-exploitative.
And if we want to be successful as a movement, we need to analyze all our different societies, cultures, and families, (those that exist in our countries and internationally) things that touch close to the hearts people.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Oh, alright. All I'm claiming, is that their has been a huge class revolution inside the family. From what is basically feudalism to cohabitation, or living together cooperatively, communally, equally. From exploitative (loving by all means though), to non-exploitative.

As if the family, in all its forms, is not exploitative already. Household and reproductive labour is still atomised, preformed primarily by women, and is not compensated in any way. The family is one of the most exploitative institutions of class society, even when it dresses itself up in pretty "progressive" get-up.

This thread is pretty bad, though. It's giving me flashbacks to the Debater fiasco.