“Today, the Sierra Club announced its support for an equitable path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.
“The Sierra Club Board of Directors, made up of elected volunteer leaders, has unanimously adopted the position:
“‘Currently at least 11 million people live in in the U.S. in the shadows of our society. Many of them work in jobs that expose them to dangerous conditions, chemicals and pesticides, and many more of them live in areas with disproportionate levels of toxic air, water, and soil pollution. To protect clean air and water and prevent the disruption of our climate, we must ensure that those who are most disenfranchised and most threatened by pollution within our borders have the voice to fight polluters and advocate for climate solutions without fear.
“‘… America’s undocumented population should be able to earn legalization and a timely pathway to citizenship, with all the rights to fully participate in our democracy, including influencing environmental and climate policies. ‘”
Here, you might need this:
Normally I try to give people the benefit of the doubt, but I’ve heard enough people on the left lately explicitly saying that their organizations favor increased immigration because they believe those immigrants will vote Democrat/otherwise support their organizations that I’m starting to think that “import voters” is actually a Democratic strategy.
Which is cheating, BTW.
(Also, the Republican leadership wants more immigrants to keep wages down. Both sides are terrible.)
As logic goes, this is dumbass logic.
1. If the problem is that illegal immigrants can’t protest unhealthy work conditions without getting deported, then this is a good argument in favor of preventing illegal immigration, not encouraging more of it.
2. What makes them think Hispanic immigrants are suddenly going to start advocating for environmental protections, anyway? (I mean, do I have to drag out statistics here to prove that tree-hugging hippies are overwhelmingly white?)
Mexican citizens in their own country created one of the most polluted cities in the world:
Mexico City
Mexico city manages to top the list of the world’s most polluted major cities:
Somehow, I don’t think lack of legal citizenship is the issue.
3. Population growth is one of the worst possible things you can promote if you give a shit about the environment. The Sierra Club used to understand this, back when their official policy favored population stabilization.
In other words, the Sierra Club is now explicitly advocating policies that result in environmental destruction.
Ultimately, I actually think the “they’ll vote for us!” justification is just that: a flimsy justification for doing what they want to do anyway, whether it actually squares with their other goals or not.
Which is to say, I don’t actually think the Sierra Club’s Board of Directors is delusional enough to think that increasing immigration will actually help the environment. Rather, I think the Board consists of liberals who buy into the pro-unlimited immigration propaganda that moving anywhere you want is a basic human right, and are especially interested in proving how much they love POCs, despite (or perhaps because of) working for one of the most overwhelmingly white organizations in the US. But since unfettered immigration => population growth is actually bad for the environment, some justification must be made to reconcile the two positions.
But aside from a few people placidly saying they’re concerned about global warming, and a few people vocally responding, where is our leadership on the issue?
Al Gore seems to have had some things to say on the environment, but since he lost the Supreme Court vote, the Democratic base has turned increasingly toward more “people” oriented issues like racism, immigration, and gay marriage. And the kinds of people who care deeply about immigration, racism, and gay marriage may not happen to overlap with the kinds of people who think we should give serious thought to long-term global sustainability.
“I got into an argument with a friend of mine who is a person of color. They were mad at me because I feel very passionately about protecting the ocean and they said that made me a bad person because I should only care about is social justice. I do care about social justice and I stand up to racism where I can, but how do I reply to that?”
From the response:
“Is client change real? Hell yeah! Is the ocean becoming a mass of plastic? Of course. But right in front of you is your friends pain.”
It’s almost like people who tend toward high time discounting don’t understand the logic of people with low time discounting.
“Since I don’t know you I also want to make sure to offer up that white people have a horrible track record of racism when discussing climate change. I am not saying this is you personally, just the system that we have created around climate issues has become its own thing and often is very racist in its approach. The way people talk about “food deserts” for example (which are almost always lower income communities of color) implies that there is not a food culture in those communities.”
Remember, if you’re concerned about the availability of fresh food in inner city communities, you’re a racist.
BTW, the presence or absence of a grocery store in downtown Detroit is not an environmental issue.
“One of the tricks here though is to keep fighting for climate justice and protecting the oceans while not ignoring your friend, and people of color, here on land. All of this shit is interconnected. The same system that is oppressing people is oppressing the ocean. … If we center black lives in our work then we will have to discuss climate issues, and the ocean. Listen to your friend and maybe what they are saying is that this type of centering in your work around oceans is needed. Maybe it is their not so subtle way of saying that they feel ignored in the larger climate and ocean movement?”
This is part two on bullying as an emergent social/political behavior and an exploration of the basic thesis that in a dispute between two people, elites will justify or outright lie about violence toward the lower status individual. For a longer explanation, see Part 1: Everything Adults say about Bullying is Bullshit.
“I want to see a cop shoot a white unarmed teenager in the back,” said Ms. Morrison, who also has won the Pulitzer Prize for her work, which includes the bestsellers “Beloved” and “Song of Solomon.” “And I want to see a white man convicted for raping a black woman. Then when you ask me, ‘Is it over?’, I will say yes.”
Welp. That took all of 5 seconds to find via Google. Does Ms. Morrison not own a computer? Or is she ignorant by choice?
The Mother Jones data (above) records not a single white who shot at the NYC police, yet whites were 20% of those shot by the police. Approximately 70% of the people who actually tried to shoot a police officer were black, but only about 40% of those shot by the police were black. Hispanics make up about 30% of those who shot at the police, and 40% of those shot by the police.
In other words, NYC police officers appear to be preferentially shooting whites and Hispanics, not blacks.
Even when we compare the “fired upon by police” bar vs the “struck by police” bar, we notice that the police seem to be much better shots when shooting at whites than at blacks. When they shoot at blacks, they appear to be trying not to actually hit them, whereas they appear to have no such compunctions when shooting at whites.
So where are all of the protests and marches for whites and Hispanics murdered by the police? Does even Stormfront give enough of a shit about murdered whites to block a highway or steal a microphone?
But that is just Mother Jones and the WaPo. What stats do other folks cite?
“Peter Moskos, assistant professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice at the City University of New York, decided to use figures from the website Killed by Police. …
“Adjusted to take into account the racial breakdown of the U.S. population, he said black men are 3.5 times more likely to be killed by police than white men. But also adjusted to take into account the racial breakdown in violent crime, the data actually show that police are less likely to kill black suspects than white ones.
““If one adjusts for the racial disparity in the homicide rate or the rate at which police are feloniously killed, whites are actually more likely to be killed by police than blacks,” said Mr. Moskos. …
“Peter Moskos, assistant professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice at the City University of New York, decided to use figures from the website Killed by Police. Based on that data, Mr. Moskos reported that roughly 49 percent of those killed by officers from May 2013 to April 2015 were white, while 30 percent were black. He also found that 19 percent were Hispanic and 2 percent were Asian and other races. …
“Adjusted to take into account the racial breakdown of the U.S. population, he said black men are 3.5 times more likely to be killed by police than white men. But also adjusted to take into account the racial breakdown in violent crime, the data actually show that police are less likely to kill black suspects than white ones.
“If one adjusts for the racial disparity in the homicide rate or the rate at which police are feloniously killed, whites are actually more likely to be killed by police than blacks,” said Mr. Moskos, a former Baltimore cop and author of the book “Cop in the Hood.”
But do others agree with Mr. Moskos’s numbers?
“The investigative journalism website ProPublica came up with a similar percentage in an Oct. 10 article, reporting that 44 percent of all those killed by police were white, using FBI data from 1980 to 2012.
“The fact-checking website PolitiFact concluded in August 2014 that police kill more whites than blacks after the claim was made by conservative commentator Michael Medved. PolitiFact cited data from the Centers for Disease Control on fatal injuries by “legal intervention” from 1999 to 2011.
“Over the span of more than a decade, 2,151 whites died by being shot by police compared to 1,130 blacks. In that respect, Medved is correct,” said PolitiFact.”
“Imagine that you’re sitting down to dinner with your family, and while everyone else gets a serving of the meal, you don’t get any. So you say “I should get my fair share.” And as a direct response to this, your dad corrects you, saying, “everyone should get their fair share.” Now, that’s a wonderful sentiment — indeed, everyone should, and that was kinda your point in the first place: that you should be a part of everyone, and you should get your fair share also. However, dad’s smart-ass comment just dismissed you and didn’t solve the problem that you still haven’t gotten any!”
So, the article is saying that we should be out in the streets marching and protesting about the preferential killing of whites and Hispanics by the police? Because this is, of course, what the data actually shows.
But what about that pesky matter, crime?
The Baltimore Sun has a widget that lets you see where all of the homicides in Baltimore have been committed since 2007:
All Baltimore homicides in 2014Baltimore Homicides as of August 13, 2015
I’m guessing the year’s total will come out somewhere around 280, breaking the general trend of falling homicide rates.
“Milwaukee, which last year had one of its lowest annual homicide totals in city history, recorded 84 murders so far this year, more than double the 41 it tallied at the same point last year. …
“The number of murders in 2015 jumped by 33% or more in Baltimore, New Orleans and St. Louis. Meanwhile, in Chicago, the nation’s third-largest city, the homicide toll climbed 19% and the number of shooting incidents increased by 21% during the first half of the year.”
But sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words:
I’m going to quote a few bits from the Slate Star Codex article linked at the top:
“Then I found a huge review paper on the subject, written by a Harvard professor of sociology, which concluded after analyzing sixty pages of exquisitely-researched studies that:
“‘Recognizing that research on criminal justice processing in the United States is complex and fraught with methodological problems, the weight of the evidence reviewed suggests the following. When restricted to index crimes, dozens of individual-level studies have shown that a simple direct influence of race on pretrial release, plea bargaining, conviction, sentence length, and the death penalty among adults is small to nonexistent once legally relevant variables (e.g. prior record) are controlled. For these crimes, racial differentials in sanctioning appear to match the large racial differences in criminal offending. Findings on the processing of adult index crimes therefore generally support the non-discrimination thesis.’ …
“Police records consistently show that black people are arrested at disproportionally high rates (compared to their presence in the population) for violent crimes. For example, blacks are arrested eight times more often for homicide and fourteen times more often for robbery. Even less flashy crimes show the same pattern: forgery, fraud, and embezzlement all hover around a relative risk of four. …
“The second hypothesis has been strongly supported by crime victimization surveys, which show that the percent of arrestees who are black matches very closely matches the percent of victims who say their assailant was black. This has been constant throughout across thirty years of crime victmization surveys. …
“Summary: Blacks appear to be arrested for drug use at a rate four times that of whites. Adjusting for known confounds reduces their rate to twice that of whites. However, other theorized confounders could mean that the real relative risk is anywhere between two and parity. Never trust the media to give you any number more complicated than today’s date. … Older national data skews more toward the New York City side with little evidence of racial bias, but I don’t know of any recent studies which have compared the race of shooting victims to the race of dangerous attackers on a national level. There is no support for the contention that white officers are more likely than officers of other races to shoot black suspects. …
“a more recent Bureau of Justice Statistics finds that 66% of accused blacks get prosecuted compared to 69% of accused whites; 75% of prosecuted blacks get convicted compared to 78% of prosecuted whites. …
“Summary: Most recent studies suggest a racial sentencing disparity of about 15%, contradicting previous studies that showed lower or no disparity. Changes in sentencing guidelines are one possible explanation; poorly understood methodological differences are a second. Capital punishment still sucks.”
