The Student Room Group

Black Lives Matter: an incoherent and moronic movement.

News Article: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-police-idUSKCN11R1GS

The Black Lives Matter Movement has gained a lot of popularity in recent years, becoming a protest movement opposed to the disproportional amount of deadly force used by law enforcement officers against unarmed black people. However, over recent months the Black Lives Matter movement has transformed from a small protest group opposed to police brutality into a so-called "liberation movement" designed to tackle all the injustices faced by the black community in the US and worldwide.

However, I don't believe the narrative composed by the movement stands up to stringent argument and interrogation. Below, I have listed some of the common talking points employed by BLM members and provided a list of arguments contradicting their proclamations.

Source: http://blacklivesmatter.com/guiding-principles/

Black people represent 14 percent of the US's population, yet they account for 38 percent of all prisoners inside America's prisons.

According to the latest available data provided by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, black people were responsible for nearly 28 percent of all crime in the US even though they account for less than 15 percent of the entire population. Now, even though 28 percent is still less than 38 percent - when you consider violent crime such as rape, murder and armed robbery - black people account for 38 percent of all violent crime as oppose to whites (and Hispanics) who're responsible for around 60 percent. Even more so, when you look at some of the most serious crimes such as murder, black people account for over 50 percent of America's murders even though their populous doesn't represent more than 15 percent of the country's overall makeup. Black people are more likely to incarcerated by virtue of proportionality because their much more likely to be involved in crime, especially violent - and therefore imprisonable - crimes.

Source: https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2014/crime-in-the-u.s.-2014/tables/table-43
Source: https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_race.jsp

Black people are more likely to be killed by cops than any other group.

According to data composed by the Washington Post, the number of black people killed by law enforcement officers was around 26 percent, whereas the number of white people killed by law enforcement officers accounted for around 50 percent of the total number number of deaths at the hands of police force. In a speech by Heather MacDonald - an esteemed journalist and political commentator - she explains that the majority of said victims "were armed or otherwise threatening the officer with potentially lethal force"; a reiteration that most of the deaths at the hands of law enforcement officers were justified and lawful. Even though black people are - proportionally - more likely to be killed by police than whites and Hispanics, when you begin to consider overall crime as unraveled in my previous paragraph, black people are seemingly underrepresented in the number of police shootings. MacDonald goes on to point out that blacks commit "75 percent of police shootings, 70 percent of all robberies and 66 percent of all violent crime" in New York City alone. Even so, according to the Washington Post, police were "significantly slower to shoot armed black suspects" as oppose to white and Hispanic counterparts, even though MacDonald explains that "Such a concentration of criminal violence in minority communities means that officers will be disproportionately confronting armed and often resisting suspects in those communities, raising officers’ own risk of using lethal force".

Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2016/07/14/why-its-impossible-to-calculate-the-percentage-of-police-shootings-that-are-legitimate/?utm_term=.6aa82d5be4df
Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/true-crime/wp/2016/04/27/this-study-found-race-matters-in-police-shootings-but-the-results-may-surprise-you/
Source: https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Imprimis_April16.pdf
Source: https://www.themarshallproject.org/2016/02/08/black-and-unarmed-behind-the-numbers#.guyCZc4Dj
Source: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-07-08/breakdown-us-citizens-killed-cops-2016

Black people are more likely to die from police officers' force than white and Hispanic persons.

According to the Crime Prevention Research Centre and the Washington Post, a black person's likelihood of dying at the hands of a police officer was calculated at 4 percent, whereas a white or Hispanic person's likelihood of dying at the hands of a police officer was calculated at 12 percent.

Source: http://crimeresearch.org/2014/10/inflammatory-and-misleading-claims-about-black-teens-being-vastly-more-likely-to-be-killed-by-police-than-whites-even-after-adjusting-for-crime-rates/
Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/07/11/arent-more-white-people-than-black-people-killed-by-police-yes-but-no/?utm_term=.2d57bd10083d

Black people are more likely to be killed - and involved in - unarmed shootings from police than any other race group.

