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@Lurks-no-More  
No such thing as race?…  
Okay.
 
That’s all.

Hey guys, what are you talking about in this thre-  

@Cirrus Light  
But the thing is, “race” is an arbitrary category, based on appearances and societal attitudes. “Black” and “white”, in the US context, are particularly arbitrary. For example, back in the day, Irish were not considered “white” properly, and there were ridiculous pseudoscientific theories explaining why they were inherently prone to drunkenness, crime and violence.
 
The stuff you’re espousing is just a modern rewarming of the same thing: it presupposes that there are “races” to begin with, that “black” Americans can be categorized as one race and “white” Americans as another (except when you categorize, say, Jews, into another one to use for comparisons), then goes on to come up with a biological and genetic explanation for things that are much more likely to be caused, or at least seriously influenced, by societal attitudes, multi-generational poverty and such.

@TheDog  
 
…Are you hungry now?
 

The rhyme’s not great and the meter’s way off.

@TheDog  

 
 

@TexasUberAlles  
From first principles it would make sense to assume both genetics and upbringing (as you mentioned with Pavlov) are important factors. The nurture vs. nature debate is something that’s been going on in psychology since a very long time, and I doubt we’re going to be able to end it here.
 
Ethnicities subjected to oppression that didn’t suffer in such a way are a counter-point. However, since you’ve now provided a pretty good point of data to conflict that counterpoint instead of making moral or emotional appeals, I’ll concede that there’s no longer much reason to believe that genetics makes a very big difference, that cultural circumstances make a greater impact.
 
I’m still rather upset that you would try to label me as racist for my thoughts on the origin of statistical data, despite the fact that I’d never actually discriminate against anyone by their race, which is the definition of racism.
 
I’d discriminate races by their race - because if you didn’t, you literally could never talk about races at all, and making any mention of races as a group of people would be “racist” - but I’d never discriminate individuals, because individuals are something more than an average.

@Cirrus Light  
Thus far you’ve offered nothing to back up these openly racist opinions beyond pseudoscientific handwaving and paranoid fantasy, so pretending that correlation implies causation by falsely conflating externally-imposed conditions with internal programming doesn’t really add anything new. Pavlov did not demonstrate that dogs are “genetically predisposed” to prefer the sound of bells, he demonstrated that they are capable of adopting conditioned responses to stimuli in anticipation of a predicted result based on prior experience; it is not by any means a revolutionary or unstudied concept that poverty and lack of opportunity for advancement breed crime, and even the most casual perusal of literally any era of recorded Human History illustrates beyond challenge that the concept is not limited to any particular time or place or ethnicity or race or culture. When any group of people are singled out of a larger population and subjected to knowing and deliberate efforts– both official and unofficial– to deny them access to the rights and privileges and services and opportunities afforded to the larger population, increased crime is always the result; the European Jews you patronizingly hold up as somehow being above all that were not in fact above all that.

You locked the comments? For what? Half a day? lol
 
This is rhetorical. I don’t need to know nothin’. >w<

I don’t like locking comments. I’ve unlocked these again for now on the assumption that you people have the ability to discuss matters in a sane, calm and rational manner instead of the idiotic belligerence you’ve displayed up to now.

@TexasUberAlles  
Repeating your thesis in bold print doesn’t make it more convincing. Backing it up with actual data and reasoning would.
 
Biological organisms have behaviors that are both learned and genetically predisposed.
 
Humans are biological organisms.
 
We single out a group based on a particular genetic trait/family/makeup (humans that originated from certain regions of Africa), and find that this group is more prone to certain behaviors.
 
It’s a natural conclusion, that since biological organisms derive their behaviors from upbringing and genetic predispositions, that both probably have some influence in their behaviors.
 
The centuries of oppression are undoubtably a factor as I said in my last reply (assuming you read them), but that doesn’t rule out genetic predisposition. While the type of oppression that Jews experienced is very different, they do, nonetheless, also have a very long history of oppression, but despite this, do not show a similar behavior, which would indicate that upbringing (ie, culture), while it may still be a factor, is not the only factor, and genetics are a significant one.
 
You’ve illustrated nicely, though, that whites do, in fact, have a predisposition towards genocide. The question is, though: is this any more than other groups of human beings? And I’d argue that the underlying cause is dehumanization and pack mentality, psychological systems present in all human beings and many animals. Are whites even more predisposed to it than other groups? If you can show that they have a more rich history of it, taken into account their population compared to other groups, then I’d have to agree, but so far you’ve only cited white genocides, and not reported other ethnicities’ genocides, and the relative numbers of these compared to their populations.
 

 
Now are you going to actually add anything new or keep repeating the same things with belittling language? I’m just about done here. We’ve plagued this comments section enough.

@Cirrus Light  
You keep using this word “fact”, yet you clearly do not have the first clue what it means.
 
