Race Stats Confine Black Youths
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Rosie DiManno, Toronto Star, November 17, 2008
Statistics are troubling. They carry a weight of certainty that is not always deserved.
Crime statistics are particularly misleading. The numbers, and what they purportedly reveal, are only as good as the data fed into a computer. Often that data is incomplete or deceptive. A single incident between suspect and police, for example, can result in a slew of charges—catch-all overcharging is routine—many of which are subsequently dropped because there was no reasonable substance to them and zero likelihood of conviction. But the record will still show X number of charges levelled, skewing annual totals in that particular column.
Finessing statistics is a skill, especially when the purpose is exploitation of numbers by special interest groups. And such groups will pounce on indices that suit their agenda or appear to legitimize their biases, their bigotry, under cover of broad societal concerns.
Value-neutral statistics are a rarity. But “hard” data feels objective and authentic, resistant to challenges. Immeasurable harm can be caused by collecting—and interpreting—statistics for the purpose of devising public policy, even when the intentions are benevolent.
Race-based statistics cannot possibly be reliably benign or helpfully instructive. While the purpose of gathering such information may be educational or altruistic, the objective is a correction of adverse trends in certain identifiable groups; the unintended consequences will also be predictably poisonous.
Collecting race-based data “in all key domains”—a worrisome phrase, which sounds deliberately bereft of clarity—is one of the recommendations contained in the youth violence report released Friday, co-authored by Roy McMurtry and Alvin Curling. It was commissioned after the 2007 shooting death of student Jordan Manners at C.W. Jefferys Collegiate Institute—where, by disheartening coincidence, another teenage student was stabbed in the stomach just last week.
Though some civic leaders who enthusiastically supported the report’s other recommendations were noticeably cool to this controversial component, it did appear to draw qualified approval from Premier Dalton McGuinty, if properly applied in countering the root causes of youth violence.
“I just think that none of us any longer enjoy the luxury of bringing an ideological approach to dealing with race-based data,” he told reporters.
In a fair world, maybe. But it’s not a fair world for black youths disproportionately vulnerable to family breakdown, intolerably high dropout rates, spirit-crushing low expectations and increasingly overt hostility from the wider community, where the shortcomings of some are projected onto the whole. This is racial profiling run amok, emboldening those who just never liked or trusted black people very much.
Already, this faction believes its suspicions have been borne out by violent crime escalating in the city of Toronto. They ridicule “soft” sentences and a revolving door youth justice system—criticism that might be justified, but skin colour is not the determinative common denominator.
They’re not bad because they’re black. They’re at-risk and susceptible to the lure of criminality—the minority who go that route—because so many start out with overwhelming disadvantages that rarely ease up, many raised in neighbourhoods where violence is the default resolution to conflict, and convinced early that their choices are severely limited. These are realities that have been studied to death.
I see no value in further stigmatizing troubled youth by distinction of race: blacks suspended, expelled, failing, disciplined, in conflict with school authorities or the law. Whatever the underlying reasons, the cumulative effect will be to render skin colour a disability, a pejorative typecasting, invested with perceived validity by statistical documentation.
The whole concept is patronizing and humiliating, ripe for resentment. And, whatever warning symbols are slapped on the data—Do Not Exploit—that is precisely what will occur in a segment of the population that needs no more boosting for jaundiced views.
Kill the proposal, STAT.
(Posted on November 17, 2008)
Comments
I agree that there are lies, damned lies and statistics. And I agree with the writer of this article that they’re often used for political manipulation. But most of the time, that manipulation is from the left wing.
They will manipulate statistics downward when they want people to think that their programs or working, or big city mayors are running for re-election, or to argue against a right-wing crime solution. They will manipulate statistics upward when they are lobbying for a “crime solving” left wing program, when big city mayors want Federal money, or to pretend that right-wing politicians and solutions are derelict.