But don’t just take my word for it; go read Scott’s whole post. Obviously he put a lot of effort into it.
Presidential hopeful and US Senator Bernie Sanders’s campaign website helpfully explains his thoughts on the matter:
“Issues: Racial Justice
“We must pursue policies that transform this country into a nation that affirms the value of its people of color. That starts with addressing the four central types of violence waged against black and brown Americans: physical, political, legal and economic.
“Sandra Bland, Michael Brown, Rekia Boyd, Eric Garner, Walter Scott, Freddie Gray, Tamir Rice, Samuel DuBose. We know their names. Each of them died unarmed at the hands of police officers or in police custody. The chants are growing louder. People are angry and they have a right to be angry. We should not fool ourselves into thinking that this violence only affects those whose names have appeared on TV or in the newspaper. African Americans are twice as likely to be arrested and almost four times as likely to experience the use of force during encounters with the police. …”
CNN weighs in on the Bernie Sanders/Black Lives Matter incidents:
“Many observers are perplexed by the decision of some Black Lives Matter activists to twice disrupt attempted addresses by presidential hopeful Sen. Bernie Sanders.
“Well, I am not perplexed. The new generation of civil rights activists never accepted “trickle-down economics” from conservatives. Today they are rejecting “trickle-down justice” from the liberals. …
“But we have needed and wanted more. Our economic problems include an unemployment rate that is double that of whites, racially biased policing and court systems, predatory lenders who deliberately target black neighborhoods and public schools that expel black children at staggering rates for minor offenses. …
“Sometimes, it seemed some Democratic politicians were happy to publicly name and embrace every part of the Democratic coalition — immigrants rights defenders, womens’ rights advocates, environmentalists and champions of LBGT equality. But not black people.”
Yes, clearly the one thing Democrats fail to talk about is Black people. Really, I’ve hardly heard anyone talking about black people and their issues for the past few decades. Maybe during the LBJ administration there was some talk about black people, but that was ages ago.
“In case anyone missed the memo after Ferguson, Baltimore and Charleston, here it is: the Obama era of black silence on issues that matter to us is over.”
That’s what you call “silence”?
“It turns out the Seattle activists’ actions were aimed less at Sanders himself and more at racist practices and policies being tolerated by local liberals in a supposed progressive bastion like Seattle. The Seattle Police Department has been under investigation for years for racist scandals and problematic use of force. Black children in King County schools are suspended at higher rates than their white peers. And the region is wasting $210 million on a new jail instead of investing in communities. … any fair discussion of “income inequality” must necessarily include a denunciation of our racially biased criminal justice system. Always.”
“This is the Civil Rights Movement Part II, and our leaders should want to get in on the side that promotes human rights—full stop. … You cannot look at a group of people living in fear and dying in droves and tell them they are protesting incorrectly. It’s easy to sit back and critique the method when it isn’t your life on the line. But if someone were being choked, the last thing they would need is a passerby saying, “I’d love to help you out. But could you at least say “please?” Convince me why I should save your life, and do it politely.” White people have the time and the luxury to wait for the system we created to work in our favor.”
“Attempting to soar where her rivals have recently floundered on issues of racial justice, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton addressed a crowd of nearly 400 in South Carolina Thursday and said unequivocally: “Yes, black lives matter. …
“Last weekend, black activists interrupted a presidential candidate forum at the Netroots Nation conference … O’Malley has since apologized for adding “white lives matter, all lives matter” to the protesters’ calls.
“…the protesters showed up slightly before the event started and, according to the Clinton campaign, were not allowed into the main event because the room has been shut down due to capacity by the United States Secret Service.
“A Secret Service agent on site confirmed this to CNN.”
How about those evil racists on the Republican side?
“I see an America where criminal justice is applied equally and any law that disproportionately incarcerates people of color is repealed.”
So… Rand Paul wants to repeal almost the entire body of criminal law, including homicide and rape? I confess to being not particularly impressed with whatever train of thought produced this promise.
Even the Harvard Crimson weighs in, with perspectives from some of America’s future (and current) movers and shakers:
“In our stern voices, we chanted: “Black lives matter! Black lives matter! Black lives matter!”
“Confused, boisterous, and starkly naked, they replied: “U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!”
“During this year’s Primal Scream, we were a part of a group of students who stood in front of Hollis Hall as part of a peaceful protest in response to the recent non-indictment of Darren Wilson and Daniel Pantaleo, police officers who are responsible for the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, respectively.
“With the support of the administration, we hoped to delay primal scream with a 4.5-minute moment of silence, symbolic of the 4.5 hours that Brown’s body lay on the street after his death. Black lives matter, and we wanted to engage the larger Harvard community on some of the most salient issues of our time: systemic racism, oppression, and brutality on black and brown bodies. And yet, to our dismay, the efforts of several administrators who rallied for students to respect the moment of silence were muted by the chanting of the naked mass.”
In case it’s not obvious, “Primal Scream” is one of those old-school college traditions in which (probably drunk) students strip naked and run through Harvard Yard at midnight on the night before finals. Oh, and it’s in the dead of winter, which means it’s really fucking cold. Probably not the best time to try to get a hundred or so drunk, naked people get on board with an agenda of standing around in the cold for a few minutes.
“More than 200 demonstrators poured onto the streets of Central Square in Cambridge Wednesday evening, extending a series of marches and protests both nationwide and in the Greater Boston Area against racial prejudice in the criminal justice system.
“This is just a continuation,” Divinity School student Rachel A. Foran said, clutching a sign on which read “White silence is state violence.” Foran, like others at the event, emphasized the need for uniting in protest following two separate non-indictments of white police officers late last year who killed unarmed black men. …
“Along the way, organizers handed off a milk crate podium to one another as they invited individuals to decry prejudices against African American men and implore Cambridge residents to join the movement.”
I think Central Square, Cambridge is significantly blacker than Harvard.
“The energies that fuel art are similar to the ones that power politico-economic movements, and the line between the two can often blur. The protest can be considered a form of performance art, and movements at Harvard and beyond have utilized the intersection between the two. …
“Harvard is in a unique position within the genre of protest-performance art, organizers say. And since Harvard is constantly scrutinized by the media, revolutionary art produced on Harvard’s campus—protest-based or otherwise—has unusual reach and staying power.
“PERFORMING PROTESTS
“Harvard is familiar with the tradition of performance art as a form of protest. For instance, Divest Harvard, a group that calls for Harvard to divest from fossil fuel companies, recently used a tactic that showcases performance art: They initiated the Divest Harvard Fast, a hunger strike in all but name. The hunger strike is an age-old tactic, used by groups ranging from suffragettes to Indian nationalists to Cuban dissidents. The act of fasting has a peculiar evocative power to it: an asceticism that brings up images of emaciated fakirs and a willingness to use the body as a canvas, a la Marina Abramovic.”
“If the American government were sincere about wanting peace in Cambodia, it would stop supporting a repressive dictatorship, and allow the people of Cambodia — represented by the Khmer Rouge and the supporters of the deposed Prince Norodom Sihanouk — to determine their own destiny,”
and of Slate Star Codex’s recent review of “Chronicles of Wasted Time,” the memoirs of a liberal journalist who got his wish to visit Stalin’s utopia, witnessed Holodomor first-hand, and then couldn’t get anyone back home to publish his articles about it or pretty much anything that wasn’t uplifting lies about the awesomeness of the USSR, which you should also read:
“He is reduced to sending secret messages at the bottoms of people’s suitcases, only to find to his horror that even when they successfully reach the Guardian offices back in Britain, his bosses have no interest in publishing them because they offend the prejudices of its progressive readership. …
“The plan goes without a hitch, he passes himself off as a generic middle-class Soviet, and he ends up in Ukraine right in the middle of Stalin’s Great Famine. He describes the scene – famished skeletons begging for crumbs, secret police herding entire towns into railway cars never to be seen again. At great risk to himself, he smuggles notes about the genocide out of the country, only to be met – once again – with total lack of interest. Guardian readers don’t look at the newspapers to hear bad things about the Soviet Union! Guardian readers want to hear about how the Glorious Future is already on its way! He is quickly sidelined in favor of the true stars of Soviet journalism, people like Walter Duranty, the New York Times‘s Russia correspondent, who wrote story after story about how prosperous and happy and well-fed the Soviets were under Stalin, and who later won the Pulitzer Prize for his troubles.”
Speakerpedia claims that Tim Wise commands a $10,000 speaker’s fee to lecture about White Privilege to college students (and other groups) across the country; he has apparently spoken at over 800 colleges. Does anyone ever get invited to speak about black crime, the targeting of whites and Hispanics by the police, or black on white crime at universities? I bet Jared Taylor would speak for free.
Black Lives Matter has the official support of Harvard University, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Twitter, and the mass media establishment.
(No, seriously this is what the inside of the Twitter headquarters looks like:
Everyone lies. All the damn time. Most lies are completely inconsequential, of course, but lying about who is murdering whom seems like the kind of lie that could result in real consequences: people dying. But even to mention the truth in public carries serious consequences: ostracization, loss of job, harassment, banning, etc. Only low-class losers care about crime against whites; rich people, of course, have no such petty concerns. Maybe because they can live in million dollar neighborhoods where the gates/ferry rides “keep out the riff-raff.”
Whose lies are believed? Whose are not?
Conclusions: The police and whites who worry about getting killed (or get killed) are low-status. Blacks and wealthy whites who proclaim how much they love blacks are high-status.
Does this sound counter-intuitive?
Why? Socially, blacks are more popular than whites.
As I noted yesterday,
“White people want to have black friends; it lets them prove to themselves (and others) just how non-racist they are. It makes them feel better about themselves and assuages some portion of guilt. To have a black friend makes a white person feel like a good white person. …
“Black people, by contrast, have no particular desire to prove how non-racist they are.”
The imbalance puts whites in a position of lower social value, attempting to get social status via black approval. But don’t just take my word for it. Remember that article in the New Yorker about the Vermont couple who adopted 20 kids?
“All the teen-ages were nervous about being black in Vermont, but Fisher and Lilly were wildly popular in high school. Lilly was a track star, and Fisher was cool and good-looking.
“Fisher: I was popular. It went to my head, I won’t lie to you. All the little white girls saw I was the best dancer in the school, and I was the only black guy.”
Fisher dropped out of college, got three girls pregnant and went to prison for beating one of them.
Were you popular enough with women to have three kids before your mid-twenties?