In the August of 2015, the number of unarmed black people killed by police in contrast to the number of whites and Hispanics killed by police was at a ratio of 7:1, even though that went down to 6:1 by the end of year. However, this ratio does not account for the number of unarmed and unjustified police shootings - and while the latter can never be acceptable - it can certainly be explained. According to MacDonald, the aforementioned ratio fails to take into account scenarios where police officers are being charged at with a knife; where the suspect is trying to get the officer's gun; or where the assailant is endangering the lives of other people. Even though - in all of those cases - the police report would have recorded the suspect as unarmed, the notion that deadly force in these cases were unjustified is nonsense. Black people are more likely to be caught up in excessive police force because they're more likely to be involved with the justice system, as explained in my earlier paragraphs. Unarmed police shootings are also occur most in some of America's most dangerous communities - meaning it's likely a police officer is more vigilant, cautious and nervous when patrolling said communities where black people are often more represented.

Source: http://www.dailywire.com/news/7264/5-statistics-you-need-know-about-cops-killing-aaron-bandler#

Police are targeting black people because of their race.

According to Roland G. Fryer Jr., an economics professor at the University of Harvard, in a study comprising of more than 1000 police departments in Texas, California and New York, he found that there was no evidence of a racial bias in the manner by which officers fired their guns. The study also concluded that police officers were much more likely to shoot white suspects. More so, he also concluded that an equal number of whites and blacks were carrying guns at the time of their being shot. Incidentally, a cop is three times more likely to be killed by a black person than a black person is to be killed by a cop; and black and Hispanic officers are 3.3 times more likely to use deadly force than white police officers.

Source: http://tribunist.com/news/harvard-study-on-police-shootings-and-race-offers-shocking-conclusion/
Source: http://www.nber.org/papers/w22399.pdf
Source: http://townhall.com/columnists/larryelder/2016/08/18/when-the-suspect-is-an-armed-black-man--and-the-cop-is-black-n2206637

Black people are less likely to go to university than their white and Hispanic counterparts.

According to the Nation's Report Card, black people perform collectively worse than their white, Hispanic and Asian counterparts when it comes to their GPA scores. Although whites and Asians achieve an average GPA of 2.88 and 3.09 respectively, blacks only manage to achieve - on average - a GPA of 2.47. Moreover, according to the ACT, blacks are also more likely to do worse in the their SAT scores as well. According to the data, whites achieved an aggregate average of 1576 as oppose to blacks who only achieved an average of 1277. In both the SAT and the GPA, blacks were the lowest performing group. Nevertheless, data from the AAMC shows that black applicants were much more likely to get a place at medical school with a lower GPA than their white and Asian counterparts.

Source: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/09/03/sat-scores-drop-and-racial-gaps-remain-large
Source: http://www.nationsreportcard.gov/hsts_2009/race_gpa.asp?tab_id=tab2&subtab_id=Tab_1
Source: https://www.aamc.org/data/facts/applicantmatriculant/157998/factstablea24.html

Black people are more likely to suffer from poverty and low-income.

Yes, but this is neither a result of systemic racism nor governmental oppression. According to a report conducted by the Census Bureau, it concluded that one only has to do three things if they want to escape poverty: finish school, work and don't have children before marriage. Given this data, it becomes more explainable why black Americans are more likely to live a life of ensued poverty because many of the aforementioned are scarce in the black community. According to the ACT, 64 percent of black households were single-parent as oppose to 40, 29 and 17 percents for Hispanic, white and Asian households respectively. This is significant because according to a report concluded by Mark Barajas at the Western Michigan University, children who grow up to a single parent are more likely to perform worse academically. More so, according to Prospect, children brought up to a single parent are twice as likely to dropout of highschool (and therefore not graduate), 2.5 times more likely to become teenage mothers (and therefore having children before marriage) and 1.4 times more likely to be idle (and therefore out of work).

Source: http://www.actrochester.org/children-youth/family-support/single-parent-families/single-parent-families-by-race-ethnicity/charts
Source: http://scholarworks.wmich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1044&context=hilltopreview
Source: http://prospect.org/article/consequences-single-motherhood
Source: http://www.cnsnews.com/commentary/terence-p-jeffrey/escape-poverty-graduate-work-get-married-have-kids

The Black Lives Matter movement has become so fixated on proclaiming every disadvantage faced by the black community as systemic racism, they have lost focus on the more cogent and overt inhibitions which do lead to the ensued impoverishment of the black community by appeasing a bandwagon and narrative which doesn't necessarily exist. On the contrary, of course racism does exist - and where it's pertinent, it should be denounced wholeheartedly. However, the unwillingness to discuss obvious barriers impeding the success of blacks in the US will not improve the lives for black people.

