In the U.S. we have a lot of problems that are really socio-economic that are discussed in terms of race. There are historical reasons for this and this is particularly true in the southeastern part of the country. When white people talk about those taking handouts or getting something for free they mostly are talking about poor brown people. This despite the fact that whites - due to being a majority of th population - consume a majority of the welfare. If I talk about poor people in a large city almost everyone will imagine a black person.
There is the perception broadly speaking that white = wealthy and black = poor. Blacks on average are poorer and are more likely to be charged with committing a crime but in terms of numbers most crimes are committed by whites and most poor people are white. In the 90s when Hilary Clinton talked about super predators the images were those of black criminals. When Reagan talked about welfare queens the image given was of a black woman with lots of kids.
I’ve felt that if poor whites in the U.S. stopped thinking of themselves as better than brown people, if they would stop believing the myths and media narratives about race then we’d have universal health care and free higher education. A former President from Texas once said
If you can convince the lowest white man that he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll even empty his pockets for you.
> When white people talk about those taking handouts or getting something for free they mostly are talking about poor brown people.
This is not my experience as a lifelong American with many white friends, family, etc.
> Blacks on average are poorer and are more likely to be charged with committing a crime but in terms of numbers most crimes are committed by whites and most poor people are white.
Of course, whites are a larger part of the population—60ish percent in the USA, but they undercommit crimes. For whatever reason (legacy of historical racism, poor socioeconomic status, etc), black Americans overcommit crimes both according to police data and victim reports.
Many are tempted to deny these facts as “supportive of racism”, but these facts don’t support racism because the variance within a race is huge and the overwhelming majority of any race are decent, productive, law-abiding people.
> I’ve felt that if poor whites in the U.S. stopped thinking of themselves as better than brown people, if they would stop believing the myths and media narratives about race then we’d have universal health care and free higher education.
In America, the media narratives about race are entirely sympathetic toward minorities. I would also appreciate a citation for the implication that poor white Americans are somehow more racist than other Americans (esp other poor Americans).
> In America, the media narratives about race are entirely sympathetic toward minorities. I would also appreciate a citation for the implication that poor white Americans are somehow more racist than other Americans (esp other poor Americans).
That may be starting to shift, but it is not true that American media is more sympathetic towards minorities.
"White Americans overestimate the proportion of
crime committed by people of color, and associate
people of color with criminality."
"Many media outlets reinforce the public’s racial
misconceptions about crime by presenting African
Americans and Latinos differently than whites
– both quantitatively and qualitatively. Television
news programs and newspapers over-represent racial
minorities as crime suspects and whites as crime
victims. Black and Latino suspects are also more likely
than whites to be presented in a non-individualized
and threatening way – unnamed and in police custody."
You can cite anecdotes and the person you responded to cited a study. The puzzling thing is that you choose to focus on the former and not the latter. You have been presented evidence that your perception is not correct. Perhaps study the issue further to see if indeed your perception is incorrect.
And this is the survey data on white perception of crime:
“When you think about people who break into homes and businesses, approximately what percent would you say are Black?”
40.4% Mean Perceived
31.7% Actual
“When you think about people who rob other people at gunpoint, approximately what percent would you say are Black?”
43.4% Mean Perceived
42.0% Actual
“When you think about people who sell illegal drugs, approximately what percent would you say are Black?”
40.2% Mean Perceived
33.6% Actual
“When you think just about juveniles who commit crimes, approximately what percent would you say are Black?”
40.8% Mean Perceived
31.3% Actual
Given that blacks are about 12% of the US population, these numbers show both that blacks commit a disproportionately large percentage of crimes, and that whites slightly over perceive this. It might be more valuable for blacks to focus on ways to lower the actual crime rate than the perceived crime rate.
It might be more valuable for blacks to focus on ways to lower the actual crime rate than the perceived crime rate.
Oh definitely this is needed. Poor city black culture has some very negative aspects to it that this community needs to address. This fact coupled with the environment of political correctness makes it hard to have honest discussions about race.
As an aside, at what point do we stop an interesting discussion due to a limit of studies or data.
If something hasn't been measured, or hasn't been measured since 2016, can we really just give in.
If the question is about media being sympathetic, in recent years, toward the oppression that every black person in the u.s. experiences every day. Does data from the 90s really trump no data at all? Isn't the question about recent times for which nobody might have evidence for ordering either case.
