Dismantling Conservative Support of Racial Profiling

To say that white people’s lives are endangered by black folks, as though it were some widespread social truth, is to ignore the facts in the service of one’s prejudices and paranoia based fears.

That being said, allow me to point out the fact that racism in itself knows no political party or affiliation.  Any political party or political leaning can range from a racially ignorant person with a subconscious bias to a full blown overt bigot or supremacist.  Therefore, racism should NOT be politicized.  But the fact that it should not be politicized does not stop one affiliation from being on the wrong side of it.  While the awfully dangerously racism-enabling concept called color-blindness is in fact a liberalism (that now conservatives proudly adopt), it is often the conservatives who from a xenophobic stance, defend bigotry, and attempting to rationalize the irrational white fear of blacks.  As painful as it is, it seems to be self-evident that right-wingers will always seek to rationalize prejudice against black people; the result supporting racial profiling.  They often attempt to cite statistics that upon close examination, fall apart at the seams, many not even supporting their claim.  Other statistics actually works AGAINST their claim!  So this column is about demolishing common conservative talking points on race relations, particularly the ones that deal with rationalizing their fears of the criminally violent black male, the delinquent black male youth, or black people in general. The scenario is this:

Size: 1-3 black male youth
Equipment: common urban attire, 33% of the probability of a “hoodie” being present
Disposition: minding their own business

There’s a black male youth walking down the street on your side. Is your prejudice against black people rational?

Yes, because so many of them are criminally violent.  I have statistics that proves this.

WRONG.  If you wished to anathematize all black males (20,981,009; 20 million) Then that means that your statistics should bank off of ALL black males.  Once you do that, you’d then realize that only about 1 percent of Afro-Americans — and no more than 2 percent of black males — will commit a violent crime in a given year.  Being that crime is intraracial in nature, once you begin to look at the data of black-on-white crime, that number gets even smaller.  No more than 0.7 percent of Afro-Americans will commit a violent crime against a white person in a given year, and fewer than 0.3 (three-tenths of one percent) of whites will be victimized by a black person in a given year.  So technically, even if you were to escalate the number to ten black male youths walking down the street, they have a higher probability of being non-threatening persons (99.3%) than violently dangerous (0.7%).  Another way of stating this, is that you are full of shit, banking your fear off of less than a percent.  Another way of putting it is this: your fear of blacks is stupid. Your stupid.

My personal favorite part of this, is pointing out runaway train logic.  You see, runaway train logic occurs when someone’s argument supports MORE than what they originally intended.  Their argument can be used against a possible interest of theirs.  Runaway trains is personally my favorite way to help someone figure out that their logic is flawed, often dealing a healthy dose of “be careful what you wish for”.

The reason I call runaway train logic, is this simple fact: Whites are 6 times as likely to be murdered by another white person than by a black person.  Again violent crime is intraracial in nature.  So, if a white person figures their fear of blacks is rational, then they should at least, “rationally” apply that fear by 600% towards white people based on their own logic.  Or rather, whites should begin profiling whites, due to the fact that they are statistically proven to be six times more likely to be murdered by a white person.

But of course, it’s a foreign concept for a white person to assume a few whites represent all white people.  White conservatives (to include the black conservatives who follow) seem to draw NO conclusions from white on white crime (a term that practically doesn’t exist in American media).  White folks can commit mass murder, spree kill, kidnap, rape, sexually mutilate, or even cannibalize people (Jeffrey Dahmer) and represent no one but their solitary selves.  To represent only YOURSELF in America, but all others represent their entire race or ethnicity, is a blaring example of white privilege, but that’s another column.

But but but… if you look at our prisons and the disproportionate amount of black people–

Interesting that you mention this.  I’ll point out this one fact you seem to ignore: Most people who are in prison are not in there for violent crimes.  Just a bit of common sense: if you want to fear a group based on a violent nature, make sure they are actually all violent first.  The primary candidate for U.S. incarceration is typically a nonviolent offender.  I really do want to go off on a tangent of how America’s prison dependency is a gluttonous monster.  Later*.  Also, is it a moot point that those who are in prison, are actually IN prison!?  I mean think about it; if you are talking about prison issues, then that only applies IN a prison system, not outside.  Third: a few does not represent the whole.  It is absurd to think, that an isolated fraction of a percentage amounts to a majority of a collective group.  Your fears are unfounded.

But but… the music, the culture! Rap music and stuff it’s so evil!

Rap, R&B, hip hop or whatever you want to call it, seems to always be an acceptable target for conservatives to attack black people through.  From there you’ll find conservative pundits talking about music industry characters they know nothing about, and it’s really something else.  While you may know the difference between Common and Soulja Boy, the viewers of these talking heads do not.

Interestingly, ever since rap has graced the world’s ear starting in 1978, black violence has been on a DECLINE.  So technically… if we were to use your weak conservative talking point… One can make the claim that rap music actually STOPS violence.  That sounded like a bit of a stretch, but then again so was blaming music or any other cultural artifacts.  Same goes for clothing and attire. Hoodies are not a reason to shoot black youth dead.  I’ll just leave that one right here.

But but but… I have the right to think whatever I want and stuff! I have the right to–

–Stupidity?  Sure.  But just because you have the right to be a racial profiling supporting bigot, it doesn’t mean it’s right, as in, correct.  And further, while you have your right to be a racially ignorant human being, people also have a right to response.  Your “right” to be a racial bigot doesn’t function as diplomatic immunity to criticism.  Your “right” doesn’t make your behavior socially acceptable.  Have some standards.

While this can actually go longer I prefer to end it here with the point that, racial profiling is WRONG, and while conservatives continue to be on the wrong side of it, they will continue to push away people of color from their political alignment.