Recommended Read: http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/263460/black-lives-matter-movement-built-lies-john-perazzo
(edited 7 years ago)

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Reply 1
Yes, and it will only get worse.
Reply 2
Lol why do you waste your time writing this
Facts/statistics don't work on the regressive left OP, you should know that by now
Original post by WBZ144
Says a guy who defends racism and states that Black people are more violent and less intelligent than White people. OK.


Black people - statistically - are more violent. That doesn't mean black people are inherently more violent, but it does mean the socioeconomic conditions they're exposed to means they're more likely to be involved in crime. According to Metropolitan's crime data and FBI crime data, blacks - in both the US and the UK - are more violent than whites by the virtue of statistics: and that's a fact.

Again, black people in the UK and the US - statistically - are less intelligent than whites. Again, this does not mean that black people are inherently less intelligent, but it does mean the socioeconomic conditions they're exposed to means they're more likely to do worse academically. According to the Department for Education, the percentage of blacks achieving three A levels at AAB including two facilitating subjects is much smaller than that for whites and Asians. The GPA and SAT data I expressed above also confirms the disparity in the US as well.

If you have evidence of me defending "racism" then feel free to provide it. Otherwise, stop trying to milk attention by saying benign one-liners.
Original post by Crijjkal
So why do they commit the majority of violent crime ? For example in London 67% of gun crimes is done by Blacks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_crime_in_the_United_Kingdom


And who waged the most wars worldwide, historically and in the present time period? Certainly not Black people.
Original post by WBZ144
And who waged the most wars worldwide, historically and in the present time period? Certainly not Black people.

Indeed
(edited 7 years ago)
Original post by WBZ144
And who waged the most wars worldwide, historically and in the present time period? Certainly not Black people.


Historically, probably Asians.
Reply 8
Original post by WBZ144
And who waged the most wars worldwide, historically and in the present time period? Certainly not Black people.


That's the elite leaders fault, not the people.
Morons' Lives Matter
Original post by Trinculo
Historically, probably Asians.


Asians would come under Caucasians
Reply 11
Original post by WBZ144
And who waged the most wars worldwide, historically and in the present time period? Certainly not Black people.
Would you include 'cultural' and gang wars in your analysis?

If not, why not?
Original post by Crijjkal
That's the elite leaders fault, not the people.


It's not uncommon for the people to support the wars as well.

Many races come before Blacks in that respect, so to call us violent when we're responsible for far less violence, pain and suffering is ludicrous.

These are the Trump supporters trying to delude themselves that Blacks want to vote for their candidate.
Original post by viffer
Would you include 'cultural' and gang wars in your analysis?

If not, why not?


It still does not compare with regards to the body count and destruction that resulted from these wars.
Original post by jake4198
News Article: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-police-idUSKCN11R1GS

The Black Lives Matter Movement has gained a lot of popularity in recent years, becoming a protest movement opposed to the disproportional amount of deadly force used by law enforcement officers against unarmed black people. However, over recent months the Black Lives Matter movement has transformed from a small protest group opposed to police brutality into a so-called "liberation movement" designed to tackle all the injustices faced by the black community in the US and worldwide.

However, I don't believe the narrative composed by the movement stands up to stringent argument and interrogation. Below, I have listed some of the common talking points employed by BLM members and provided a list of arguments contradicting their proclamations.

Source: http://blacklivesmatter.com/guiding-principles/

Black people represent 14 percent of the US's population, yet they account for 38 percent of all prisoners inside America's prisons.

According to the latest available data provided by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, black people were responsible for nearly 28 percent of all crime in the US even though they account for less than 15 percent of the entire population. Now, even though 28 percent is still less than 38 percent - when you consider violent crime such as rape, murder and armed robbery - black people account for 38 percent of all violent crime as oppose to whites (and Hispanics) who're responsible for around 60 percent. Even more so, when you look at some of the most serious crimes such as murder, black people account for over 50 percent of America's murders even though their populous doesn't represent more than 15 percent of the country's overall makeup. Black people are more likely to incarcerated by virtue of proportionality because their much more likely to be involved in crime, especially violent - and therefore imprisonable - crimes.

Source: https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2014/crime-in-the-u.s.-2014/tables/table-43
Source: https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_race.jsp

Black people are more likely to be killed by cops than any other group.