“In NEWSWEEK magazine this week, we suggested that part of the problem [racial self-segregation among students] stems from white parents’ refusal to talk to their young children about race and ethnicity. This inadvertently teaches children that race is a taboo topic. …
“Nevertheless, the scholars are finding stunning racial patterns in the kids’ responses. They found that black kids who self-segregate ─ who only hang out with other blacks ─ are more popular than black kids who have white friends.
“This means that an average black student could increase her popularity by hanging out with other black students. Meanwhile, if she chooses to have white friends, she could put her popularity at risk. Many kids don’t have the social capital or confidence to make this tradeoff.
“When the scholars ran the analysis a second time, substituting how much kids were liked for how popular they were, a similar troubling pattern emerged. Black kids who self-segregated were liked by more black children. Having white friends decreased a black child’s “likeability” ─ at least in the eyes of other black children.
“For white children, in contrast, self-segregating hurt their popularity. …
“Overall, black students were more popular than white students. And both the white and black kids in his study agreed which black kids were popular.”
Newsweek concludes the article by claiming,
“Twenty or thirty years ago, no black kids would have been seen as popular by white kids ─ and few black kids would have had social influence. Black kids would not have been setting the social standard, school-wide. Now they are.”
Really?
In “Blacks in the White Establishment,” Zweigenhaft and Dumhoff write about the effects of the ABC program–A Better Chance of Andover–established in 1967 to give scholarships to black and other minority students so they can attend Andover High School:
“Perry’s study found that ABC students felt themselves to be popular. In fact, in response to an item asking, “How popular do you think you are in school this year in comparison with all the other students in your grade,” black ABC students indicated they felt more popular than did a control group of white students at their schools. (More than one-third of the black respondents felt themselves to be among “the most popular” and less than one-tenth thought themselves to be among “the least popular.”)
“Not only were black ABC students popular, they were also valued as leaders in dealing with teachers and administrators. … the student body of 840 students (40 of whom were black) surprised many people (including the faculty, the administration, the New York Times, and, most likely, themselves) by electing blacks as presidents of the sophomore, junior, and senior classes for the 1969-70 academic year. As the New York Times breathlessly and historically informed its readers, Andover, “the alma mater of the Lees and Washingtons of Virginia and the Quincys and Lowells of New England, has elected three Negro students from the ghettos of Chicago and Oakland as class presidents for 1969-70.” (Bold mine)
Of course, 1969 is 40 years before the Newsweek article was published, not 20-30, so perhaps black kids got a lot less popular sometime between the 60s and the 80s. Or maybe Newsweek just employees people who want certain fictions to be true.
“African American—but not European American—children had more segregated relationships and were more disliked by cross-ethnicity peers when they had fewer same-ethnicity classmates. African American children’s segregation was positively associated with same-ethnicity social preference and perceived popularity and with cross-ethnicity perceived popularity. European American children’s segregation was positively associated with same-ethnicity social preference but negatively associated with cross-ethnicity social preference and perceived popularity.”
“I’ve been to many different middle schools and highschools (we moved alot for dad’s job) and it always seemed as though blacks are more “popular” than anyone else in the school?
“My area is majority white…and most of the Black people at my school(and there isn’t a lot) are quite popular. Same with a lot of the Asian kids at my school.
“Well usually I feel as though they have more culture…I don’t know.. more fun then just and I am not trying to “Generalize” the american girl population, but most of us are annoying slutty brats, who just want to take pictures all the time in the same god damn position.
“We’re just always expected to be cool and popular, honestly…and it’s just that most blacks are raised to be more outgoing, so it carries on with them through school. I get along with most people, but I’m not that popular.
“the blacks in my school tend to be popular because some of them make trouble. Source(s): im black,and im not popular”
The general explanation for black crime (if you get one at all) is that blacks feel bad because of racism, they have low self-esteem, they’re unpopular, people are constantly mean to them, they suffer microaggressions, etc.
The “self esteem” racket is quite a thing, and has been going on for quite a while (since the ’80s, at least). I recently happened across a treasure trove of old books a former kindergarten teacher was giving away for free because she was retiring, and gratefully took the whole stack. Many of the books were on the expected topics of “Kindergarten is awesome” and the ABCs, but a substantial subset were books aimed at raising black self-esteem, such as, “I Like Myself”
Actually, there were two copies of this book in the stack.
Here’s a page from the book:
People the MC would not like to be: a baby, an old woman, or a police officer–all white.
And another page:
Remember, whites get bullied more than black kids, but how many books do you think you can find in the average kindergarten class depicting a white kid being bullied by a black kid, and encouraging the white kid to be proud of themself?
“Teach your kids to constantly question the media’s narratives, especially about black people, including what stories the media tells and doesn’t tell, what images they show and don’t show, and the ways that black people and other people of color are made less than human by the media, while white people, even mass murderers, are allowed full humanity. Point out to them the differences in headlines and language used to describe people of color vs. white people and make sure they understand the motives behind them.”
The Cosby Show must have been really hard on her self-esteem.
“By the 1970s, a majority of empirical studies found that Blacks had high self-esteem (Simmons, 1978; Taylor & Walsh, 1979; Rosenberg & Simmons, 1972; Harris & Stokes, 1978; Porter & Washington, 1979). Cross (1991) also reviewed studies published from 1968 to1980, and found that 74% of the studies reported that Blacks had equal or higher self-esteem than Whites. …
“a plethora of quantitative and qualitative studies have reported that Black adolescent girls consistently present high self-esteem scores (Adams, 2003; Alan Guttmacher Institute, 1999; Brodsky, 1999; Brown et al., 1998; Dukes & Martinez, 1994; Gray-Little & Hafdahl, 2000; Makkar & Strube, 1995; Milkie, 1999; Twenge & Crocker, 2002). In an empirical review of race comparative research published from 1980-2000, Adams (2003) found that 23 of 26 studies reported that Black girls had higher self-esteem than White girls. Black adolescent girls may be facing difficult circumstances but they consistently rate higher on self-esteem than any other racial group (Twenge & Crocker, 2002).”
“A Birmingham, Alabama, police detective who was pistol-whipped unconscious said Friday that he hesitated to use force because he didn’t want to be accused of needlessly killing an unarmed man. …
“”We don’t want to be in the media,” he said. “It’s hard times right now for us.” …
“Adding insult to injury: several bystanders, instead of helping, took pictures of the bloodied officer as he was facedown on the concrete and posted the images on social media, where the officer was mocked. …
“”Pistol whipped his ass to sleep,” one user wrote, employing the hashtag #FckDaPolice. Another mockingly offered the officer milk and cookies for his “nap time.””
It really should come as no surprise that I was bullied in school, though I know a lot of people have had it far worse than I did.
From simplicity’s sake, I’ve reduced the bullying stories I’ve heard to three basic classes:
1. Sporadic or short-term bullying. This bullying lasts less than two years and/or involves fewer than five bullies. A typical case: “After moving to a new school, two girls were mean to me for about four months, but they got bored after Christmas.”
2. Long-term bullying. These kids are consistently at the bottom of the social totem pole, for years on end. They have few to no friends; most other kids are indifferent to cruel toward them.
3. Intense bullying. The bullied child is beaten; assaulted; raped; frequently told they should commit suicide; or frequently threatened with physical violence, rape, or murder.
My own experiences lie in Type 2. I can only imagine what a hellscape life has been for folks subject to Type 3.
If there’s anything I hate, it’s lies, and oh boy, do grown ups ever lie to children about bullying. The lie generally goes something like this:
“Everyone gets bullied in school! You just have to learn how to deal with it. If you ignore the bullies, they’ll get bored and stop. And besides, they’re only bullies because they feel bad about themselves. If you could just make them feel better about themselves, you’d become magic friends!”
“I hate like the gates of Hades the man who says one thing and holds another in his heart.” Achilles, Iliad 9.314.
About a quarter, or 24 percent, of girls said they were bullied compared to 20 percent of boys.
A higher percentage of white students — 24 percent — said they were bullied than black, Hispanic or Asian students. Twenty percent of black students said they were bullied compared to 19 percent of Hispanic students and 9 percent of Asian students.
Some lies, like the ones about how animals are kinder and more altruistic than humans, are basically sentimental slop that’s probably harmless. But the lies about bullying are a slap in the face to a kid who’s already been slapped in the face, and so deeply offensive.
Bullying is not just something sad kids do to entertain themselves. Bullying is an emergent feature of the control mechanisms of the social order. Or to put it another way, where there is hierarchy, someone is at the bottom, and that is the kid who gets bullied. Bullies, by definition, are higher-status than the kids they bully, because without status, they could not get away with bullying.
And bullies do not have low self esteem; people with low self-esteem hole up in their bedrooms and don’t talk to other humans except via the internet. Bullies have so much self-esteem, they believe themselves entitled to violently dictate the entire social order around themselves.
Seriously, have you ever looked at a picture of Hitler and thought, “If only he’d been a little more self-confident, he wouldn’t have invaded Poland.”?
High status comes in many forms, such as height, wealth, or gregarious aggression. Low status also comes in many forms, like being trusting, short, or shy. Low status people generally remain low status even after switching schools, ignoring the bullies, or otherwise following adult advice.
In a conflict between two people of unknown status, we can tell which is which by the excuses others make for their behavior. If the low-status person is the aggressor, then there will be virtually no debate. The majority of people, especially the elites, will all agree that the low-status person is to blame. If the high status person is the aggressor, then even a neutral finding that the low-status person is not at fault will not be believed, and the elites will make every excuse they can to rationalize the high-status person’s behavior. This is because the elites agree with the actions of the high-status person in putting the low-status person in their place and so preserving the social order.
Man is a political animal, after all.
Yes, I am talking about grown ups, not just kids. Bullying doesn’t go away just because you leave school. It is a fundamental aspect of human social relations. It probably can’t be eliminated, and it’s possible that trying to fully eliminate bullying would just backfire in some horrible way. We should, however, use our understanding of bullying to identify who is–and isn’t–at the bottom of the social totem pole.
(To be clear: we live in a nation of 320 or so million people (or I do, anyway.) There does not exist some great big ladder with each and every person’s absolute position ranked relative to everyone else. Different groups, times, places, etc., have different rankings; your status may be very different in Mississippi than in Oregon, or different if you’re hanging out among college students or church ladies.
Indeed, if we had some sort of absolute system, we might have less bullying, as status-displays and making sure the outgroups stay down could be less necessary.)
But let’s return to the photos at the top of the post and see where this theory leads us.
In the photo on the right, Elizabeth Eckford was one of the first nine black students to break the segregation barriers and attend a white school in Little Rock, Arkansas. While we cannot exactly call the Supreme Court a neutral, unbiased group of robots immune to human passions or politics, they are supposed to try, and they found that black students like Elizabeth were in the right, and segregationists were in the wrong.
As we can see, Elizabeth continued being the target of bullying by higher-class whites, despite an official pronouncement in her favor. At this time in Arkansas, the Feds might be able to force integration, (the Feds, after all, have the bomb,) but this did not change the local social situation. Had the whites been low-status, they would not have been allowed to bully the black students, nor would the community at large have supported or excused their behavior.