Another way to manipulate statistics is through the broad classifications of crime types. At which time, the libs will go nuts over proportions. They’ll publish some study which complains, that, e.g. “black youths are so-and-so times more likely white youths to receive jail time for drug crimes.” What they conveniently don’t explain to you that there are different kinds of drug crimes that represent varying levels of seriousness. Selling crack cocaine is a drug crime, while possessing a little bit of weed is also a drug crime. It’s just that blacks tend to the more serious spectrum of “drug crimes.” Also, whether or not you’re sent to prison depends on certain factors: Did your conviction come from a plea or a jury conviction? Pleas are usually the results of deals, which are bargained down in terms of prison time. If you waste the system’s time and a jury finds you guilty, you’re going to get a longer sentence. Where is the jurisdiction of the crime? Lib/black cities tend to have lenient judges/juries, while Krauts and white Southerners tend to be “hangin’ judges” and “hangin’ juries,” esp. if the defendant is white.
Posted by Question Diversity at 6:39 PM on November 17
“Race-based statistics cannot possibly be reliably benign or helpfully instructive.”
Ok, then, let’s stop collecting race-based statistics on such things as college admissions, and let people be admitted to college based solely upon their qualifications and merit, without fear of not meeting some artificial quotas concerning the racial composition of the student body.
Oh, what’s that Ms. DiManno? You’ve changed your position? I thought you would…
Posted by Kevin at 6:47 PM on November 17
It’s time we stopped argueing with people like this and focussed on getting rid of them. Seriously, no matter how hard the evidence they simply will not admit it. And quite frankly, their goal is not objective problem solving of our society’s ills. Their goal is to cause those problems.
Under those circumstances, attempting to state one’s position and argument for purposes of working together to find solutions, is fundamentally inapporpriate. This person is an enemy….a “race traitor” if you will and means nothing but harm.
At best, they should be expelled from our society. But they probably deserve a much more grim fate. Because, understand this….they KNOW. They are doing what they are doing on purpose. Even more than the racists and racial realists, they KNOW the truth…..and they mean tremendous harm with their lies and manipulations.
We will never solve the problem until we stop tolerating this.
Posted by at 6:51 PM on November 17
“In a fair world, maybe. But it’s not a fair world for black youths disproportionately vulnerable to family breakdown, intolerably high dropout rates, spirit-crushing low expectations and increasingly overt hostility from the wider community, where the shortcomings of some are projected onto the whole. This is racial profiling run amok, emboldening those who just never liked or trusted black people very much.”
Even discounting for the fact that my brain may be addled, this entire article is simply gobble-de-gook, written by a disassociated dreamer who has absolutely no concept of the real world.
Perhaps this social apologist or conniver should be asking the question just why is it that “Blacks” are prone to family breakdown, intolerably high dropout rates, spirit-crushing low expectations, and increasingly overt hostility from the greater community. Could it be because for too long the problem has been ignored and justified and not dealt with for one reason or another, a course the writer apparently believes should be continued?
Possibly the writer is too young to know that not long ago the whole world admired Toronto for its orderliness, low crime rate, cleanliness and the civilized norms expressed by its people.
The writer should trouble herself to tune into any of the US city police broadcasts streamed over the internet. She would learn, (or at least we hope she could learn), that wherever they are, and no matter what advantage they might have, the “Black” criminal suspect rate far exceeds their representation among the population.
And as far as the “unfairness” of extrapolating the behavior of the few onto the whole, the writer should do a little research into the numerous past “burn downs” of US cities. She would learn that not only do the vast majority of “Blacks” support and join in when such assaults against civilization are sparked, but it is often the “Black” Mammys who egg-on their little darlings to riot and loot.
Ronald
Posted by at 6:51 PM on November 17
According to these liberal morons, one should not rely on data and facts when making public policy, but instead to base public policy on how we “wish” or “prefer” reality to be. We so desperately wish that races did not differ in intelligence, social responsibility, or crime. Therefore, we will ignore facts, suggesting the opposite.
But, basing actions on un-truths can lead to bad decisions with real consequences. Some recent examples are Invasion of Iraq, sub-prime lending, immigration and globalization (will improve our economy and standard of living). We continue to reap the consequences of implementing these varied policies against common sense and against the available facts.
Posted by at 6:57 PM on November 17
What a total load of manure!! That is a staggeringly obtuse article even for the MSM!
Still, I’ll bet Rosie Dimanno is quite content with any number of statistics that SUPPORT her worldview!