According to data composed by the Washington Post, the number of black people killed by law enforcement officers was around 26 percent, whereas the number of white people killed by law enforcement officers accounted for around 50 percent of the total number number of deaths at the hands of police force. In a speech by Heather MacDonald - an esteemed journalist and political commentator - she explains that the majority of said victims "were armed or otherwise threatening the officer with potentially lethal force"; a reiteration that most of the deaths at the hands of law enforcement officers were justified and lawful. Even though black people are - proportionally - more likely to be killed by police than whites and Hispanics, when you begin to consider overall crime as unraveled in my previous paragraph, black people are seemingly underrepresented in the number of police shootings. MacDonald goes on to point out that blacks commit "75 percent of police shootings, 70 percent of all robberies and 66 percent of all violent crime" in New York City alone. Even so, according to the Washington Post, police were "significantly slower to shoot armed black suspects" as oppose to white and Hispanic counterparts, even though MacDonald explains that "Such a concentration of criminal violence in minority communities means that officers will be disproportionately confronting armed and often resisting suspects in those communities, raising officers’ own risk of using lethal force".

Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2016/07/14/why-its-impossible-to-calculate-the-percentage-of-police-shootings-that-are-legitimate/?utm_term=.6aa82d5be4df
Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/true-crime/wp/2016/04/27/this-study-found-race-matters-in-police-shootings-but-the-results-may-surprise-you/
Source: https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Imprimis_April16.pdf
Source: https://www.themarshallproject.org/2016/02/08/black-and-unarmed-behind-the-numbers#.guyCZc4Dj
Source: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-07-08/breakdown-us-citizens-killed-cops-2016

Black people are more likely to die from police officers' force than white and Hispanic persons.

According to the Crime Prevention Research Centre and the Washington Post, a black person's likelihood of dying at the hands of a police officer was calculated at 4 percent, whereas a white or Hispanic person's likelihood of dying at the hands of a police officer was calculated at 12 percent.

Source: http://crimeresearch.org/2014/10/inflammatory-and-misleading-claims-about-black-teens-being-vastly-more-likely-to-be-killed-by-police-than-whites-even-after-adjusting-for-crime-rates/
Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/07/11/arent-more-white-people-than-black-people-killed-by-police-yes-but-no/?utm_term=.2d57bd10083d

Black people are more likely to be killed - and involved in - unarmed shootings from police than any other race group.

In the August of 2015, the number of unarmed black people killed by police in contrast to the number of whites and Hispanics killed by police was at a ratio of 7:1, even though that went down to 6:1 by the end of year. However, this ratio does not account for the number of unarmed and unjustified police shootings - and while the latter can never be acceptable - it can certainly be explained. According to MacDonald, the aforementioned ratio fails to take into account scenarios where police officers are being charged at with a knife; where the suspect is trying to get the officer's gun; or where the assailant is endangering the lives of other people. Even though - in all of those cases - the police report would have recorded the suspect as unarmed, the notion that deadly force in these cases were unjustified is nonsense. Black people are more likely to be caught up in excessive police force because they're more likely to be involved with the justice system, as explained in my earlier paragraphs. Unarmed police shootings are also occur most in some of America's most dangerous communities - meaning it's likely a police officer is more vigilant, cautious and nervous when patrolling said communities where black people are often more represented.

Source: http://www.dailywire.com/news/7264/5-statistics-you-need-know-about-cops-killing-aaron-bandler#

Police are targeting black people because of their race.

According to Roland G. Fryer Jr., an economics professor at the University of Harvard, in a study comprising of more than 1000 police departments in Texas, California and New York, he found that there was no evidence of a racial bias in the manner by which officers fired their guns. The study also concluded that police officers were much more likely to shoot white suspects. More so, he also concluded that an equal number of whites and blacks were carrying guns at the time of their being shot. Incidentally, a cop is three times more likely to be killed by a black person than a black person is to be killed by a cop; and black and Hispanic officers are 3.3 times more likely to use deadly force than white police officers.

Source: http://tribunist.com/news/harvard-study-on-police-shootings-and-race-offers-shocking-conclusion/
Source: http://www.nber.org/papers/w22399.pdf
Source: http://townhall.com/columnists/larryelder/2016/08/18/when-the-suspect-is-an-armed-black-man--and-the-cop-is-black-n2206637

Black people are less likely to go to university than their white and Hispanic counterparts.

