Blair blames blacks...is he right?

[tamarin]

http://www.thestar.com/News/article/202661

This could have come from Toronto. Fighting off the PC has become a major battle for the city's police and politicians as they deal with the issue of black crime in the city.
Looks like blacks world-wide are not seen as partners in the development of a civil community. Why is that? And why has the black community so often been given a pass when it comes to the behaviour of its children?

 

[Jsan]

My guess is allot of the black communities consist of a majority of single mom households with fathers who are out of the picture. Young boys need fathers not just for the love and attention that is unique to a father but for the fear that a father instills if you mess up and cross the line. I'm speaking from experience, my dad was a kind, caring man as I grew up but I also knew where the line was and I did not dare cross it. I never would have had the same respect/fear of discipline from my mother even though she was very capable of dishing it out. Allot of these kids are running loose on the streets and need to be reigned in and disciplined. The single mothers can't seem to do it so the police usually end up having to fill this role.

 

[Tonington]

I'm not really sure why they have to say black crime. Try looking at crime statitics in any poor areas, doesn't matter if they're black, white, hispanic, or asian, crime rates are high in areas of high poverty. To say the problem is black crime is just patently ignorant.

 

[karrie]

Tonington, it has to do with the same reason that we remember something bad happened to us more readily if it happened on Friday the 13th. Racial crime stands out as racial crime, while white crime is just crime. We seem to see the two differently for whatever reason. All it takes is a walk through any run down poor trailer park in Northern Canada to realize that race doesn't keep you from being criminal, running off on your kids, drinkinga nd doing drugs excessivley, or anything else people so easily blame blacks as having as a 'subculture'.

 

[tamarin]

Tonington, where have you been? Violent crime committed by blacks is a major concern in Britain, the US and Canada. And even you are giving them a pass. Why are you an apologist for a community so closely associated with criminality in the cities they're most closely associated with? I've followed the growth of black crime in Toronto since the 70's. Today blacks are fingered for a hugely disproportionate part of the violent crime there even though visible minorities in Hogtown were as low as 1% of the population in the 60's.

 

[tamarin]

Karrie, you're missing the issue. Blair's scored a homerun here. Looking at violent crime the percentages are clearly out of whack. It's a story retold and retold. Why will blacks, where their numbers increase, soon dominate violent crime investigations? Don't want any pc here.

 

[karrie]

Karrie, you're missing the issue. Blair's scored a homerun here. Looking at violent crime the percentages are clearly out of whack. It's a story retold and retold. Why will blacks, where their numbers increase, soon dominate violent crime investigations? Don't want any pc here.

Very simply put, because they are generally poorer. Cultural issues, education issues, whatever the reason, they're poorer. And it shows in crime rates and family dynamics. It shows when white folk are poor too. They're more prone to crime, etc.

 

[Tonington]

Tonington, where have you been? Violent crime committed by blacks is a major concern in Britain, the US and Canada. And even you are giving them a pass. Why are you an apologist for a community so closely associated with criminality in the cities they're most closely associated with? I've followed the growth of black crime in Toronto since the 70's. Today blacks are fingered for a hugely disproportionate part of the violent crime there even though visible minorities in Hogtown were as low as 1% of the population in the 60's.

I've been in Canada all along. Care to quote some figures on this disproportionate weight given to the black community?

I'm not an apologist. If I swallowed every tidbit on the telly I might be inclined to agree with you, but I don't. The stats I've seen show nothing of the sort. In areas where they do show an increase it is tied to the increased number of interactions. It's textbook stuff in any criminal justice or criminology class. Increased patrols in segregated communities serves to magnify the 'perceived' crime rate. More people are stopped for suspicion and as a result you end up with further magnification as a result off increased interactions and public pressures.


It's like I said, poor communities have high rates of crime. Stats Canada is a great resource for those who have the time to separate hyperbolic media sensationalism. For example:

Foreign-born people make up 20.2 per cent of the Canadian population but represented only 11.9 per cent of those incarcerated or on conditional release in 1991. Government figures indicate that 18 of every 10,000 Caribbean-born immigrants in Canada wind up in penitentiary. Yet, in an Angus Reid Southam news poll of 1,508 Canadians taken in 1994, 51 per cent supported the view that certain racial or ethnocultural groups are more likely to be involved in crime than others.