Posted by HH at 7:05 PM on November 17
Just a short preamble. Unlike many U.S. cities suffering from the same malady of race and crime, the start of Toronto’s black crime problem can be precisely pin-pointed when hordes of Caribbean nannies, housekeepers and other low-wage female workers were imported in the 1970s. Many of these single mothers simply left their off-spring with family members or boyfriends until they earned enough money in Canada to send for the whole lot. Now we are faced with the results of that foolish program as seen in our increased welfare roles, school drop-outs, daily shootings, etc. etc.
“But it’s not a fair world for black youths disproportionately vulnerable to family breakdown, intolerably high dropout rates, spirit-crushing low expectations and increasingly overt hostility from the wider community, where the shortcomings of some are projected onto the whole. This is racial profiling run amok, emboldening those who just never liked or trusted black people very much.”
That is quite a statement and it holds some grains of truth, but aren’t those reasons enough to be compiling race-based statistics to draw some conclusions to ward off these “evil intentions”?
Weed-killing pesticides won’t work in this case, but measures curtailing further growth development can be readily implemented simply by restricting immigration from the source countries whose “contributions” appear to be an anathema to our White society.
But first, we need the statisticians to crunch the numbers! So, let’s NOT “kill the proposal”.
Posted by at 7:11 PM on November 17
“I see no value in further stigmatizing troubled youth by distinction of race: blacks suspended, expelled, failing, disciplined, in conflict with school authorities or the law. Whatever the underlying reasons, the cumulative effect will be to render skin colour a disability, a pejorative typecasting, invested with perceived validity by statistical documentation.”
I see the value. I have the information I need to make a multitude of rational choices in my life: where I live, where I send my kids to school, who I associate with, who’s causing the crime in my community etc…
There is a great deal of value in knowing the facts of daily life.
Posted by sbuffalonative at 7:22 PM on November 17
Typical left-wing lunacy from the Toronto Star, the most socialist rag I’ve ever read. Would you believe that when I lived in Toronto, I heard a black guy referring to the Toronto Star as the most conservative newspaper out there? It really made me wonder about the mentality of blacks.
Liberals are flustered over the situation in Toronto, because despite all that is done to provide blacks with equal opportunities et al (i.e., reverse discrimination), they still continue to commit crimes, particularly gun crimes, out of all proportion to their percentage of the general population. Nobody questions why other non-white immigrants, such as Koreans, don’t also suffer as much from ‘white racism’ and commit gun crimes at the same rate as blacks. Race statistics might prove that you can’t deny reality and that blacks will continue to commit crimes no matter how much they are pandered to. That’s called race realism, and liberals are terrified to admit it just may be true.
Posted by Matt at 7:48 PM on November 17
“They’re not bad because they’re black. They’re at-risk and susceptible to the lure of criminality—the minority who go that route—because so many start out with overwhelming disadvantages that rarely ease up, many raised in neighbourhoods where violence is the default resolution to conflict, and convinced early that their choices are severely limited.”
Whose fault is that???? Let’s see, the breakdown of the Black family, how is this White people’s fault??? Dropping out of school, again how is this White people’s fault???? Bad neighborhoods with crime, how is this White people’s fault??? Choosing to commit crime, how is this White people’s fault???? Face it, Blacks make their own disadvantages. If things are ever going to change, Blacks need to admit this. The Black family needs to heal itself and dicipline it’s children and teach them values. Black males especially need to be strong fathers. Blacks need to keep their neighborhoods clean and safe. As long as Whites are blamed for Black bad behavior, nothing will change.
Posted by at 7:56 PM on November 17
“…where the shortcomings of some are projected onto the whole.”
This is typical marxist double-think. No, it’s actually the shortcomings of the majority of Blacks that are unfortunately projected also on to the rare few who don’t live up to the norms of Black criminality and failure.
Yes, there are plenty of gifted, successful hard working Black people, but to suggest that they are the rule rather than the exception does a disservice to those exceptional individuals.
This minority of successful, self-sufficient Blacks are actually angry about how they are being judged by the obvious short-comings of the majority, not minority, of other Blacks. If only they’d speak out more against their own people, like Bill Cosby has in the wake of Katrina, would the situation begin to even have a chance of changing.