In the photo on the left, Black Lives Matter advocates stormed the stage at presidential hopeful and Senator Bernie Sanders’ recent speech in Seattle, WA.
Here are some screenshots of statements from BLM supporters on the subject:
While the BLM folks are truthful about their ultimate agenda, nowhere is there an honest admission of what is clearly visible in the photograph: a woman screaming in Sanders’ face. That is hate, pure and simple.
Obviously Sanders, as an individual, has more power than his hecklers. But his social category–old white men–is not a category that enjoys high social status. Had Sanders’s hecklers been, say, NAMBLA representatives instead of BLM supporters, it is unimaginable that they would have been allowed to take over the stage. Those whom society hates are not allowed to run rough-shod over others; those at the bottom of the social order do not get to act like they aren’t at the bottom.
If you find yourself at the bottom of society, you have several options:
If powerful people are lying to you, don’t care when you are hurt, or otherwise making excuses for why people like you should be mistreated, then that is a sign that you are low status.
“Even if we could rename every single residential college after radical people of color, racism would still manifest itself on our campus every day.
“Because institutions such as Yale and the federal and state governments are inextricably implicated in the maintenance of racism in this country in ways that will take more to undo than hollow symbolic gestures.
“Don’t get me wrong, symbolism is important. But to fixate on a futile debate about whether or not to change the name of Calhoun College is to miss the more fundamental question of how to shift power relationships on our campus so that they are more racially just.”
“Yale should do a better job of commemorating. I propose a yearly vigil on Dec. 20, the anniversary of Calhoun’s home state of South Carolina’s secession. We can read aloud the testimonies of the slaves Calhoun thought subhuman, and of the Union soldiers who fought to destroy his evil dream incarnate. In doing so, we will emphasize what Dean Holloway worries is too often ignored: “that African Americans have a humanity that ought to be respected.” It could be, I think, a solemn institutional repentance. Perhaps Calhoun’s victims would appreciate our piety on their behalf.”
“As Christopher Hitchens once said, and as Amy Schumer video commenters often echo, maybe women aren’t funny because they’ve never needed to be funny. I mean, it’s just evolution. Throughout the years, as dinosaurs evolved into chickens and as carrier pigeons evolved into iPhones, human males evolved a sense of humor because it got them laid more often. One knock-knock joke, and before he knows it, the lucky man is a father to a litter of funny boys and unfunny girls. Or something like that. Science!”
Wow, I think I have missed the ev psych theories on humor. But I don’t really have much of a sense of humor, so maybe I just haven’t been reading the correct things.
“Sorry to burst your bubble, but while humor is a lot of things, it’s a lot more than just a flirting device used by men to woo women. …
“No, humor is far more powerful than that. Humor—particularly satire—is a tool of social commentary and criticism. It’s a way for people to hold up a mirror in front of society’s face and point out all the pockmarks.
“Women, of all people, know that society is deeply flawed. When we routinely get paid less than our male colleagues, and when the length of our skirts determines whether or not we deserve to live—well, how could we not turn to humor to shine a light on society’s failings?”
Criticizing society is more powerful than evolution?
Sorry, hon. But evolution wins. Every match. Every time.
Also–skirt length determines whether or not we deserve to live? What the hell has happened to Harvard? Did it get taken over by the Taliban sometime last year and no one told me?
Harvard Law would like to note that it practically started the gay marriage bandwagon: The Road to Marriage Equality
“In an essay titled “Recognition, Rights, Regulation, Normalisation: Rhetorics of Justification in the Same-Sex Marriage Debate,” Halley expressed concerns that although limiting marriage to heterosexual couples indeed deprecated the relationships of gay couples who wished to marry, the fight for equality had too readily adopted language emphasizing the normative value of traditional coupling. Instead, Halley argued, the movement should question widespread assumptions about marriage and monogamy, leaving the door open for a broader range of non-traditional relationships.”
“SHARIAsource is a new initiative of Harvard Law School’s Islamic Legal Studies Program and Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society that will provide an online portal of resources and analysis on Islamic law, in cooperation with scholars of Islamic law and policy in the United States and around the world.
“SHARIAsource aims to be the go-to site for researchers, journalists, and policymakers, as well as generally interested readers seeking to grasp the basics and the complexities of Islamic law—a frequently recurring topic in news and policy circles. The portal will accomplish this goal by collecting primary sources (court cases, legislation, and fatwas) about Islamic law, and offering scholarly analysis and policy papers about them. The analysis will come from recognized experts in Islamic law and related fields in the United States and abroad.”
Actually, that sounds kind of useful. I once tried to do a project on Gypsy law, but got bogged down when I realized that law is really boring. Also, I couldn’t figure out how to find any Gypsies to talk to in real life in order to figure out if “Gypsy law” actually has any relevance to their lives.
“There was a time in my 20s when everything I learned about the history of racism made me hate myself, my Whiteness, my ancestors… and my descendants. I remember deciding that I couldn’t have biological children because I didn’t want to propagate my privilege biologically. …
“Maybe it felt good to distance [Dolezal] from the overwhelming oppressiveness of Whiteness — her own and that of her country and of her ancestors. But the lesson for me is remembering how deep the pain is, the pain of realizing I’m White, and that I and my ancestors are responsible for the incredible racialized mess we find ourselves in today. The pain of facing that honestly is blinding. It’s not worse than being on the receiving end of that oppression.
“Ali Michael, Ph.D., is the Director of P-12 Consulting and Professional Development at the Center for the Study of Race Equity in Education at the University of Pennsylvania. She is also the author of Raising Race Questions: Whiteness and Inquiry in Education and co-editor of Everyday White People Confront Racial and Social Injustice. For readers interested in how White people can work towards racial justice — and still be White — or how a White person could have a positive racial identity without being a White supremacist, please pick up one of these books!”
Penn wins the WTF of the month award, despite that article about about Ruth Bader Ginsburg being a “Pop culture icon.” WTF.
“We currently believe that general intelligence has declined by approximately two standard deviations (which is approximately 30 IQ points) since 1800 – that is, over about 8 generations. …
“Michael and I immediately recognized that the rate of change in intelligence that we were observing was too fast to be accounted for my natural selection favouring lower intelligence; although this does have a significant role.
“We soon began to recognize that the primary mechanism was likely to be mutation accumulation due to the decline in child mortality rates from more than half to about one percent – child mortality having, through human history, served as the main (but not only) selective ‘sieve’ to remove the spontaneous fitness-reducing mutations which occur with every generation.”
It’s a great post, IMO. I’ve been talking about the effects of the end of high infant mortality for a while (in conversation, not so much here, since this is a new blog and all.) I think the potential for unforseen effects is pretty high.
“In a sense, the reduction of intelligence may be one of the lesser concerns about this world of what looks increasingly like a mutational meltdown. Because mutations will also damage what might be termed the ‘basic instincts’ of the population or species.
“In particular, mutation accumulation will be expected to affect social and sexual instincts of the kind we used to call ‘common sense’ and ‘human nature’.”
To be fair, I am not so keen on endless population growth, myself. I think curbing growth is a sensible reaction to overpopulation, rather than something to be concerned about it. (Though obviously one does not want to get overwhelmed by people who don’t curb their growth.)
Once we were driving down the highway when my husband said, “Hey, a Federal Reserve Note just flew across the road.”
Me: I think you have been reading too many finance blogs.
Oh look, Silver Certificates:
These bills, from the so-called “Education Series,” were printed in 1896 and feature, rather prominently, women. The $1 bill has Martha (and George) Washington. The other bills feature women as allegories of science, history, electricity, commerce, manufacturing, and you know, I can’t really tell if the steam and electricity children are supposed to be male or female.
If someone wants to put women on money, I totally support bringing back these bills, because they’re gorgeous.
There’s a certain sadness in looking at these and thinking, “Gosh, maybe people in the 1800s really were smarter than us.” Today, the five dollar bill would offend too many people (it has a breast on it!) and couldn’t get printed. We’ve become Philistines.
There’s also a sense of, “Wait, are you sure this the bad old days of women’s oppression, when people thought women were dumb and couldn’t handle higher education and shit?” Why would people who think women are dumb use women to illustrate the very concept of “science”?
Here’s a painting of MIT’s Alma Mater (Latin for “Nourishing Mother,”) finished in 1923:
(Sorry it’s a crappy photo. I couldn’t find any good photos.)
“Alma Mater,” of course, is used synonymously with “university.” That is, the university itself (all universities,) is female. From the description:
“The central panel is rigidly symmetrical, with the centrally enthroned Alma Mater approached by two groups of acolytes extending laurel wreaths. The composition deliberately recalls the tradition in Christian art of the ascending Madonna attended by saints and apostles. Alma Mater is surrounded by personifications of learning through the printed page, learning through experiment, and learning through the various branches of knowledge. They hover above the Charles River Basin, with a spectral hint of the MIT buildings in the background.”
Here’s a detail:
Unfortunately, I haven’t found good photos of the side paintings, but they sound dramatic:
“The two side panels … bring the elevated scene down to earth with trees that appear to grow straight up from the floor. Unexplained spectral figures glide through this grove. … The right panel, which has been identified as Humanity Led by Knowledge and Invention depicts a mother and children of varying ages progressing from Chaos to Light, accompanied by cherubs bearing the scales of Justice. On the left, the most dark and dramatic mural squarely faces the ethical challenge that has confronted science from the outset. The Latin inscription (from Genesis) in the roundel spells out: “Ye Shall Be Us Gods Knowing Good and Evil.” The lab-coated scientist is crowned by a figure said to be Hygenia (goddess of Health). He stands between two giant jars containing beneficent and malevolent gasses, symbolizing the constructive and destructive possibilities unleashed with every new discovery. With the horrors of the First World War still fresh, soldiers and diplomats gather at the Council table of the World. Dogs of war lurk near evil gasses, while Famine threatens the background. The strangely out-of-scale, dark colossal head within the shadow of the Tree of Knowledge is said to represent Nature; her relation to the rest of the drama is (perhaps deliberately) unclear.”
If you squint, you might be able to make them out:
Before art went to shit, the world was full of lovely paintings of things like “Liberty leading the People” or “The Arts and Sciences,” using allegorical human forms that relied upon people’s understanding and knowledge of ancient Greek mythology–not so ancient when people were actually reading it. I suspect there are so few good photos of this painting because people forget, when surrounded by splendor, that splendor is no longer normal.
This habit of using women as allegorical figures to represent science and learning goes back hundreds, if not thousands of years:
The “Liberal Arts” did not originally refer to silly university classes, but to the knowledge thought essential to the education of all free (liber) people, in order to participate properly in civic life. These essential studies were Grammar, Logic, Rhetoric, Arithmetic, Geometry, Music Theory, and Astronomy (one may assume that the functional ability to read is considered a basic prerequisite for learning, not an endpoint in itself as it is in our modern system.) These studies all culminate in their purist expression in Philosophy, the very love of wisdom.