These notions end up as I allready said exacerbating the view that minorities and immigrants are to blame. Used to be the Irish, now we're moving onto other groups. Crime is not inherent by race Tamarin. Many have tried to say so, and frankly I think it's pretty bigotted.

 

[tamarin]

Karrie, doubt very much the dynamic works the same way in other communities. Canada's black community in Ontario is overwhelmingly of recent vintage. We don't have the long nurtured slums and marginalized areas that will be found elsewhere. And yet our experience is the same. Toronto cops routinely blame 85% of the violent crime there on the black community. A stunning accusation. We need some explanations about what the hell is going on and what's to be done about it. Looks like Blair wants some answers too. More money isn't an answer.

 

[tamarin]

Tonington, I'd like to see more into those figures. It is against the law to maintain race related stats in Canada and Stats Canada won't have them. Even figures given out in Toronto in the lead dailies are supplied by police officials often talking with anonymity to reporters. Black incarceration levels in the States for black males are very high. Fully 30% of young black males will be institutionalized at some point in their adult life. Looking at the figure given by you for Canada, I know it's bogus. So if it is given by Stats Can it has to come with qualifiers on origin and status.

 

[Tonington]

Tonington, I'd like to see more into those figures. It is against the law to maintain race related stats in Canada and Stats Canada won't have them. Even figures given out in Toronto in the lead dailies are supplied by police officials often talking with anonymity to reporters. Black incarceration levels in the States for black males are very high. Fully 30% of young black males will be institutionalized at some point in their adult life. Looking at the figure given by you for Canada, I know it's bogus. So if it is given by Stats Can it has to come with qualifiers on origin and status.

Sorry, it was in a search I conducted with Stats Can, it's actually from Immigration Canada. The guys name is Derrick Thomas, a senior researcher with Immigration Canada. He's referenced in a number of papers and has presented at Justice conferences.

If you have access to JSTOR journals you can find his figures in this paper:
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0002-7162(199503)538%3C185%3AEAECIP%3E2.0.CO%3B2-E
http://www.web.net/~ccr/myths.htm

You believe that they are a disproportionate segment of the crimes comitted here in Canada. Is it because of the xenophobic crap on TV, or have you seen a publication or canadian figures of any kind that I haven't? I'd like to see it if the latter is indeed the case.

 

[tamarin]

Tonington, I scrapbook. No better way to keep up on areas of interest than this. You get the best of the news runs and the best of the national and international columnists from a group of key Canadian dailies. The black crime problem surfaced in the 80's in Toronto, a city that hadn't had anything of a black community prior to the 70's. Today it's the number one concern of police officials there. The growing problem is supported by a deluge of articles cut out over the years and reached ignition point in the provincial government capital's infamous Year of the Gun (2005). Crimes by ethnic or racial origin aren't collected and so they're not submitted to either Stats Can or Immigration Canada. If any government organization in Canada is pretending to issue such stats it has to be called on it.

 

[Tonington]

Yah they are, try searching for native crime stats. We don't report as heavilly in Canada as the United States does.

There are reports out there. Like the one I linked. It was presented at the Canadian Law and Society Association Conference at Carleton University in 1993.

You wouldn't have an article that ran in the Toronto Star titled Debunking myths of immigrant crime by John Samuel by chance?

There are reports out there Tamarin. This is an area I'd like to see more reporting on. If it is indeed so prevalent in the media, which we all know is a trusted source to look to...

 

[tamarin]

I probably have that article! Certainly even the Star has printed plenty of articles on the issue of black crime. I don't think Samuel has much of a chance. A far better reference point is the Globe, a superior paper and one not afraid to take a position on the issue in Toronto. Many articles and, more importantly, editorials have taken the black community to task for the violent crime problem in the city.
We need the freedom in Canada to collect data on anything deemed important to the general good. Too much nonsense has gone on here for far too long, perpetuated by cowardly governmental organizations who cave to activist pressure.