“Black people in America make up a larger percentage of criminal perpetrators than Black people make up of the U.S. population overall” is a fact. “…Because Black people are genetically predisposed to commit more crimes” is a racist opinion, which is also complete and utter bullshit with absolutely zero scientific foundation whatsoever. It is a fantasy. An inherently racist fantasy. It has no more relation to the concept of “fact” than saying White people have a genetic predisposition towards genocide because White Americans tried to exterminate the Native Americans, and White Germans tried to exterminate Jews and Romani and Serbs and Namibians, and White Belgians tried to exterminate the Congolese, and White Russians tried to exterminate the Circassians and Ukrainians and Poles and Crimeans and Chechens and several Siberian tribes, and White Balkan people tried to exterminate every other group of White Balkan people, and White Englishmen tried to exterminate the Irish, and White Australians tried to exterminate the Aboriginal Australians, and White Britishers successfully exterminated the Tasmanians and Beothuks.

@TexasUberAlles  
@Lurks-no-More
 
I get how it can be viewed as racist, but I think that’s kind of stupid. That’s sort of like calling it racist to say black people have more melanin in their skin. It’s a simple biological fact. Is it sexist to say men and women have different bodies, now, too?
 
Base your morals off of reality; don’t bias your views of reality to match some morals disconnected from it.
 
It’s not racist because I’d never use it to pass judgment on an individual, as I’ve said at least three times.

@TexasUberAlles  
The most damning thing is how these genetic arguments always happen to produce exactly the same results as good old-fashioned prejudices and stereotypes. Just like pop evopsych arguments coincidentally always seem to reinforce recent (as in, industrialized West) gender stereotypes and roles…

@Cirrus Light  
You honestly don’t understand why repeatedly insisting that a particular race is genetically predisposed to criminality is racist, do you. You really don’t get that.

@TexasUberAlles  
You’re completely missing my points and ignoring what I’m saying. Yes, I have been saying the genetic thing, because - oh my gosh what a shocker - humans have genes and are influenced by them. Oh, I must be so evil for saying such a thing! Really, do you get offended when the weather isn’t how you want it to be? Reality doesn’t care about your sensibilities, reality is what it is however offensive anyone finds it to be.
 
I’m admitting fact, but not at all proposing any sort of judgment or action based off of it. The Nazis showed how morally atrocious that is. That’s why I’m not racist, because as I wrote repeatedly but you’re ignoring - I don’t believe in passing judgement on individuals for anything other than the merit of their own characters, or discriminating based on race. I’m simply acknowledging reality for what it is.
 
I also keep stressing the genetic component, but you know, you’ve made a fair point with Native Americans, I’ll concede that culture and historical context probably are significant factors - but I still remain unconvinced that that’s all that matters because the Jews still make a strong counter-point to the assertion that genetics aren’t important. Yes, they were subjected to different kinds of oppression, but they were still subjected to oppression, yet they responded very differently. Different kinds of oppression, but oppression, nonetheless.
 
This also hearkens back to the nature vs. nurture debate in psychology. It’s ongoing, but I think the consensus is that both are pretty important, which would reflect what we’re seeing with these various ethnic groups.
 
I don’t like playing the blame game, though, in my mind this is just about trying to get facts, not deciding who’s culpable and who did what to whom. I think slinging mud around like that does the exact opposite of what MLK Jr. wanted.
 

 

 

You are arguing– over and over again– that Black people have “genetic predispositions” toward crime which are not shared by other ethnic groups. That is a thing you are doing, and have been doing the entire time.
 
Native Americans. Why don’t we see a similar trend with them?  
Yeah, about that turns out the same thing is happening, for most of the same reasons.
 
my interpretation of the cause of the data  
And what exactly is your interpretation of the cause, then, if not the “genetic predispositions” that you’ve been hammering at all this time? If I’ve really been misinterpreting the one thing you’ve been saying over and over and over, then by all means, say what you really mean plainly instead of going on bizarre digressions about molecular motion. Feel free to keep bringing European Jews into it, because the way you keep trying to play one race off against another as an example of the intrinsic criminality of one of those races is putting a mighty big lampshade on the motivation behind your pseudoscientific argument, regardless of how often you facetiously claim “colorblindness”.
 
@Background Pony #6D9D  
So you’re saying then that one or two examples of a lunatic fringe can legitimately be assumed to represent every single member of the group they claim to be a part of? By that logic all anti-feminists would be mass murdering cowards who shoot up universities and all White people would be cross-burning lynchmobbers. Sorry– no.

@Cirrus Light  
Oh yeah man, I wasn’t against you or anything, just sharing facts.

@TexasUberAlles  
It’s not  
a strawman

@TexasUberAlles  
Stop using insulting and belittling language. It makes you sound like a jouvenille jerk.
 
The point still stands and you’ve only backed it up by providing the example of Native Americans. Why don’t we see a similar trend with them?
 
