Comments on: Unpossible

By: Guav

Guav — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:03:31 +0000

In reply to Ray, whose comment appears to have been eaten by Uncle's server meltdown last night, which said that the homicide rates correlated just as strongly with economics as with race, but that we mention race and not economics because it's "not as fun," I say this: I used to think that Ray, but I come to think that less and less�although poverty undoubtedly has an effect, I don't think it's as strong a factor as culture, which is what I believe drives the disproportionate homicide rates we see with young black men (not their race). You don't see such disparate crimes rates among other similarly poor demographics. In Chinatown you have dozens of poor immigrants crammed into tiny illegally subdivided tenements, yet for some reason the Chinese are not randomly shooting each other in the streets. Because that is not popular in their culture. Blacks and Hispanics are each about 27% of the city's population, have similar rates of poverty and similar unemployment rates, but not similar homicide rates: Hispanics are 27% of homicide victims and 29% of homicide perpetrators�even with their proportion of the population�but blacks are 61% of homicide perpetrators and victims. 92% of homicides in NYC are perpetrated by males. 68% of them are between the ages of 18-34. If it was simply poverty-driven, why aren't women doing it? Or older people? These aren't crimes of desperation we're talking about�we're not talking about robbing people to put food on the table, we're talking about wildly shooting into a crowd of people over something totally unimportant and inconsequential. It's stupid street bullshit, glorified and perpetuated by hip hop thug culture. Nobody here is saying that race is the cause of the homicide rates. But the homicide rate among young black men is completely disproportionate from their percent of the population, and simply blaming it on economics isn't telling the whole story. Brutal Hugger - Jason Whitlock, discussing what he calls the Black KKK:

Well, when shots are fired and a black man hits the pavement, there's every statistical reason to believe another black man pulled the trigger. That's not some negative, unfair stereotype. It's a reality we've been living with, tolerating and rationalizing for far too long. When the traditional, white KKK lynched, terrorized and intimidated black folks at a slower rate than its modern-day dark-skinned replacement, at least we had the good sense to be outraged and in no mood to contemplate rationalizations or be fooled by distractions.

By: Guav

Guav — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 21:02:44 +0000

Breaking news�From what I can discern from these photos of Carvett, Rohan, Dwayne, Clivie and Cleve, they are not white, Asian, Indian or Hispanic. I guess you really can tell a lot from a name sometimes. They have a history of 34 prior arrests between them for weapons possession, harassment, grand larceny, burglary, assault, endangering the welfare of a child, menacing, drug possession and sale, gang assault and robbery. But it's gun problem we're having here ...

By: Guav

Guav — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 18:58:09 +0000

So yes, I suppose there is a slim possibility that one of these shootings could have been committed by an elderly Asian woman, but the chances are it wasn’t. Because elderly Asian women simply do not commit the majority of the street crime in NYC.

By: SayUncle

SayUncle — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 18:46:56 +0000

Looks like the person I was talking to chimed in.

By: Guav

Guav — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 18:46:16 +0000

Yes, NYC is a fairly diverse place. But our criminals aren’t.

By: SayUncle

SayUncle — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 18:45:56 +0000

I wouldn’t consider them eliminated. However, based on crime stats regarding who victims generally are and who their attackers usually are; and the demographics of those areas, I’m going with the odds.

And it’s funny you should mention it because I was just having a conversation about this post with someone in the area. We both noted how, generally, press descriptions lack mention of race if it’s one particular race and not if it’s others.

By: Guav

Guav — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 18:43:52 +0000

Brutal Hugger, there are many ways to come to that conclusion. One is being aware of the demographics of the neighborhoods within which these crimes occurred and making an educated guess�they are predominantly black neighborhoods, not a lot of white Bloods or Bangladeshi Crips in these black neighborhoods. Add that to the fact that almost all of the victims are black themselves (homicide is usually segregated. Nationally, 86% of white victims are killed by whites and 94% of black victims are killed by blacks). Sometimes you can rely on eyewitness accounts. Sometimes you just make a wild guess when the shooters are named Carvett Gentles, Rohan Francis, Cleve Smith, Clivie Smith, and Dwayne Taylor�who were shooting at someone named Tyrone Creighton. And sometimes you don't have to guess, because you can look at a picture of the person who admitted they did it.

By: Brutal Hugger

Brutal Hugger — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 18:28:42 +0000

In several of those articles, though, there is no information about the shooter at all. What’s more, NYC is a fairly diverse place. We have people that are neither black nor white. So I’m wondering how you eliminated those people too.

By: SayUncle

SayUncle — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 16:06:58 +0000

I’ll lay 5:1 in each case.

Oh, and it’s based on description in press accounts too. If it’s a white guy, press will generally say ‘white male’.

By: Brutal Hugger

Brutal Hugger — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 16:04:18 +0000

I’m curious as to how you know the shooters were all black teens.

By: Gregory Markle

Gregory Markle — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 15:40:38 +0000

Well, if more laws are all it would take to get rid of this “plague”, why haven’t they gotten on the ball and made H1N1 illegal? I’m sure it would be just as effective.

By: Guav

Guav — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 15:15:17 +0000

Lots of unpossibles here in just the last two months: Bronx Girl, 15, Shot In Head By Stray Bullet Teen Pulls BB Gun On Cops, Gets Shot In The Face Drive-By Shooting On Lorimer Street In Brooklyn Bronx Student Shot Outside High School Brooklyn Teen Fatally Shot Outside Brownsville High School Stray Bullet Kills 92-Year-Old Bronx Woman In Her Home, Teen Arrested Teen Shot Dead In Flatbush Coffee Shop 13-Year-Old Queens Boy Fatally Shot in After-School Fight Bronx Mom Killed In Afternoon Gang Shootout Brooklyn Drive-By Shooting Leaves 2 Dead, 1 Wounded Maybe instead of banning guns, Bloomberg should just ban Brooklyn and the Bronx. Or teenagers.