And if there is no study, can a sound and valid argument still be made.
In general I agree with the sentiment of your comments. I’m not one to dismiss a person’s opinion posted on an internet discussion site due to lack of cited studies. No one can provide studies to back up their views in every instance.
In the context we are talking about media perceptions. One person presents a study that provides an opposite conclusion to another person’s view. That study is 4 years old. Things may have changed in the intervening 4 years and arguments that they have are welcome.
> Which study? "Race and Punishment" appears to be a report/pamphlet by a research/advocacy org.
Thats severely mischaracterizing a summary report with many references.
> The anecdote refers to a real event, and real media coverage.
Even if there was a Covington like incident every month, it doesn't prove anything. Isolated incidents should not be used to make judgements or infer reality. Instead, use criminal justice data aggregated from around the country, like the report cites.
> Thats severely mischaracterizing a summary report with many references
Not at all. It's factually true. The burden of proof is to point to one of those references as convincing, otherwise you are just handing someone reference material and asking them to do the work.
weberc2 said that the cited paper/study/opinion piece was puzzling given one recent event. I suggested that weberc2 might want to further study the issue to see if his/her perception is wrong. I did not say that weberc2 is wrong. What I was hinting at is a larger issue facing American society as it pertains to media consumption.
In the present era it is easy for media to focus stories on a given segment of society. People increasingly are in “news” bubbles where their preconceived views are reinforced by the media they consume. I put news in quotes because mostly what we have now are entertainment companies whose business model is largely based on generating rage by framing stories a certain way.
I can see and understand why weberc2 thinks media portrayal is minority friendly. If I had to guess I’d wager that weberc2 leans right politically in the U.S. based on language he/she used. I think weberc2 is referring to politically correct speech and how we have gone a bit far in this regard when talking about race issues. It’s very hard to have an honest discussion about race in the U.S. because of this. I think weberc2’s view on the matter at hand is referring mostly to this or comes from this perspective. I could be wrong. This is all a guess on my part.
When I talked about media portrayal I’m talking about movies, tv shows, images that have been spun to give a certain perspective. Narratives that have been crafted over decades that change what images are evoked when certain phrases are said. For instance, it wasn’t until after white flight from the cities that “inner city” became a phrase.
My suggesting to weberc2 was to look into all this. In what ways have the sources of our information formed our views? Are those views correct? Does the evidence support them?
I do want to continue studying the issue, unfortunately there simply aren't many quality studies on the subject from the last two decades, and most are behind a paywall (never mind the replication crisis in the social sciences and the difficulty of accounting for the progressive bias). :( I could rattle off a list of anecdotes, but I doubt that would change minds and many would imply that I'm a racist for merely taking an interest and I don't care to deal with that this morning.
I'm politically center-left, and I live in one of the most racially diverse zip codes in the country. My "news bubble" is HuffPo, Vox, NYTimes, Guardian, Bloomberg, and WSJ (occassionally CNN). It's unfortunate that I have to defend myself against these implicit ad hominems.
I didn’t make any implicit ad hominems. From my perspective you read what I write and interpret it with an assumption that I’ve got a particular agenda. Here are some pertinent quotes from what I wrote:
I did not say that weberc2 is wrong.
I can see and understand why weberc2 thinks media portrayal is minority friendly.
If I had to guess I’d wager that weberc2 leans right politically in the U.S. based on language he/she used.....I could be wrong. This is all a guess on my part.
And here I switch from you to our. Since the issue does not pertain solely to you but to everyone including me.
In what ways have the sources of our information formed our views?
In what way have I engaged in ad hominem like reasoning. I have not characterized you as anything bad or negative. I did state that I thought you were right of center politically but in what way is this an attack?
It appears that we agree when it comes to talking about race issues. I wrote:
I think weberc2 is referring to politically correct speech and how we have gone a bit far in this regard when talking about race issues. It’s very hard to have an honest discussion about race in the U.S. because of this.
I don’t see how you can say you’ve been attacked or that you’ve had to defend yourself.
This was my mistake. I missed this bit from your post `and how we have gone a bit far in this regard when talking about race issues.` and thought you were saying something like "weberc2 leans right and that is what is wrong with race dialog in our country". My sincere apologies.