Posted by at 8:32 PM on November 17
It’s funny but wherever Blacks are in large numbers, it’s the same old thing-crime, dysfunctional families and behavior, chaos and poverty. Any place Blacks in larger numbers move into becomes a crime ridden hellhole. Now here in the USA, it’s blamed on a “past legacy of slavery or Jim Crow”. Blacks in Canada or the UK are not the decendents of slaves yet they behave the same way as Blacks in the USA do.
Posted by at 9:18 PM on November 17
Why is it that Blacks and only Blacks can’t succeed. Why are the Jews, who have been persecuted for centuries, able to be great successes? Why do White women, who up until the 70’s, were severely discriminated against, able to become successes. I mean if past discrimination caused crime as they claim it does with Blacks, then White women should cause 90% of the violent crime today yet when talking about crime among Whites, White women account for 10% of the violent crime and White males the other 90%. Why is it that Asian “boat people” can come over here with nothing and do better then Whites??? Why is it that Blacks and only Blacks can never get their act together. Why is that???
Posted by at 9:29 PM on November 17
I know this is not an origional idea, but here goes:
Blacks are vicitms of societal woes….
Societal woes place blacks at a disadvantage….
Disadvantaged blacks are more susceptable to crime….
Crime stats enforce racist opinion of blacks…..
Racist opinion inflicts societal woes on blacks….
and it never stops.
Shaun
Posted by Shaun at 9:31 PM on November 17
To summarize this man’s view:
Blacks are victims of the environment that they themselves create.
Posted by Reader-1 at 10:45 PM on November 17
Hope she and her familiy move into a predominantly black community to demonstrate faith in her convicitions. May she do plenty of neighborhood walking.
Posted by Walt at 11:04 PM on November 17
“Yes, there are plenty of gifted, successful hard working Black people, but to suggest that they are the rule rather than the exception does a disservice to those exceptional individuals.”
Successful Black people flee their fellow Blacks. I live in a mostly White suburb of Dallas. A middle class Black woman moved in nearby and I asked her what made her choose this neighborhood. She replied there were too many Blacks in her old neighborhood. I said well you’re Black. She replied that’s true but that doesn’t mean I want to live around them. I was taken aback to say the least that she said this.
Posted by at 11:27 PM on November 17
He writes: “But it’s not a fair world for black youths disproportionately vulnerable to family breakdown, intolerably high dropout rates, spirit-crushing low expectations and increasingly overt hostility from the wider community”
…and yet he doesn’t trust statistics on race. Then how, pray tell, does he know the above?
Most of us here at Amren know what we know about race from vast personal experience. Statistics are just icing on the cake.
Posted by jewamongyou at 12:38 AM on November 18
as a recovered race denier, I can say that most right thinking people will believe ANYTHING no matter how tenuous, rather than believe that race is a biological reality, and that blacks on average suffer fom cognitive deficits in relation to other races, and that the problem will not go away when we become more tolerant.
Thats the core issue, and nothing will change until race deniers are willing to face facts.
It would help a lot if AMREN types would clean up their act and stop spewing hostile gibberish themselves:
there is nothing intriniscally wrong with blacks, most are law abiding and hard working and tax paying citizens, and the fact that they are not brainy as a rule is not a problem unless we make it one.
Jews are smarter on average than gentiles, but this isn’t a cause of soul searching.
Blacks are human beings, they have rights, and if they are generally less brilliant, then this doesn’t change the fact that many blacks are smarter and more talented than many whites.
Denial is not helpful, neither is demonization.
Posted by elitist at 4:50 AM on November 18
The left are really keen on statistics when they supposedly show minorities are being discriminated against but they go really shy on statistics that expose their deluded thinking.
Posted by watfordman at 5:08 AM on November 18
And yet liberals like this writer will have absolutely no trouble with a different set of statistics—those that show blacks as being poorer, shorter lived, more poorly educated, etc.—that can be spun as “proving” that blacks are the victims of “racism” or “white privilege” or anything else that can be laid at the feet of whites. Such “approved” statistics can be used to “prove” that blacks are in need of affirmative action, race-based preferences, and other “uplift programs” (and incidentally make blacks feel put upon and resentful and disenfranchised). Yet surely these favored statistics can be just as easily misused as the ones on crime rates? The difference is that some statistics can be much more easily twisted to put the blame on white society and keep liberal politicians and writers like this in their cushy jobs.
