People are not statistics.
We should not shirk from understanding, explaining, and working on the problems that are pointed out by various statistics.
But I don’t believe you react to statistics by teaching a general distrust for an entire race of people.
Let’s look at just one statistic — I think it was that 1600 white people were killed by blacks each year.
It is offered as part of the argument that it is much more likely that a black will kill a white, than a random white would kill a black.
But the problem is that neither a random white or a random black are likely to kill anybody. You could live your whole life and never run into one of the “black killers” who would kill a white person.
Some of what Derb wrote is just common-sense, although it would apply equally to other circumstances. There’s no sense in putting yourself into a situation where you would be an obvious target, regardless of the race of the neighborhood. And it is certainly true that people of all races tend to react differently to people who are ‘like them’.
But other things he said take single incidents and pretend they are common occurances. I go to dozens of theme parks every year, and there have been minority events in those parks, and I’ve never felt endangered or otherwise made uncomfortable being there. Yes, there was an incident — but saying it’s common is like using Columbine to justify the wholesale repression of common actions high schoolers take, in the name of “stopping the violence” that is already lower in schools than other places.
Derb knows this — he is a math guy. I still think he was being satirical.
“But the problem is that neither a random white or a random black are likely to kill anybody.”
Correct. NO ONE of any race is ‘likely’ to be a murderer. But blacks ARE much more likely to murder whites than whites are to murder blacks.
“But I don’t believe you react to statistics by teaching a general distrust for an entire race of people.”
And Derbyshire pointed that out in his article:
“As with any population of such a size, there is great variation among blacks in every human trait (except, obviously, the trait of identifying oneself as black). They come fat, thin, tall, short, dumb, smart, introverted, extroverted, honest, crooked, athletic, sedentary, fastidious, sloppy, amiable, and obnoxious. There are black geniuses and black morons. There are black saints and black psychopaths.”
However, eliminating race as one of the criteria for suspicion is foolish. A black man in a suit doesn’t bother me. A 60 year old black man doesn’t bother me. 6 black men around 20 years old...that might well bother me.
A black friend in the military told me two of his brothers would kill me for being white if they got the chance. One had recently gotten out of prison for doing just that.
In southern Arizona, there are places where one can substitute ‘Mexican’ for black, with the same results. Arizona state is withholding funds from Tucson’s school district because they concluded the district was actively teaching racism and racial hatred in the public schools. That is why I carry if I go into west Tucson at night...
Below is an example of black on black violence. The attack was caused by ‘looking’:
“Pearson said the altercation started when a female accused her of “looking at her.” That female went outside but returned with a group of about 15 males and 5 females.”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2869446/posts
He might have been satirical - I haven’t made up my mind yet.
But, let’s take some other statistics and take people (of any race) completely out of it.
There are a few people killed every few years by bears in the US. This has been true for centuries. Reading the Lewis and Clark journals, especially when they got into western Montana and met the Grizzly Bear, make for humorous reading these days.
Now, let’s say you’re a person who enjoys the outdoors.
You meet a bear.
What do you do?
Which informs your policy? The number of times that bears run from humans, or the maulings and deaths you read about? Do you carry arms or pepper spray in preparation for meeting a bear if you hike in bear country?
If the latter, congratulations, you’ve met the test for evolutionary stereotyping. You see a few events with maximal consequences, your brain says “Hmmm. Might want to learn something from that and formulate a pretty drastic response to ward off possibly lethal outcomes...”
Now, where bears are concerned, one might laud the aforementioned stereotyping as coherent and rational self-preservation policy and it isn’t too terribly controversial. Those who differ would claim that carrying arms or pepper spray is an “overreaction” and they might choose to wear bells or make noise, etc. Still, they’re forced to admit that there can be problems when one stumbles into the wrong place at the wrong time with bears. No one gets shouted down over this issue, we agree on the general facts that bears are apex predators and they can (and do) maul and kill humans.
Let’s now switch back to the subject at hand. Only the delusional deny that there are incidents where whites targeted for their race by blacks. Only the delusional will go walking through certain urban black neighborhoods while being white or Asian. I personally got “the talk” from a little old lady who happened to be black when I was in DC. I was walking southeast out of the capitol district, crossed a street (can’t remember which) and she was waiting for the orthogonal light on the other side of my street. Upon arriving on her corner, she buttonholed me immediately and told me “Son, turn around and go back where from you came. Please.” And she explained why, and I suspect in today’s racial huckster environment, she’d be shouted down.
I followed her advice and, when my light came again, I reversed course.
Now, was she offering advice based on statistics or individuals? I rather suspect she was operating off statistics and likelihoods. And that’s simply smart policy, as with bears in the woods. You might not know every bear. You can’t predict every outcome with every bear. But you can look at the stats and say “There is a significant, non-zero likelihood of potential great bodily harm, assault or even death by ignoring the statistics and going into certain places.”
The recent incidents of black wildings would appear to dispute your assertion that “...neither a random white or a random black are likely to kill anybody.” Let’s not worry about being killed, specifically, but broaden the spectrum of crimes to include assault, rape, robbery, etc.
But three examples out of many more:
http://www.ajc.com/news/in-teen-beating-death-735285.html
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2009109978_apusiowacitybeatings.html
And the events in Philly, which I’m sure you’ve heard more about in your news markets.
Another would be the flash mob of black youths robbing a store near the Martin rallies in Florida recently.
The point is, these events are on a rapid upwards trend. People want to ignore the national trend of flash mobs of black youths robbing stores, beating people on streets and in crowded venues, but they’re real, they’re not specific to one urban area and they’re on the increase. They’re attacking at random, in broad daylight. All of this should be uncontested statistical fact, but too many people want to look the other way and pretend it isn’t happening.
Derb appears to have been cataloging these events, if in no other way than having a good memory for news stories, and offering rational advice, based upon what he sees happening and possibly extrapolating beyond the time of his death, which might be near at hand from what I’ve read. He’s a man who no longer need suffer any fools, and he has the ultimate liberty to speak his mind... and I believe he just did so.