To clarify, I don't lean right (although there's nothing wrong with leaning right), and as previously discussed, I didn't make assumptions about your agenda--I only contextualized the statistics you cited.
I think you read what I wrote with some wrong assumptions. For instance you seem to think that my comment on blacks and crimes was a statement that supports a view of the legal system being racist. Nothing I said implies this or can reasonably be construed as suggesting this.
I said that blacks are on average more likely to be charged with committing a crime than whites. You agree with this since you mention that blacks overcommit crime. Obviously my comment suggests that the variance in the black community is higher than it is in the white community. I didn’t attempt to deny any facts as you put it. My agreement with you is right there in writing. I said blacks on average are more likely to be charged with committing a crime.
I don’t know how old you are but growing up in the 1970s and 1980s when crime was very high there was media narrative with regard to crime and race. This spilled over into the 1990s with Clinton’s remarks about super predators and the need for the 100 thousand cops program. The famous welfare queen that Reagan talked about was black and the image was created that blacks were a problem in terms of being a drain on the system.
Here’s a thought experiment. Have two black guys walk around a predominantly upper middle class white neighborhood walk around with hoodies and low jeans. See if the cops stop them. Have two white guys do the same. I’ll bet more times than not the white guys are treated differently.
Poor white Americans are not more racist than richer white Americans. Framing images and using coded language though allows poor white Americans to get a perception that the problem people, the ones who leech off the system are the brown people and not them. Using race gets people to lose focus on what ought to be socio economic discussions by getting them to think of race.
You should read about the Southern Strategy the Republican party engaged in. Here’s a quote from Atwater:
Y'all don't quote me on this. You start out in 1954 by saying, "Nigger, nigger, nigger." By 1968 you can't say "nigger" — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this," is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "Nigger, nigger."
Anecdotally I see the cops talking to white youth in "gangbanger" dress quite often. I'm not sure the lesson is anything other than "if you don't want to be treated like a criminal, don't dress like a stereotypical example."
Thank you for your comment. Why does this attire evoke the image of a stereotypical example of a criminal? Where does this stereotype come from? Is the stereotype correct? Does it have anything to do with originating with black culture? Have you ever met a gangbanger? I havne’t. I too have this perception of this attire being “gangbanger dress”. But this perception does not come from experience. It comes from media.
I personally have not seen white youth in gangbanger attire accosted by cops in white upper class neighborhoods. I have seen blacks accosted in upper white neighborhoods. I’m willing to bet that most interactions between cops and whites in gangbanger attire in white neighborhoods are much less intense than between cops and blacks in said attire in white neighborhoods.
Wasnt assuming anything as your position was unclear; I was just adding important context since your statistics weren’t worth very much without it (e.g., noting that whites commit more crime isn’t meaningful without the context that they are a larger part of the population, and very often it is used to mislead).
Regarding the rest of your post, I can’t relate to your characterization as you seem to have a very different, very negative experience with white people than I have had. Since we can’t do much more than trade anecdotes, I’ll be ducking out now.
I mentioned that whites are a majority of the population. I wrote:
This despite the fact that whites - due to being a majority of th population - consume a majority of the welfare.
I’m just posting my own observations and views. I did quote some very specific examples to support my view but what I wrote wasn’t to be taken as conclusive proof.
There are a vast number of articles and scholarly works published on the issue of race portrayal in American media. You can do a web search to find them if you are interested in the topic.
By the way, I’m upper class white. Have very little experience with inner city black culture but realize that even using the phrase “inner city” is pretty much coded language. When people talk about inner city problems inevitably one thinks of brown people. You and your friends may be exceptions to this but statistics and surveys show otherwise for most people.
There is the perception broadly speaking that white = wealthy and black = poor. Blacks on average are poorer and are more likely to be charged with committing a crime but in terms of numbers most crimes are committed by whites and most poor people are white. In the 90s when Hilary Clinton talked about super predators the images were those of black criminals. When Reagan talked about welfare queens the image given was of a black woman with lots of kids.
I’ve felt that if poor whites in the U.S. stopped thinking of themselves as better than brown people, if they would stop believing the myths and media narratives about race then we’d have universal health care and free higher education. A former President from Texas once said
If you can convince the lowest white man that he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll even empty his pockets for you.