Notice that all of these allegorical figures are women. Did the depiction of women as the purist ideal of mathematical knowledge make male students doubt their own self-worth and drive them away from serious study?
Then why do people think the inverse?
The trend can be traced back further:
Botticelli, Primavera
Boticelli depicts the Spring accompanied by the Greek Graces.
Raphael’s Parnassus
The Greek Muses were goddesses of inspiration for literature, science, and the arts. Different people list them differently, (I doubt there was ever any widespread agreement on exactly what the muses represented,) but the lists generally look like, “epic poetry, history, music, poetry, tragedy, hymns, dance, comedy, and astronomy,” or “music, science, geography, mathematics, philosophy, art, drama, and inspiration.”
And who can forget Athena herself, goddess of wisdom and warfare?
You may have noticed that I like science. I also like scientists–heck, let’s expand this to most of STEM. Good folks.
Scientists tend to be quiet, unassuming folks who get on with the business of making the world a better place by curing cancer, inventing airplanes, and developing the germ theory of disease.
I don’t like it when political ideas try to dictate science. It was bad enough when the Soviet Union tried it (and Maoist China, remember that exciting time when Mao declared that the concept of diminishing returns was bourgeois capitalist lies and that just planting more seeds in your fields would result in more crops, and then millions of people died? Fun times!)
Sometimes scientists say or think unpopular things, like that humans evolved from apes or that some human populations have lower IQs than others. Or that women cry easily or that Global Warming is real.
The mature reaction to someone saying something you find offensive is to make a logical counter-argument. (Or, you know, ignore them.) Indeed, as I’ve said before, one of the beauties of science is that the whole point of it is to disprove incorrect ideas. If there’s an idea floating around in science that you don’t like, well, disprove it with science!
If you can’t, then maybe you’re the one who’s wrong.
Republicans have traditionally been the anti-science side. 49% don’t believe in evolution, versus 37% do. Throwing Democrats and independents into the equation doesn’t help much–overall, 42% of Americans don’t believe in evolution, versus 50% who believe in some form of evolution, (including god-directed evolution):
Unfortunately, a lot of those people who claim to believe in evolution don’t.
For example, according to Gallop, 2005, the majority of Americans–68%–believe that men and women are equally good at math and science. Only 10% believe that men have an innate advantage in math and science, and 8% believe that women are superior.
Do you know how depressing this is? I mean, for starters, the question itself is badly worded. Men and women are about equal on average, but men are disproportionately represented at the high end of mathematical ability and at the low end. As I noted yesterday, this is a natural side effect of Y chromosome variation. But for the purposes of doing math and science as a career, which takes rather more than average talent, men do have an innate advantage.
But instead of getting intelligent discussions about these sorts of things, we get people shouting insults and trying to ruin each other’s careers.
This popped up on FB today:
Does this count as a microaggression?
“Sexist,” of course, is an insult, akin to saying that you hate women or believe that they are inherently inferior. So according to these people, anyone who thinks that, IDK, men are more aggressive on average because their brains produce more testosterone is a bad person. Never mind that science supports this notion pretty soundly.
(BTW, it’s pretty hard to argue that society’s anti-woman views are nefariously keeping women out of STEM when the majority of people think men and women are equally talented. For that matter, if there’s any group of people that I’ve found to be extremely accepting of and decent toward women, it’s the folks in STEM. Seriously, these guys are super awesome.)
So you may remember that whole kerfluffle in which Tim Hunt–some nobody who’s contributed nothing of worth to humanity except maybe Nobel Prize-winning work in Medicine/Physiology, small stuff on the scale of human achievement–made some comments about women in science and the entire world spent about 5 minutes losing their collective shit and then a lot of pictures of female scientists got posted on the internet. (Actually, the pictures are kind of nice.)
“The days that followed saw him unceremoniously hounded out of honorary positions at University College London (UCL), the Royal Society and the European Research Council (ERC).
“Under siege at his Hertfordshire home, he sank into despair.
“‘Tim sat on the sofa and started crying. Then I started crying,’ his wife, Professor Mary Collins (herself a prominent scientist) later recalled. ‘We just held on to each other.’”
When it came to light that Tim Hunt may have just been trying to make a joke–a bad one–the provost at his erstwhile University indicated that, (in The Guardian’s words) “Professor Hunt would not be reinstated, it was impossible for an institution to tolerate someone to whom they had awarded an honorary post, even a 71-year-old Nobel prize winner, expressing views even in jest that so comprehensively undermined its own reputation as a leading supporter of female scientists.”
I am just thrilled, oh so thrilled, that university science departments now see their primary purpose as public works programs for women, rather than, IDK, the pursuit of actual fucking science.
Do you know what happens to your science department when you stop focusing on science and turn it into a pity-festival for women? You end up with a bunch of women who can’t hack it in science. Accept men and women on their merits, and you end up with quality scientists. Accept people based on their qualities other than merit, and you end up with hacks.
BTW, I’m female.
You might think Hunt’s comments were totally silly (in which case, go ahead and ignore them,) but I’ve known couples that started in labs. I don’t think it’s any big secret that people sometimes fall in love with co-workers. Is this a problem? I don’t know. Do women cry more than men? Anecdotal experience says yes.
The intelligent response to Hunt’s comments (if you want to do anything at all,) would have been to document whether or not women cry at a higher rate than men when you criticize their lab work and whether lab romances are a problem–and if gender segregated labs would actually work any better, or end up with their own issues. The unintelligent response is to make a big deal out of how offended you are and try to get someone fired.
“The likes of Richard Dawkins and Brian Cox should focus on taking up the real issue of sexism in science. It is absurd to say that scientists can do and say what they like in the name of academic freedom.”
Let’s read that again. “It is absurd to say that scientists can do and say what they like in the name of academic freedom.”
What else does St Louis have to say?
“…eight Nobel laureates, plus the ubiquitous Richard Dawkins, have come out in support of Hunt. There are over 2,000 signatures on an online petition to reinstate him to his honorary post at UCL. Contrast this with 200+ signatures on a petition that I started calling on the Royal Society to elect its first female president. The Nobel eight made an idiotic attempt to equate the upset caused by Hunt’s ill advised and sexist comments with some kind of “chilling effect” on academics.”
Of course it has a chilling effect. No one wants to get fired. How does a journalist even presume to claim to know what does and doesn’t have a chilling effect on someone else’s profession, when rather respected people in that profession are claiming that chilling effects exist?
Hell, there’s a reason this blog is anonymous, and it’s people like Connie St Louis. But she continues:
“This is an absurd idea and deserves to be outed for what it is, a deeply cynical attempt to say that scientists can do and say what they like. In the name of academic freedom? Is science so special that any old sexist (or for that matter racist) words that they utter are allowed? The answer is and must be a resounding no.”
Free inquiry is dead.
Remember whom to thank when we all die of cancer plague.
Important Update: Looks like my sources were wrong and Lt. White has not been charged, but is considering charging him. The text below has been changed accordingly.
Anarcho-tyranny is when the state itself imposes anarchy on its population and punishes them for trying to rectify the situation. It refers most egregiously to situations where people cannot legally defend their own lives or property, or where they are charged with crimes after defending themselves.
You remember this case. A man–we shall call him a Muslim terrorist–walked into a Navy recruitment office and opened fire. The center’s commanding officer, Lt. White, returned fire, probably killing the shooter (there was another gun on the premises that may also have been used, but that shooter is dead and so won’t be charged with any crimes.) and saving the lives of many people. Lt. White faces a minimum of 20 years in prison for bringing a firearm onto a no-guns Federal property.
Now, as far as gun laws themselves are concerned, I’m pretty agnostic. I’m neither on the “everyone should have their own machine gun” side, nor on the “all guns are evil” side. It is pretty obvious to me that different conditions–like, are there bears in your neighborhood?–should probably lead to different laws. I am in favor, however, of not punishing people for good deeds, and for letting them defend themselves.
The whole point of having a gun-free zone is to prevent violence; if the government cannot guarantee the safety of people in those zones, then the government has failed. People must be able to go about their business without fear of random violence; if violence is a problem, then people must be allowed to take steps to protect themselves, like installing metal detectors or taking self-defense classes, or the government must step in and protect them, say, by increasing police patrols. To prevent the former while failing to do the latter creates the conditions of anarcho-tyranny–people are legally prohibited from defending themselves while the gov’t does nothing to defend them.
Lt. White’s violation of the law saved the lives of multiple people. His actions are a clear case that should not be prosecuted; rather,the government should investigate ways to make its no-gun areas safe.
The over-proliferation of laws–legal over-criminalization and over-regulation–is partly a side effect of an over-large government that’s been around for longer than almost any other government on Earth (no, seriously, most governments got their start post-WWII) and so had a long time to make legislation, and partly a side effect of trying to get a bunch of different people with different social norms to get along together in one big country.
For example, Freedom of Speech–one of our core American values–allows one to insult the leaders of major religious groups. But Muslims tend to really dislike seeing their Prophet disrespected. Put both groups in close contact, and one or the other (or both) is liable to be highly unhappy. The result–more laws trying to clarify when it’s okay to be offensive and when it’s not–tends not so much to make people happier, as to make life a bigger pain in the butt for everyone involved. (The obvious solution, IMO, is that people who want to insult Mohammad and people who don’t want to see Mohammad insulted shouldn’t talk to each other.)
More and more regulations are a creeping, silent tax. Small businesses especially hare hard-hit by ever-increasing regulations to keep track of and comply with; eventually the winners are those with the spare budget to afford armies of lawyers to wade through the legislation, or those who cheat. Increasing regulations disincentivise honesty.
Gun laws, as I understand them, have gotten to a similarly complicated state. Of course, there is always some conflict between keeping guns out of the hands of criminals, and keeping guns in the hands of people who would defend themselves from criminals. In this case, I am inclined to think that Navy officers probably aren’t criminals, whether on Federal property or not.
The reasons for the gun-free zones like the one Lt. White was caught in probably stem from the crime wave of the late ’80s/early 90s–the “Gun Free School Zones Act,” for example, was passed in 1990. That crime wave had nothing to do with Naval officers carrying guns at Naval recruitment offices, but everything to do with the impact of the crack/cocaine trade on inner city ghetto (black and Hispanic) homicide rates and gang wars.
Anarcho-tyranny is using laws intended to stop black and Hispanic gang violence to punish whites for defending themselves against Muslim terrorists.
Important backstory: once upon a time, I made some offhand comments about mental health/psychiatric drugs that accidentally influenced someone else to go off their medication, which began a downward spiral that ended with them in the hospital after attempting suicide. Several years later, you could still see the words “I suck” scarred into their skin.
There were obviously some other nasty things that had nothing to do with me before the attempt, but regardless, there’s an important lesson: don’t say stupid ass things about mental health shit you know nothing about.
Also, don’t take mental health advice from people who don’t know what they’re talking about.
In my entirely inadequate defense, I was young and very dumb. David Walker is neither–and he is being published by irresponsible people who ought to know better.