According to the Nation's Report Card, black people perform collectively worse than their white, Hispanic and Asian counterparts when it comes to their GPA scores. Although whites and Asians achieve an average GPA of 2.88 and 3.09 respectively, blacks only manage to achieve - on average - a GPA of 2.47. Moreover, according to the ACT, blacks are also more likely to do worse in the their SAT scores as well. According to the data, whites achieved an aggregate average of 1576 as oppose to blacks who only achieved an average of 1277. In both the SAT and the GPA, blacks were the lowest performing group. Nevertheless, data from the AAMC shows that black applicants were much more likely to get a place at medical school with a lower GPA than their white and Asian counterparts.

Source: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/09/03/sat-scores-drop-and-racial-gaps-remain-large
Source: http://www.nationsreportcard.gov/hsts_2009/race_gpa.asp?tab_id=tab2&subtab_id=Tab_1
Source: https://www.aamc.org/data/facts/applicantmatriculant/157998/factstablea24.html

Black people are more likely to suffer from poverty and low-income.

Yes, but this is neither a result of systemic racism nor governmental oppression. According to a report conducted by the Census Bureau, it concluded that one only has to do three things if they want to escape poverty: finish school, work and don't have children before marriage. Given this data, it becomes more explainable why black Americans are more likely to live a life of ensued poverty because many of the aforementioned are scarce in the black community. According to the ACT, 64 percent of black households were single-parent as oppose to 40, 29 and 17 percents for Hispanic, white and Asian households respectively. This is significant because according to a report concluded by Mark Barajas at the Western Michigan University, children who grow up to a single parent are more likely to perform worse academically. More so, according to Prospect, children brought up to a single parent are twice as likely to dropout of highschool (and therefore not graduate), 2.5 times more likely to become teenage mothers (and therefore having children before marriage) and 1.4 times more likely to be idle (and therefore out of work).

Source: http://www.actrochester.org/children-youth/family-support/single-parent-families/single-parent-families-by-race-ethnicity/charts
Source: http://scholarworks.wmich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1044&context=hilltopreview
Source: http://prospect.org/article/consequences-single-motherhood
Source: http://www.cnsnews.com/commentary/terence-p-jeffrey/escape-poverty-graduate-work-get-married-have-kids

The Black Lives Matter movement has become so fixated on proclaiming every disadvantage faced by the black community as systemic racism, they have lost focus on the more cogent and overt inhibitions which do lead to the ensued impoverishment of the black community by appeasing a bandwagon and narrative which doesn't necessarily exist. On the contrary, of course racism does exist - and where it's pertinent, it should be denounced wholeheartedly. However, the unwillingness to discuss obvious barriers impeding the success of blacks in the US will not improve the lives for black people.

Recommended Read: http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/263460/black-lives-matter-movement-built-lies-john-perazzo


I am replying to you on the assumption (that I do not even believe myself but I am giving you the benefit of the doubt) that you are just in need of information.

1. It is very un-academic to quote a study that you did not bother to read. The effect of that is that you end up quoting things that can easily be disproved by the same study.
Case in point: the study by Roland Fryer. If you had bothered to read the study, you would have found out that its scope wasn't of much help to its eventual analysis. His study looked ONLY at what happens when the police stops civilians. It does not look at the chances of someone being stopped in the first place. If you cared to read, you would have known that one of the complaints of blacks is that they are prone to being stopped because of their skin color. That was not part of the study which puts into question the effectiveness of the denominator used.
This is supported by other studies that have found that blacks are actually more likely to be stopped by police.

When asked about this, Dr Roland replied
"I agree that blacks are more likely to be stopped, more likely to be harassed and more likely to be arrested. Ideally we would be able to set up an experiment to understand potential differences before an encounter. Unfortunately, that would require us to randomly assign civilian race in encounters of police, which isn’t possible!"

That should tell you about the nature of the study.

Secondly, you would want to know that his study was entirely based on Houston and is not representative of the state of affairs elsewhere.

Thirdly, also note that about two-thirds of the shootings in Mr. Fryer’s data set were nonfatal. His study is in contrast to one by Cody T Ross
“A Multi-Level Bayesian Analysis of Racial Bias in Police Shootings at the County-Level in the United States, 2011–2014,” which found that the chance of of being black, unarmed and shot by the police was about 3.5 times the chance of being white, unarmed and shot by the police. This study included the fatal shootings data. That should tell you something.