Posted by Tim in Indiana at 11:42 AM on November 18
Upon reading the commentary section in the Toronto Star (“original” above), the views expressed there do appear to be leaning in favor of the leftist writer’s assertions. Bear in mind, that we Canadians are more thoroughly indoctrinated with P.C. than Americans, so, perhaps some U.S. Amreners could offer their opinions in the Toronto Star’s commentary to balance out the discussion before they close the comments section.
Posted by I AM Canadian at 12:37 PM on November 18
Blacks have been nothing but trouble since they started arriving in Canada in the late 1960’s. We were better off in every possible way without them. So was Britain.
Posted by at 7:10 PM on November 18
Some background for non-Canadian readers:
The odious Rosie di Manno has been spewing this nonsense for decades — and been getting big bucks for doing it. She is one of the Big Name scribblers at the biggest-circulation paper in Canada, the Toronto Star. The Toronto Star freely admits in its mission statement that it practices Advocacy Journalism, i.e. sees itself as more as a force for social crusading than for simply reporting the news. They’re biased, they admit it, everbody knows it. And their bias, not surprisingly, is left. Way way left. Somewhere to the left of the SF Chronicle.
Toronto, the biggest city in Canada, has 2.5M, of whom some 200,000 (approx 8%) are black. Virtually 100% of those blacks come from the Caribbean. Virtually 100% came within the past 35 years.
Given these facts, a well-paid liberal like Rosie di Manno could certainly afford to live in an all-white or almost-all-white neighborhood. So those commenters hoping Rosie will get some sidewalk-level comeuppance to smarten her up, well, sadly, this will probably never happen.
And this is precisely how deluded liberals like Rosie di Manno REMAIN deluded liberals in spite of their complete wrongheadedness: by having NO ACTUAL CONTACT with the wonderful minorities whom they champion.
I wouldn’t mind idiots like her so much if they didn’t keep inflicting these minorities on those of us who, unlike Rosie di Mannos of the world, CAN’T afford to move away from all high-crime non-whites the Rosie di Mannos of the world keep importing to our historically white countries like Canada, the US, and the UK.
Posted by at 8:50 PM on November 18
For the benefit of non-Canadians who may not be aware of this; the TORONTO STAR is an extreme left-wing, ultra-liberal newspaper. It goes out of its way to pander to ethnics. Always has.
Posted by at 9:58 PM on November 18
“there is nothing intriniscally wrong with blacks, most are law abiding and hard working and tax paying citizens, and the fact that they are not brainy as a rule is not a problem unless we make it one”
Yes, the majority may work and pay taxes but there is such a large number of them that cause serious problems. There is a high level of crime and dysfunction among them, that when they are around in large numbers, they destroy any school, neighborhood or anything else. These are the facts and it is a big problem for society. How much lower would crime be and how much less tax money would we spend if there were no Blacks??? Especially when society keeps trying to blame their bad behavior on Whites.
Posted by at 9:29 AM on November 19
I am Canadian wrote:
“Upon reading the commentary section in the Toronto Star…, the views expressed there do appear to be leaning in favor of the leftist writer’s assertions…perhaps some U.S. Amreners could offer their opinions in the Toronto Star’s commentary to balance out the discussion before they close the comments section.”
Surely, dear Canadian, you don’t believe that those editorials are a fair representation of readers’ opinions simply because those are the ones that are published. Leftist newspapers (ie. almost all newspapers) heavily filter their editorials so that very few conservative/racialist views get published. If they published two letters that disagree with the author, rest assured that they received scores of such letters that they wouldn’t publish. It’s standard leftist practice (SLP).
Posted by jewamongyou at 9:54 PM on November 19
“emboldening those who just never liked or trusted black people very much.”
===============
Why should I like or trust them when they have proved over and over again to be unlikeable and untrustworthy? I’ve been attacked 6 times by blacks (never by any other race), one time stabbed and almost killed in 1991. Blacks raped 3 of my female friends. Blacks killed two other friends. Blacks robbed several other friends. So why on Earth, if I have any common sense and the ability to learn from experience, should I like or trust blacks? I’d have to be a willfully blind/naive idiot.
Posted by Reality at 12:58 PM on November 20