To be clear: I am not a psychiatrist. I’m a dumb person on the internet with opinions. I am going to do my very damn best to counteract even dumber ideas, but for god’s sakes, if you have mental health issues, consult with someone with actual expertise in the field.
Also, you know few things bug me like watching science and logic be abused. So let’s get down to business:
This is one of those articles where SJW-logic plus sketchy research of the sort that I suspect originated with funding from guys trying to prove that all mental illnesses were caused by Galactic Overlord Xenu combine to make a not very satisfying article. I suppose it is petty to complain that the piece didn’t flow well, but still, it irked.
Basically, to sum: The Indian Health Service is evil because it uses standard psychiatry language and treatment–the exact same language and treatment as everyone else in the country is getting–instead of filling its manuals with a bunch of social-justice buzzwords like “colonization” and “historical trauma”. The article does not tell us how, exactly, inclusion of these buzzwords is supposed to actually change the practice of psychiatry–part of what made the piece frustrating on a technical level.
The author then makes a bunch of absolutist claims about standard depression treatment that range from the obviously false to matters of real debate in the field. Very few of his claims are based on what I’d call “settled science”–and if you’re going to make absolutist claims about medical related things, please, try to only say things that are actually settled.
The crux of Walker’s argument is a claim that anti-depressants actually kill people and decrease libido, so therefore the IHS is committing genocide by murdering Indians and preventing the births of new ones.
Ugh, when I put it like that, it sounds so obviously dumb.
Some actual quotes:
“In the last 40 years, certain English words and phrases have become more acceptable to indigenous scholars, thought leaders, and elders for describing shared Native experiences. They include genocide, cultural destruction, colonization, forced assimilation, loss of language, boarding school, termination, historical trauma and more general terms, such as racism, poverty, life expectancy, and educational barriers. There are many more.”
Historical trauma is horribly sad, of course, but as a cause for depression, I suspect it ranks pretty low. If historical trauma suffered by one’s ancestors results in continued difficulties several generations down the line, then the descendants of all traumatized groups ought to show similar effects. Most of Europe got pretty traumatized during WWII, but most of Europe seems to have recovered. Even the Jews, who practically invented modern psychiatry, use standard psychiatric models for talking about their depression without invoking the Holocaust. (Probably because depression rates are pretty low in Israel.)
But if you want to pursue this line of argument, you would need to show first that Indians are being diagnosed with depression (or other mental disorders) at a higher rate than the rest of the population, and then you would want to show that a large % of the excess are actually suffering some form of long-term effects of historical trauma. Third, you’d want to show that some alternative method of treatment is more effective than the current method.
To be fair, I am sure there are many ways that psychiatry sucks or could be improved. I just prefer good arguments on the subject.
“…the agency’s behavioral health manual mentions psychiatrist and psychiatric 23 times, therapy 18 times, pharmacotherapy, medication, drugs, and prescription 16 times, and the word treatment, a whopping 89 times. But it only uses the word violence once, and you won’t find a single mention of genocide, cultural destruction, colonization, historical trauma, etc.—nor even racism, poverty, life expectancy or educational barriers.”
It’s absolutely shocking that a government-issued psychiatry manual uses standard terms used in the psychiatry field like “medication” and “psychiatrist,” but doesn’t talk about particular left-wing political theories. It’s almost like the gov’t is trying to be responsible and follow accepted practice in the field or something. Of course, to SJWs, even medical care should be sacrificed before the altar of advancing the buzz-word agenda.
“This federal agency doesn’t acknowledge the reality of oppression within the lives of Native people.”
and… so? I know it sucks to deal with people who don’t acknowledge what you’re going through. My own approach to such people is to avoid them. If you don’t like what the IHS has to offer, then offer something better. Start your own organization offering support to people suffering from historical trauma. If your system is superior, you’ll not only benefit thousands (perhaps millions!) of people, and probably become highly respected and well-off in the process. Even if you, personally, don’t have the resources to start such a project, surely someone does.
If you can’t do that, you can at least avoid the IHS if you don’t like them. No one is forcing you to go to them.
BTW, in case you are wondering what the IHS is, here’s what Wikipedia has to say about them:
“The Indian Health Service (IHS) is an operating division (OPDIV) within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). IHS is responsible for providing medical and public health services to members of federally recognized Tribes and Alaska Natives. … its goal is to raise their health status to the highest possible level. … IHS currently provides health services to approximately 1.8 million of the 3.3 million American Indians and Alaska Natives who belong to more than 557 federally recognized tribes in 35 states. The agency’s annual budget is about $4.3 billion (as of December 2011).”
Sounds nefarious. So who runs this evil agency of health?
“The IHS employs approximately 2,700 nurses, 900 physicians, 400 engineers, 500 pharmacists, and 300 dentists, as well as other health professionals totaling more than 15,000 in all. The Indian Health Service is one of two federal agencies mandated to use Indian Preference in hiring. This law requires the agency to give preference hiring to qualified Indian applicants before considering non-Indian candidates for positions. … The Indian Health Service is headed by Dr. Yvette Roubideaux, M.D., M.P.H., a member of the Rosebud Sioux in South Dakota.”
So… the IHS, run by Indians, is trying to genocide other Indians by giving them mental health care?
And maybe I’m missing something, but don’t you think Dr. Roubideaux has some idea about the historical oppression of her own people?
Then we get into some anti-Pfizer/Zoloft business:
“For about a decade, IHS has set as one of its goals the detection of Native depression. [How evil of them!] This has been done by seeking to widen use of the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9), which asks patients to describe to what degree they feel discouraged, downhearted, tired, low appetite, unable to sleep, slow-moving, easily distracted or as though life is no longer worth living.
The PHQ-9 was developed in the 1990s for drug behemoth Pfizer Corporation by prominent psychiatrist and contract researcher Robert Spitzer and several others. Although it owns the copyright, Pfizer offers the PHQ-9 for free use by primary health care providers. Why so generous? Perhaps because Pfizer is a top manufacturer of psychiatric medications, including its flagship antidepressant Zoloft® which earned the company as much as $2.9 billion annually before it went generic in 2006.”
I agree that it is reasonable to be skeptical of companies trying to sell you things, but the mere fact that a company is selling a product does not automatically render it evil. For example, the umbrella company makes money if you buy umbrellas, but that doesn’t make the umbrella company evil. Pfizer wants to promote its product, but also wants to make sure it gets prescribed properly.
” Even with the discovery that the drug can increase the risk of birth defects, 41 million prescriptions for Zoloft® were filled in 2013.”
Probably to people who weren’t pregnant.
“The DSM III-R created 110 new psychiatric labels, a number that had climbed by another 100 more by the time I started working at an IHS clinic in 2000.
Around that time, Pfizer, like many other big pharmaceutical corporations, was pouring millions of dollars into lavish marketing seminars disguised as “continuing education” on the uses of psychiatric medication for physicians and nurses with no mental health training.
… After this event, several primary care colleagues began touting their new expertise in mental health, and I was regularly advised that psychiatric medications were (obviously) the new “treatment of choice.” ”
Seriously, he’s claiming that psychiatric medications were the “new” “treatment of choice” in the year 2000? Zoloft was introduced in 1991. Prozac revolutionized the treatment of depression way back in 1987. Walker’s off by over a decade.
Now, as Scott Alexander says, beware the man of one study: you can visit Prozac and Zoloft’s Wikipedia pages yourself and read the debate about effectiveness.
Long story short, as I understand it: psychiatric medication is actually way cheaper than psychological therapy. If your primary care doctor can prescribe you Zoloft, then you can skip paying to see a psychiatrist all together.
Back in the day, before we had much in the way of medication for anything, the preferred method for helping people cope with their problems was telling them that they secretly wanted to fuck their mothers. This sounds dumb, but it beats the shit out of locking up mentally ill people in asylums where they tended to die hideously. Unfortunately, talking to people about their problems doesn’t seem to have worked all that well, though you could bill a ton for half hour session every week for forty years straight or until the patient ran out of money.
Modern anti-depressant medications appear to actually work for people with moderate to severe depression, though last time I checked, medication combined with therapy/support had the best outcomes–if anything, I suspect a lot of people could use a lot more support in their lives.
I should clarify: when I say “work,” I don’t mean they cure the depression. This has not been my personal observation of the depressed people I know, though maybe they do for some people. What they do seem to do is lessen the severity of the depression, allowing the depressed person to function.
” Since those days, affixing the depression label to Native experience has become big business. IHS depends a great deal upon this activity—follow-up “medication management” encounters allow the agency to pull considerable extra revenue from Medicaid. One part of the federal government supplements funding for the other. That’s one reason it might be in the best interest of IHS to diagnose and treat depression, rather than acknowledge the emotional and behavioral difficulties resulting from chronic, intergenerational oppression.”
It’s totally awful of the US gov’t to give free medication and health care to people. Medically responsible follow up to make sure the patients are responding properly to their medication and not having awful side effects is especially evil. The government should totally cut that out. From now on, lets cancel health services for the Native Peoples. That will totally end oppression.
Also, anyone who has ever paid an ounce of attention to anything the government does knows that expanding the IHS’s mandate to acknowledge the results of oppression would increase their funding, not decrease it.
Forgive me if it sounds a bit like Walker is actually trying to increase his pay.
“The most recent U.S. Public Health Service practice guidelines, which IHS primary care providers are required to use, states that “depression is a medical illness,” and in a nod to Big Pharma suppliers like Pfizer, serotonin-correcting medications (SSRIs) like Zoloft® “are frequently recommended as first-line antidepressant treatment options.” ”
My god, they use completely standard terminology and make factual statements about their field! Just like, IDK, all other mental healthcare providers in the country and throughout most of the developed world.
“This means IHS considers Native patients with a positive PHQ-9 screen to be mentally ill with depression.”
Dude, this means the that patients of EVERY RACE with a positive PHQ-9 are mentally ill with depression. Seriously, it’s not like Pfizer issues a separate screening guide for different races. If I visit a shrink, I’m going to get the exact same questionaires as you are.
Also, yes, depression is considered a mental illness, but Walker knows as well as I do that there’s a big difference between mentally ill with depression and, say, mentally ill with untreated schizophrenia.
” instance, the biomedical theory IHS is still promoting is obsolete. After more than 50 years of research, there’s no valid Western science to back up this theory of depression (or any other psychiatric disorder besides dementia and intoxication). There’s no chemical imbalance to correct.”
Slate Star Codex did a very long and thorough takedown of this particular claim: simply put, Walker is full of shit and should be ashamed of himself. The “chemical imbalance” model of depression, while an oversimplification, is actually pretty darn accurate, mostly because your brain is full of chemicals. As Scott Alexander points out:
“And this starts to get into the next important point I want to bring up, which is chemical imbalance is a really broad idea.