And what does that xkcd comic have to do with anything? You didn’t even look at my data, did you? There were no maps at all, and “population distribution” referred to among demographics, not location in physical space.
 
And you’re putting words in my mouth:  

 
When did I ever say that Jim Crow laws, slavery, and all those kinds of terrible oppression were because of their different genetics? I mean, technically, yes, it was because they were black, which is genetic, but never did I or would I morally fault them for it, or call them lesser human beings or any garbage like that. In that sense, no, it’s not their own fault at all.
 
You’re completely ignoring everything I say about how I believe in colorblindness in law and on forms and applications, etc, equal opportunities - you’re just ignoring all of that and calling me racist for acknowledging the data that you haven’t even attempted to disprove - or better yet, calling me racist for my interpretation of the cause of the data. Racism isn’t acknowledging facts. Racism is discriminating based on ethnicity. I don’t do that. To quote MLK; I believe a man should be judged by the quality of their character, not the color of their skin. That’s all there is to it. The fact that trends happen to follow color is a factual reality, but completely unrelated and does nothing to change that moral fact that people should be judged for their own actions, not the situation they were born into.
 
Humans have done some terrible things. Humans as a whole have literally committed every atrocity in history. But I don’t look down on every human personally for it, condemn every human I meet for it, or even pass judgement on humans for it. The fact that humans as a whole have done terrible things does nothing to change the fact that humans cannot and should not be judged for what the human race as a whole has done, and punishing humans as a whole for what other humans have done would be a gross injustice. Same things apply to demographics of humans. People should be tried individually for individual things they’ve done, not as a whole group - that’s where things like racism and genocide come in and they’re terrible because they group innocents with criminals and punish both.
 

 
As for some of the other points - @Background Pony #6D9D that’s interesting about the rape statistic, thanks for informing. But the real point I was trying to get at is what I wrote about humans as a whole in the above paragraph - another good example would be Islamic extremists. ISIS is terrible, but you can’t hold all Muslims responsible for what ISIS does - that’s wrong for the same reasons racism or holding the entire human race responsible for what the human race has done are wrong.
 
You judge based off of an individuals’ actions - you don’t hold someone guilty for something someone else did just because they both share some trait. That’s why I wouldn’t consider myself racist. I don’t think anyone who lives by MLK’s quotes can be easily considered racist.

@Cirrus Light  
Europe, as you’ve apparently failed to understand, is not America; hence, “seriously, read a History book sometime, there isn’t a =/= sign big enough to cover how ridiculous a false analogy you’re trying to make here”. American Blacks never faced a decade of deliberate attempted genocide– you’d need to go to Native Americans for that kind of false analogy to have any point of reference whatsoever, and that lasted for centuries– but European Jews were never subjected to centuries of racial slavery that couldn’t exactly be walked away from, given that it’s just slightly more difficult for a Black man to pass as a White man than for a Jewish man to pass as a Gentile. Again, try actually learning even the tiniest little modicum of European and American History before attempting to sound like you know what you’re talking about; quite a few books have been written about the way European antisemitism actively forced ethnic Jews into the financial sector at a time when society overwhelmingly viewed bankers/pawnbrokers/financiers/et cetera as among the lowest classes of officially approved business. Unlike in Europe, Jewish “ghettos” in America were largely voluntary ethnic enclaves based on family support networks– or, y’know, organized crime within close-knit communities formed for their own protection; for Black Americans, not so much.
 
Europe is not America, and the racial oppression suffered by Jewish Europeans is fundamentally not the same as the racial oppression suffered by Black Americans.
 
[a sad little attempt at lies, damn lies, and statistics]  
I’ll let XKCD field this one.
 

 
Your ongoing totally not at all racist crusade to pretend that Black people are genetically at fault for their own oppression isn’t even in the same neighborhood as “science”; it’s in one of thosse neighborhoods with a red line around it. Shockingly enough, when people of certain complexion are forced into poor neighborhoods where they are systematically denied equal access to public services and educational opportunities, it tends to lead to clustered high crime rates.
 
@Background Pony #6D9D  
oh nooooo think of the childreeennnnn  

@TexasUberAlles  
It kind of is a slam dunk when sjws perpetuate the idea that all men are rapists and need to be considered guilty at the mere accusation of sexual assault.

@TexasUberAlles  
You want figures? Crime rates vs. Population distribution. Some more figures.
 
Once again, if hundreds of years of oppression cause this, then we’d expect Jews to hold similar positions in Europe. But they don’t. At least in the U.S, they’re some of the wealthiest.
 
I mean, yeah, earlier you dismissed that, but I’m not sure exactly what you were getting at. Are you saying that blacks in the U.S. were treated worse than Jews in Russia or Germany? One group faced two different holocausts that I can think of just off the top of my head, the other didn’t…