It is also important to note that the study actually disclosed that it was funded by an anonymous donor. Coincidence or not? Thats up to you. Further, the study is not peer reviewed which is very suspicious.

Further the study is heavily based on police narrative; the same narrative that black people protest as biased.


I could go on and on with each of your quoted articles and submission but obviously, you are simply copying and pasting without actually getting down into the details so it would be a futile venture.

I rest my case, with no intention of reopening it.
I don't see why people ignore the fact that blacks are statistically more violent and less intelligent. Surely this adds extra fuel to the argument that there is still a lot of inequality, and that there needs to be more done to help out black populations so they get better education and better jobs. Obviously it isn't genetic, that goes without saying.
Original post by loveleest
Lol and who has a massive history of enslaving, killing, torching and raping people for many, many years?


Really made me think, thanks !

Original post by KingBradly
I don't see why people ignore the fact that blacks are statistically more violent and less intelligent.


This is also a good study, if you didn't know it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_Transracial_Adoption_Study
Original post by WBZ144
And Blacks are less likely to wage wars that kill tens or hundreds of thousands.


Don't you think war is a human condition, and that had some Africans had the military capabilities, they wouldn't have just gone ahead and run riot across the world? Isn't it the case that historically, Africans didn't always have the military technology to wage a war that they could win? Certainly, when they have had the means - they've done so. From the Carthaginians to the ongoing wars in Africa - when there are the means to war, it happens. When they are completely at a disadvantage and have no hope of winning - they don't.

Do you think that if the Mongols were completely outclassed by the Chinese or Europeans, they would have ravaged half the world and killed millions? Of course not. They would have been destroyed.

How about if the Third Reich had no tanks or aeroplanes - would they have tried to plunge Europe into a war? No.

The Argentinians invaded the Falklands because they thought they had military advantages over Britain - that Britain couldn't mount a campaign halfway round the globe.

Even Saddam Hussein, with the First Gulf War - *thought* he had at least military parity with the coalition - he did at the time have an enormous standing army.

All I'm saying is that if and when Africans have had military advantages - they've gone around invading and killing just as much as anyone else.
Original post by Trinculo
Don't you think war is a human condition, and that had some Africans had the military capabilities, they wouldn't have just gone ahead and run riot across the world? Isn't it the case that historically, Africans didn't always have the military technology to wage a war that they could win? Certainly, when they have had the means - they've done so. From the Carthaginians to the ongoing wars in Africa - when there are the means to war, it happens. When they are completely at a disadvantage and have no hope of winning - they don't.

Do you think that if the Mongols were completely outclassed by the Chinese or Europeans, they would have ravaged half the world and killed millions? Of course not. They would have been destroyed.

How about if the Third Reich had no tanks or aeroplanes - would they have tried to plunge Europe into a war? No.

The Argentinians invaded the Falklands because they thought they had military advantages over Britain - that Britain couldn't mount a campaign halfway round the globe.

Even Saddam Hussein, with the First Gulf War - *thought* he had at least military parity with the coalition - he did at the time have an enormous standing army.

All I'm saying is that if and when Africans have had military advantages - they've gone around invading and killing just as much as anyone else.


So "what if" applies when I point out that Blacks have waged far less wars, but doesn't when another user makes that points that African Americans have committed more gun crime?
Original post by WBZ144
So "what if" applies when I point out that Blacks have waged far less wars, but doesn't when another user makes that points that African Americans have committed more gun crime?


I don't know what the question is here.

I would say that if you are taking the United States as a model - whites and blacks would have equal access to the means of violence (guns), so it's not a valid comparison.

I'm not saying blacks are more or less warlike than whites. I'm saying that all humans are equally warlike, and blacks have not started as many wars (historically) because they haven't always had the means. When they have had the means, they have done so - they've had empire, slavery, raping and all the rest - just like everyone else.

With "blacks commit more gun crime". I personally don't think this is in any way a direct racial effect. I have no doubt the stat is true - but I don't think it's because a black person is inherently more likely to commit a gun offence. I would say it's because black people in the US tend to be highly concentrated in urban centres, where gun crime is just more likely. Black people are also more likely to be involved in crimes which are relevant to their immediate geography (urban centres). In urban centres you get gangs and property crime and violence. This is essentially what's called environmental criminology.

It's like saying - in the US, white people are far more likely to be involved in livestock crime. This is not because white people love to steal cows. It's because white people live in places where there are cows.

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