Like, some of these articles seem to want to contrast the “discredited” chemical imbalance theory with up-and-coming “more sophisticated” theories based on hippocampal neurogenesis and neuroinflammation. Well, I have bad news for you. Hippocampal neurogenesis is heavily regulated by brain-derived neutrophic factor, a chemical. Neuroinflammation is mediated by cytokines. Which are also chemicals. Do you think depression is caused by stress? The stress hormone cortisol is…a chemical. Do you think it’s entirely genetic? Genes code for proteins – chemicals again. Do you think it’s caused by poor diet? What exactly do you think food is made of?”
One of the most important things about the “chemical imbalance model” is that it helps the patient (again quoting Scott):
” People come in with depression, and they think it means they’re lazy, or they don’t have enough willpower, or they’re bad people. Or else they don’t think it, but their families do: why can’t she just pull herself up with her own bootstraps, make a bit of an effort? Or: we were good parents, we did everything right, why is he still doing this? Doesn’t he love us?
And I could say: “Well, it’s complicated, but basically in people who are genetically predisposed, some sort of precipitating factor, which can be anything from a disruption in circadian rhythm to a stressful event that increases levels of cortisol to anything that activates the immune system into a pro-inflammatory mode, is going to trigger a bunch of different changes along metabolic pathways that shifts all of them into a different attractor state. This can involve the release of cytokines which cause neuroinflammation which shifts the balance between kynurinins and serotonin in the tryptophan pathway, or a decrease in secretion of brain-derived neutrotrophic factor which inhibits hippocampal neurogenesis, and for some reason all of this also seems to elevate serotonin in the raphe nuclei but decrease it in the hippocampus, and probably other monoamines like dopamine and norepinephrine are involved as well, and of course we can’t forget the hypothalamopituitaryadrenocortical axis, although for all I know this is all total bunk and the real culprit is some other system that has downstream effects on all of these or just…”
Or I could say: “Fuck you, it’s a chemical imbalance.””
I’m going to quote Scott a little more:
“I’ve previously said we use talk of disease and biology to distinguish between things we can expect to respond to rational choice and social incentives and things that don’t. If I’m lying in bed because I’m sleepy, then yelling at me to get up will solve the problem, so we call sleepiness a natural state. If I’m lying in bed because I’m paralyzed, then yelling at me to get up won’t change anything, so we call paralysis a disease state. Talk of biology tells people to shut off their normal intuitive ways of modeling the world. Intuitively, if my son is refusing to go to work, it means I didn’t raise him very well and he doesn’t love me enough to help support the family. If I say “depression is a chemical imbalance”, well, that means that the problem is some sort of complicated science thing and I should stop using my “mirror neurons” and my social skills module to figure out where I went wrong or where he went wrong. …
“What “chemical imbalance” does for depression is try to force it down to this lower level, tell people to stop trying to use rational and emotional explanations for why their friend or family member is acting this way. It’s not a claim that nothing caused the chemical imbalance – maybe a recent breakup did – but if you try to use your normal social intuitions to determine why your friend or family member is behaving the way they are after the breakup, you’re going to get screwy results. …
“So this is my answer to the accusation that psychiatry erred in promoting the idea of a “chemical imbalance”. The idea that depression is a drop-dead simple serotonin deficiency was never taken seriously by mainstream psychiatry. The idea that depression was a complicated pattern of derangement in several different brain chemicals that may well be interacting with or downstream from other causes has always been taken seriously, and continues to be pretty plausible. Whatever depression is, it’s very likely it will involve chemicals in some way, and it’s useful to emphasize that fact in order to convince people to take depression seriously as something that is beyond the intuitively-modeled “free will” of the people suffering it. “Chemical imbalance” is probably no longer the best phrase for that because of the baggage it’s taken on, but the best phrase will probably be one that captures a lot of the same idea.”
Back to the article.
Walker states, ” Even psychiatrist Ronald Pies, editor-in-chief emeritus of Psychiatric Times, admitted “the ‘chemical imbalance’ notion was always a kind of urban legend.” ”
Oh, look, Dr. Pies was kind enough to actually comment on the article. You can scroll to the bottom to read his evisceration of Walker’s points–” …First, while I have indeed called the “chemical imbalance” explanation of mood disorders an “urban legend”—it was never a real theory propounded by well-informed psychiatrists—this in no way means that antidepressants are ineffective, harmful, or no better than “sugar pills.” The precise mechanism of action of antidepressants is not relevant to how effective they are, when the patient is properly diagnosed and carefully monitored. …
” Even Kirsch’s data (which have been roundly criticized if not discredited) found that antidepressants were more effective than the placebo condition for severe major depression. In a re-analysis of the United States Food and Drug Administration database studies previously analyzed by Kirsch et al, Vöhringer and Ghaemi concluded that antidepressant benefit is seen not only in severe depression but also in moderate (though not mild) depression. …
” While there is no clear evidence that antidepressants significantly reduce suicide rates, neither is there convincing evidence that they increase suicide rates.”
Here’s my own suspicion: depressed people on anti-depressants have highs and lows, just like everyone else, but because their medication can’t completely 100% cure them, sooner or later they end up feeling pretty damn shitty during a low point and start thinking about suicide or actually try it.
However, Pies notes that there are plenty of studies that have found that anti-depressants reduce a person’s overall risk of suicide.
In other words, Walker is, at best, completely misrepresenting the science to make his particular side sound like the established wisdom in the field when he is, in fact, on the minority side. That doesn’t guarantee that he’s wrong–it just means he is a liar.
And you know what I think about liars.
And you can probably imagine what I think about liars who lie in ways that might endanger the mental health of other people and cause them to commit suicide.
But wait, he keeps going:
“In an astonishing twist, researchers working with the World Health Organization (WHO) concluded that building more mental health services is a major factor in increasing the suicide rate. This finding may feel implausible, but it’s been repeated several times across large studies. WHO first studied suicide in relation to mental health systems in 100 countries in 2004, and then did so again in 2010, concluding that:
“[S]uicide rates… were increased in countries with mental health legislation, there was a significant positive correlation between suicide rates, and the percentage of the total health budget spent on mental health; and… suicide rates… were higher in countries with greater provision of mental health services, including the number of psychiatric beds, psychiatrists and psychiatric nurses, and the availability of training in mental health for primary care professionals.””
Do you know why I’ve been referring to Walker as “Walker” and not “Dr. Walker,” despite his apparent PhD? It’s because anyone who does not understand the difference between correlation and causation does not deserve a doctorate degree–or even a highschool degree–of any sort. Maybe people spend more on mental health because of suicides?
Oh, look, here’s the map he uses to support his claim:
Look at all those high-mental healthcare spending African countries!
I don’t know about you, but it looks to me like the former USSR, India/Bhutan/Nepal, Sub-Saharan Africa, Guyana, and Japan & the Koreas have the highest suicide rates in the world. Among these countries, all but Japan and S. Korea are either extremely poor and probably have little to no public spending on mental healthcare, or are former Soviet countries that are both less-developed than their lower-suicide brothers to the West and whatever is going on in them is probably related to them all being former Soviet countries, rather than their fabulous mental healthcare funding.
In other words, this map shows the opposite of what Walker claims it does.
Again, this doesn’t mean he’s necessarily wrong. It just means that the data on the subject is mixed and does not clearly support his case in the manner he claims.
” Despite what’s known about their significant limitations and scientific groundlessness, antidepressants are still valued by some people for creating “emotional numbness,” according to psychiatric researcher David Healy.”
So they don’t have any effects, but people keep using them for their… effects? Which is it? Do they work or not work?
And emotional numbness is a damn sight better than wanting to kill yourself. That Walker does not recognize this shows just how disconnected he is from the realities of life for many people struggling with depression.
“The side effect of antidepressants, however, in decreasing sexual energy (libido) is much stronger than this numbing effect—sexual disinterest or difficulty becoming aroused or achieving orgasm occurs in as many as 60 percent of consumers.”
Which, again, is still better than wanting to kill yourself. I hear death really puts a dent in your sex life.
However, I will note that this is a real side effect, and if you are taking anti-depressants and really can’t stand the mood kill (pardon the pun,) talk to your doctor, because there’s always the possibility that a different medication will treat your depression without affecting your libido.
“A formal report on IHS internal “Suicide Surveillance” data issued by Great Lakes Inter-Tribal Epidemiology Center states the suicide rate for all U.S. adults currently hovers at 10 for every 100,000 people, while for the Native patients IHS tracked, the rate was 17 per 100,000. This rate varied widely across the regions IHS serves—in California it was 5.5, while in Alaska, 38.5.”
Interesting statistics. I’m guessing the difference between Alaska and California holds true for whites, too–I suspect it’s the long, cold, dark winters.
“In 2013, the highest U.S. suicide rate (14.2) was among Whites and the second highest rate (11.7) was among American Indians and Alaska Natives (Figure 5). Much lower and roughly similar rates were found among Asians and Pacific Islanders (5.8), Blacks (5.4) and Hispanics (5.7).”
Their graph:
So much for that claim
Hey, do you know which American ethnic group also has a history of trauma and oppression? Besides the Jews. Black people.
If trauma and oppression leads to depression and suicide, then the black suicide rate ought to be closer to the Indian suicide rate, and the white rate ought to be down at the bottom.
I guess this is a point in favor of my “whites are depressive” theory, though.
Also, “In 2013, nine U.S. states, all in the West, had age-adjusted suicide rates in excess of 18: Montana (23.7), Alaska (23.1), Utah (21.4), Wyoming (21.4), New Mexico (20.3), Idaho (19.2), Nevada (18.2), Colorado (18.5), and South Dakota (18.2). Five locales had age-adjusted suicide rates lower than 9 per 100,000: District of Columbia (5.8), New Jersey (8.0), New York (8.1), Massachusetts (8.2), and Connecticut (8.7).”
States by suicide rate
Hrm, looks like there’s also a guns and impulsivity/violence correlation–I think the West was generally settled by more violent, impulsive whites who like the rough and tumble lifestyle, and where there are guns, people kill themselves with them.
I bet CA has some restrictive gun laws and some extensive mental health services.
You know the dark blue doesn’t look like it correllates with?
Healthcare funding.
Back to Walker. “Nearly one in four of these suicidal medication overdoses used psychiatric medications. The majority of these medications originated through the Indian Health Service itself and included amphetamine and stimulants, tricyclic and other antidepressants, sedatives, benzodiazepines, and barbiturates.”
Shockingly, people diagnosed with depression sometimes try to commit suicide.
Wait, aren’t amphetamines and “stimulants” used primarily for treating conditions like ADHD or to help people stay awake, not depression? And aren’t sedatives, benzos, and barbiturates used primarily for things like anxiety and pain relief? I don’t think these were the drugs Walker is looking for.
” What’s truly remarkable is that this is not the first time the mental health movement in Indian Country has helped to destroy Native people. Today’s making of a Mentally Ill Indian to “treat” is just a variation on an old idea, … The Native mental health system has been a tool of cultural genocide for over 175 years—seven generations. Long before there was this Mentally Ill Indian to treat, this movement was busy creating and perpetuating the Crazy Indian, the Dumb Indian, and the Drunken Indian.”