 

[DurkaDurka]

Tamarin, have you ever collected statistics of rcial based crime where you live?

 

[earth_as_one]

Attributing specific characteristics by the few genes affecting skin color isn't only racist. Its ignorant of recent advances in our knowledge of the human genome according:

...

The entire issue of gene variability is widely misunderstood. "In almost any single African population or tribe, there is more genetic variation than in all the rest of the world put together," Kenneth Kidd told me in an interview in 1999. "Africans have the broadest spectrum of variability, with rarer versions at either end [of the bell curve distribution]. If everyone in the world was wiped out except Africans, almost all human genetic variability would be preserved." ...
http://www.jonentine.com/reviews/straw_man_of_race.htm

There is no black race or there might be hundreds or thousands of black races. Certainly the "black race" is by far the most diverse. That's why generalities based on skin color is out of touch with what we know about the human genome.

..."Depending on whether we classified ourselves by anti-malarial genes, lactase, fingerprints, or skin color," he concluded, "we could place Swedes in the same race as (respectively) either Xhosas, Fulani, the Ainu of Japan, or Italians."...

So which characteristic is more indicative of criminal behavior? Malaria resistance, lactose intolerance, fingerprints or skin color? The question is equally valid for all variations and probably equally unrelated.
Also from this article:

Common Myths:

1. Humans are 99.9 percent the same. Therefore, race is "biologically meaningless."

2. The genetic variation among European, African and Asian populations is minuscule compared to differences between individuals within those populations.

3. Human differences are superficial because populations have not had enough evolutionary time to differentiate.
4. "There are many different, equally valid procedures for defining races, and those different procedures yield very different classifications."

5. Documenting human group differences is outside the domain of modern scientific inquiry.
Not sure I agree with all conclusions...
http://www.jonentine.com/reviews/straw_man_of_race.htm

 

[karrie]

Tamarin, have you ever collected statistics of rcial based crime where you live?

Even if she did, there are these neat little mental blocks, like belief perseverence, and confirmation bias, which would still have her drawing the same conclusions regardless.

 

[tamarin]

Karrie, that's a nutty reply and I'm a he for crying out loud.

Durka, what? The cops aren't allowed to collect such stats. But... The local paper, unlike the Star, will state the race or ethnic origin of suspects. It is a big help in guessing at area trends. The Kawarthas has a very, very small black population but it does have a large native presence. Natives are involved in a lot of property crime but little violent crime. Based on the Examiner's coverage.
We do need stats. We don't need prominent Toronto papers relying upon interviews with police officials to unravel the real story behind crime in that city. It's all about transparency in stats collection and reporting. Time that Canada became more responsible. It is the modern era.

 

[karrie]

Karrie, that's a nutty reply and I'm a he for crying out loud.

What makes it a nutty reply exactly?

And sorry, I was reading you as a woman for some reason. Why would it be 'for crying out loud'? It's not like you have it marked in your profile, or maintain a male avatar, or have chosen a 'male' name, or talk much about anything that would brand you as one gender or the next.

 

[DurkaDurka]

Karrie, that's a nutty reply and I'm a he for crying out loud.

Durka, what? The cops aren't allowed to collect such stats. But... The local paper, unlike the Star, will state the race or ethnic origin of suspects. It is a big help in guessing at area trends. The Kawarthas has a very, very small black population but it does have a large native presence. Natives are involved in a lot of property crime but little violent crime. Based on the Examiner's coverage.
We do need stats. We don't need prominent Toronto papers relying upon interviews with police officials to unravel the real story behind crime in that city. It's all about transparency in stats collection and reporting. Time that Canada became more responsible. It is the modern era.

Tamarin, I gew up in the Kawartha's, I am well versed in what goes on there. Small town justice is printing a log of all the impaired charges in a week.
Small town Ontario is dying, especially the likes of Peterborough, Lindsay etc.