How does one argue against “personal experience”? You must have had a lousy life, if you have personally experienced everything that Derb mentioned statistically.
You mention black incarceration rates. How does that personally effect you? Do you spend a lot of time in prisons, and find it hard to deal with blacks in that environment?
In the environments I exist in, there are people of many races, and as we are all in the same environments, we all have similar backgrounds, similar abilities, interests, and all seem to get along just fine. I don’t walk down the halls of my work worrying about whether there are too many blacks in the next aisle. I don’t get scared if my softball team is playing the AME church, nor am I scared if a group of black people get off the bus for the local walk for life.
I don’t get scared when I visit my son’s school, which has a significant black population. I don’t stay home rather than visiting the local mall, even though there is a significant minority presence. I don’t find the theme parks any less enjoyable when there are minorities there, or dislike my summer vacation because upwardly mobile blacks have decided to buy into the timeshare experience.
I ate dinner in Brunswick on a 4-day bike camping trip on the C&O canal. We road right past several minorities, and I didn’t think twice about it. They came to the pizza place we went to, and I said hi to them and made small talk about their bikes as compared to the loaded-down bike I was riding.
Sure, all of this is just “personal experience”, but that was the playing field you insisted we use.
I’d prefer to note that every day, almost every white person in America is NOT beat up, assaulted, or in any way inconvenienced by a minority.
So when Derb argues that you shouldn’t try to be a good samaritan to a minority, and offers as “proof” a single story where a 3rd-party trying to stop a guy from beating up his girlfriend is attacked (something that clearly would happen no matter what the race of the attacker), that is a harmful use of “statistics”.
“How does one argue against “personal experience”? “
You’re missing the point. Having had graduate level classes in statistics, my point is that the data I have accumulated through my personal experience over a very long period of time constitutes statistically signficant evidence that blacks are more likely to commit violent crimes than are whites. Granted I can’t provide you with a data set to demonstrate that.
“You mention black incarceration rates. How does that personally effect you?”
Of course It doesn’t personally affect me. What it does do is affect the state of my knowledge, knowledge that I would be a fool not to act on in the absence of specific information.
“I’d prefer to note that every day, almost every white person in America is NOT beat up, assaulted, or in any way inconvenienced by a minority.”
Now THAT would be a classic example of a misuse of statistics. Can you identify the name of the fallacy of your statement?
“So when Derb argues that you shouldn’t try to be a good samaritan to a minority, and offers as “proof” a single story where a 3rd-party trying to stop a guy from beating up his girlfriend is attacked (something that clearly would happen no matter what the race of the attacker), that is a harmful use of “statistics”.”
It is fairly common to provide an illustrative example when outlining an argument for which you also provide statistical evidence. Which is exactly what Derbyshire did in this case. Try to be just a little more intellectually honest with your comments.
“How do black incarceration rates personally affect those of us who aren’t black (paraphrasing your question)?”
Someone has to pay for this. Total US prison expenses are over $70B/year and climbing.
Ah, brain fart.
The incarceration rate also costs the US taxpayer in increased aid to single women with children, increased police costs, increased insurance claims, increased costs to criminal victims, decreased real estate valuations, business revenue and growth in blighted neighborhoods, etc.
There’s plenty of costs to the rate of crime.
This is, very unfortunately, looking at the situation from the wrong end.
Look at the issue from the perspective of dealing with dogs.
It is well-known that some breeds are more aggressive than others. When suddenly confronted by a pit bull is it appropriate to perceive yourself as at greater risk than if suddenly confronted by a golden retriever, all else being equal?
Obviously it is. Is the difference in breed the only relevant factor? Obviously not. Behavior is more important.
It is interesting that this analogy has been used in reverse, to claim that it is "breedist" or something equally silly to recognize this difference.
Let us say your chance of being assaulted in a black neighborhood is one in 10,000 on any given day and in a white neighborhood one in 100,000. The relevant issue is the difference in risk, not the risk factor itself.
Your chance of dying in a car crash is very low on any given day. That doesn't mean that driving without a seat belt is a good idea, even though your risk of dying without it is low.
It is interesting that up to and through the 50s, race riots consisted largely of whites attacking blacks. Since then they have consisted largely of blacks attacking whites.
I am personally astonished by the enormous reservoir of goodwill by most white Americans towards black Americans. Have expected (not wanted, but expected) the mythical "white backlash" for decades. But the reservoir is not infinite in extent.