Quote Originally Posted by Lukie
And also, it bothers me that the subject can't be civilly talked about because people are too afraid of not coming off as being politically correct.
We won't have that problem. As long as we're grownups this can be discussed in a down to earth fashion

As for the pie chart

More information is needed. Notice how the chart says 'perceived race of offender'. This suggests to me that it's not based on hard facts exclusively, but includes anecdote. This can skew results quite a bit

It's important to remember that this data is not in anyway claiming WHY any of this is happening, just THAT it's happening. Once we realize that we can then look for evidence to explain why, and I'm confident that the evidence doesn't show that it's for genetic reasons. Keep in mind that if somebody thinks the chart represents data based on the genes of people, that they're claiming that blacks are inherently more criminal or hateful or whatever than whites. And frankly, it's wrong because there actually is no evidence for it. Seriously, find evidence that shows blacks are more criminal than whites due to genetic reasons.

People make the mistake of thinking that data that claims something happens is also claiming why that something happens, and that's simply not the case. This is super common, and one reason why it's easy for somebody to point to higher crime among blacks as evidence that blacks are inherently more criminal than other races, but in reality their conclusion is nothing but an assumption and a facepalm

Now, on to what the evidence does claim

Consider this: 98% of people who shoplift DVDs from Best Buy are not multi-millionaires. Think about this. While I pulled this statistic out of my ass, it's probably actually true. In fact, it's probably closer to 99.9%. Now, why would that be? Well, it's obvious; multi-millionaires have literally zero incentive to shoplift DVDs from Best Buy. What this would then show is that shoplifting from Best Buy was purely an economic thing.

Now, apply this logic to ethnicity and economic status. We find that blacks are poorer than whites, and so we would actually predict that there should be greater black on white thievery. The only thing I'm trying to illustrate is motivation. When you're somebody who was born and raised poor, never got a good education, maybe you're undernourished; you're substantially more likely to be a criminal because that's a much bigger option on your plate than on wealthy and well educated peoples' plates.

Think of The Wire. If you haven't seen it, you should make it the next thing you watch because it is more awesome than awesome. Anyways, it's about slums in Baltimore, and half the characters are kids who grow up ridiculously poor and uneducated and in a culture that favors crime, and lo and behold, most of them become criminals when they grow up.

Having said all that, this chart looks like it's about anecdote, and thus it isn't data on actual crime, but on accusations of crime. That's an entirely different thing. It could be a bunch of white people saying they saw a black guy running away with their stereo. While sometimes that's true, anecdote gives no indication about how true.