Walker’s depiction of the past may be accurate. His depiction of the present sounds like total nonsense.
” We must make peace with the fabled Firewater Myth, a false tale of heightened susceptibility to alcoholism and substances that even Native people sometimes tell themselves.”
The fuck? Of course Indians are more susceptible to alcoholism than non-Indians–everyone on earth whose ancestors haven’t had a long exposure to wheat tends to handle alcohol badly. Hell, the Scottich are more susceptible to alcoholism than, say, the Greeks:
Some people just have trouble with alcohol. Like the Russians.
Look, I don’t know if the IHS does a good job. Maybe its employes are poorly-trained, abrasive pharmaceutical shills who diagnose everyone who comes through their doors with depression and then prescribes them massive quantities of barbiturates.
And it could well be that the American psychiatric establishment is doing all sorts of things wrong.
But the things Walker cites in the article don’t indicate anything of the sort.
And for goodness sakes, if you’re depressed or have any other mental health problem, get advice from someone who actually knows what they’re talking about.
The Huffington Post reports that The Murder Rate for Hispanics is Twice that for Whites. HuffPo is talking about victimization rates–that is, the number of Hispanics murdered, not murdering. But murder is largely a within-group phenomenon–that is, people tend to target their own–so most of those dead Hispanics were probably killed by other Hispanics.
The Color of Crime reports incarceration rates that match HuffPo’s victimization rates:
(And, in general, the Color of Crime report demonstrates that incarceration rates reflect actual offending rates.)
Note that the Color of Crime graph is not an absolute rate, but a multiple–a multiple of 1 means that the crime rate is equal to the white crime rate; a multiple of 2 means it is twice the white crime rate; a multiple of 0.5 means the rate is half that of whites. Asians tend to offend at statistically insignificant rates. Pacific Islanders apparently really like stealing cars (maybe it’s just easier to find stolen cars on a small island in the middle of the ocean than on a big continent.) High manslaughter among the Indians is probably a result of drunk driving. And Hispanics commit all crimes at a rate of slightly less than 2.5 times that of whites.
“Ah, but “Hispanics” and “Hispanic immigrants” are not the same group,” I hear you saying. That is irrelevant; the children of immigrants only get here via their parents immigrating, and it appears that the children of immigrants actually have much higher crime rates than their parents. No one is comforted that their attacker’s parents were immigrants, rather than immigrants themselves. Either way, immigration is at play.
Other people estimate other crime rates:
Source: La Griffe du Lion, Crime and the Hispanic Effect. In this case, the match between the HuffPo data and the Color of Crime data makes me trust it better than La Griffe du Lion’s, even though I normally find La Griffe pretty credible.
Why such debate over crime rates? Because the FBI hasn’t historically counted “Hispanics” in its crime stats (though I hear they are going to start.) “Hispanic” isn’t a race, it’s just a word that means that you or your ancestors spoke Spanish. Hispanics therefore can be–and are–members of any race.
Now, there is quite obviously something major going on in our data: the black crime rate. Yes, the Hispanic crime rate is lower than the black crime rate.
Let’s play with some numbers. Let’s suppose we’ve got 320 million Americans. We’ll estimate the black crime rate at 20 out of 1000, the white at 5/1000, and the Hispanic at 10/1ooo.
If our population is 10% black + 90% white = 2 black crimes / 1000 + 4.5 white crimes / 1000 = 2,080,000 total crimes. (This reflects the demographics of 1920.)
If our population is 10% black + 65% white + 25% Hispanic = 2 black crimes / 1000 + 3.25 white crimes / 1000 + 2.5 Hispanic crimes / 1000 = 2,160,000 total crimes. (This is closer to our modern demographics.)
That is, 80,000 extra crimes per year.
(Obviously I am simplifying by leaving out small groups like Indians and Asians, [who don’t particularly commit much crime, anyway.])
Why yes, Barbie, math is hard. But this is 5th grade math. Murdoch really ought to have mastered it already.
But what about El Paso? According to Wikipedia list of cities by crime rate, Plano, TX, has 1/3 the violent crime rate of El Paso. Its murder rate is less than 12% of El Paso’s. If you’ve ever been to Plano, the reasons are obvious: It’s full of Asians and middle class whites, and Asians don’t commit much crime. Lincoln, Nebraska is also safer than El Paso, and Portland, Oregon has a lower murder rate.
El Paso’s relatively low crime rate is because violent crime in the US is largely driven by black crime rates, and there aren’t a lot of blacks in El Paso. If you happen to replace a black community with an Hispanic one, you will get a lower crime rate. But unlike whites, blacks as a percent of the US haven’t really been dropping, so this would only be a local effect.
Also, I do wonder whether El Paso’s not-legally-in-the-country sub-population is very likely to call the police when crimes against them occur.
At any rate, let’s have a look at Mexico’s murder rate:
Mexico is one of the top scorers, at 21.5. The US rate is 4.7.
Now, immigration is not random, so a country’s emigrants aren’t necessarily going to reflect the country’s overall crime rates. But since criminality does have a fairly large genetic component, the Mexican (and other Latin American countries’) crime rates are high enough to give pause.
What about the claim that all immigrants have a lower crime rate than Americans?
That depends, I suppose, on how we define “all immigrants.” Are we speaking globally of the aggregate of all immigrants headed anywhere? I have no idea if anyone has even collected such data. According to the Wikipedia page on Immigration and Crime,
“The Handbook of Crime Correlates (2009), a review of studies of correlates with crime, states that most studies on immigrants have found higher rates of crime. However, this varies greatly depending on the country of origin, with immigrants from some regions having lower crime rates than the indigenous population. In the US, studies have found lower crime rates among immigrants than among non-immigrants. Other studies suggest that immigration generally does not lead to an increase in crime, and may in some instances, suppress such trends. Other statistics, such as those from Europe, show higher crime rates among immigrant populations.”
In other words, trying to aggregate all immigrants is dumb, because different immigrant groups (and their children) commit crime at different rates. Japanese immigrants in LA have a different crime rate than Somalis in Minneapolis (and not because of any inherent differences between LA and Minneapolis.) Indonesian immigrants have low crime rates; Moroccans have higher rates.
Here are some more quotes from the Wikipedia page on immigration and crime:
“the relative proportion … of crimes by non-Japanese is substantially higher than those by Japanese … per capita Africans are responsible for 3.5 times as much crime as Japanese natives.
“According to the figures from Danmarks Statistik, crime rate among refugees and their descendants is 73% higher than for the male population average, even when taking into account their socioeconomic background. A report from Teori- og Metodecentret from 2006 found that seven out of ten young people placed on the secured youth institutions in Denmark are immigrants (with 40 percent of them being refugees).
“According to official statistics, 21.0% of rapes have been committed by foreigners in Finland. Foreigners comprise 2.2% of the population.
“A 2006 study found that the share of immigrants has a positive and significant impact on the crime rate …
“In Berlin, young male immigrants are three times more likely to commit violent crimes than their German peers.
“Official statistics show that immigrants are responsible for about half of the criminal activity in Greece. The Greek police have admitted that armed gangs entering the country from neighbouring Albania or Bulgaria could have been attracted by reports that many people have been withdrawing cash from banks and stashing it in their homes.
” More than half of Moroccan-Dutch youths aged 18 to 24 years in Rotterdam have been in trouble with the police for the suspicion of a crime. Young Antillean and Surinamese Rotterdammers are strongly overrepresented in crime statistics. Of them, 40 percent have been suspected. Of indigenous young people aged from 18 to 24, 18% percent already came in contact with criminal law. … of 447 criminal files, 63% teenagers convicted of serious crime are children of parents born outside the Netherlands. … The proportion of these persons in the suspect population is therefore almost twice as high as the share of immigrants among the Dutch population. The highest suspect rates per capita are found among first (4.9) and second generation (7.1) male migrants from a non‐western background. Rates for so‐called ‘western migrants’ are very close to those of the native Dutch.
“The report shows that, of 131 individuals charged with the 152 [Norwegian] rapes in which the perpetrator could be identified, 45.8% were of African, Middle Eastern or Asian origin while 54.2% were of Norwegian, other European or American origin.
“In Switzerland, 69.7% of prison population had no Swiss citizenship, compared to 22.1% of total resident population (as of 2008).
“[In Sweden,] immigrants were found to be four times more likely to be investigated for lethal violence and robbery than ethnic Swedes. In addition, immigrants were three times more likely to be investigated for violent assault, and five times more likely to be investigated for sex crimes. Overall, North Africa and Western Asia were strongly overrepresented in the crime statistics.”
Okay, so clearly some immigrants, in some places, commit crime. But what about immigrants in the US?
“According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics in 2001, 4% of Hispanic males in their twenties and thirties were in prison or jail, compared to 1.8% of non-Hispanic white males.”
Occidental Dissent has done everyone a favor and disaggregated the Arizona Crime data by race, producing these colorful pie charts:
The crime rate among Asian immigrants, by contrast, is of course very low–down around 30% (or less) of the white rate. It makes a big difference where your immigrants come from.
Now, there is more to life than crime rates. But I reserve the right to decide which kind of risks and how much of them I am willing to take, based on actual, honest data, not based on mass media billionaire owners lying to me.
Why is Murdoch lying?
Perhaps he’s just really dumb. Or maybe he lives in a really rich area where crime (and unemployment) just aren’t things people worry about. Maybe he’s just trying to signal liberal tribal identity. Or maybe–like many people in the business of employing other people–he stands to personally benefit from the importation of millions of low-wage migrants.
While we’re at it:
No, no. That’s Ron Paul. Ron Paul is a libertarian. Rand Paul is a regular ol’ conservative. I know they’re easy to confuse since their names sound similar, but if I can keep them straight, then so can you.
Leftist ideology (cultural Marxism) ascribes all observed statistical differences in group performance to nefarious cultural forces, therefore nefarious cultural forces must be at work everywhere, therefore you must be oppressed at all times, thus you must dedicate yourself to finding the oppression in every aspect and moment of your life. So we deconstruct every movie, commercial, TV show and book, searching for the hidden oppression that will explain why more of us aren’t math professors or CEOs or magical flying unicorns.
If more people have seen the latest Avengers Movie* than got raped in Rotherham, then the portrayal of women in the Avengers must be what’s holding women back. A white woman who loved black people so much she pretended to be black people and spent her life trying to advance black causes must secretly be causing racism.
I remember my days in the feminist trenches. (In my defense, I was in college.) Reading daily about rape and abuse is quite stressful. Our brains aren’t great at coping with information systems that aren’t neighborhood gossip, which results in massively overestimating the likelihood of rare events just because people are talking about them.
Convincing yourself that every interaction is oppressive, threatening, and dangerous creates feedback loops of anxiety and fear, making people miserable as fuck.
I want to move toward a political/social system and discourse are based on trust, rational discussion, and not making ourselves miserable.
![BangHeadHere_thumb[9]](https://evolutionistx.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/bangheadhere_thumb9.gif)
