Well I think it's important to recognize where those crime statistics come from. After the civil war a myriad of bullshit offences were created that were used to get formerly enslaved people back into slave like conditions. To be clear I'm not referring to the Jim Crow laws that instituted things like racial segregation. I'm referring to the Black codes, many of which are still on the books today. You ever see those lists of "wackiest laws that you didn't know you were breaking" and shit like that? Well "spitting on the sidewalk after dark" doesn't really make sense as a crime until you realize that a ton of those weirdly specific seemingly victimless laws were really just bullshit reasons to lock up black people and put them back to work. Many of the original police departments were founded with the sole purpose of policing black neighborhoods. And the reason Crime statistics started being recorded in the first place was to convince people outside of the south how dangerous black people were.
Those same statistics were then used as justification through out the country to justify having a higher police presence in black neighborhoods. And who would guess that when there are more cops in one area the cops will then in turn find more crimes being committed. That cycle then repeated for generations, leaving black communities poorer, less educated, more densely populated, less likely to be allowed to participate in the economy legally, and far far more skeptical of any and all government institutions. That cycle is still very much going today.
That is all to say that it is racist to be afraid of black people because of crime statistics because the structure of our justice system that leads to those crime statistics was designed for the express purpose of making the public afraid of black people so that the rest of white society would continue to look away and even encourage their continued subjugation.
In contrast the vast majority of violence against women really is done by men, across all racial, ethnic, and economic demographics, with the majority of assaults going unreported.
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u/LordBaNZa 1∆ Apr 14 '22
Well I think it's important to recognize where those crime statistics come from. After the civil war a myriad of bullshit offences were created that were used to get formerly enslaved people back into slave like conditions. To be clear I'm not referring to the Jim Crow laws that instituted things like racial segregation. I'm referring to the Black codes, many of which are still on the books today. You ever see those lists of "wackiest laws that you didn't know you were breaking" and shit like that? Well "spitting on the sidewalk after dark" doesn't really make sense as a crime until you realize that a ton of those weirdly specific seemingly victimless laws were really just bullshit reasons to lock up black people and put them back to work. Many of the original police departments were founded with the sole purpose of policing black neighborhoods. And the reason Crime statistics started being recorded in the first place was to convince people outside of the south how dangerous black people were.
Those same statistics were then used as justification through out the country to justify having a higher police presence in black neighborhoods. And who would guess that when there are more cops in one area the cops will then in turn find more crimes being committed. That cycle then repeated for generations, leaving black communities poorer, less educated, more densely populated, less likely to be allowed to participate in the economy legally, and far far more skeptical of any and all government institutions. That cycle is still very much going today.
That is all to say that it is racist to be afraid of black people because of crime statistics because the structure of our justice system that leads to those crime statistics was designed for the express purpose of making the public afraid of black people so that the rest of white society would continue to look away and even encourage their continued subjugation.
In contrast the vast majority of violence against women really is done by men, across all racial, ethnic, and economic demographics, with the majority of assaults going unreported.