Foreigners

[jim]

Krice, way back in the thread, I halfway asked you whether you felt that human beings have a basic duty to attend to the welfare of their fellow human, regardless of race or nationality. What are your thoughts there?

[Krice]

I halfway asked you whether you felt that human beings have a basic duty to attend to the welfare of their fellow human, regardless of race or nationality. What are your thoughts there?

It's not that simple. Yes, it's a good rule. But our resources are not without limits. Why should we take care of people from other countries, just because their own country sucks? We also have unemployment and poor people, that should be first in priority. Then some creep foreigners if it's possible.

[guest509]

  Troll and Req you were way off. I was saying the US has an issue with racism and it can be shown statistically. Blacks commit more crimes statistically, so what? That's not racist. The systematic racism comes when blacks get put in prison at a higher rate for the same exact crime.

  No need to call names and freak out.

[requerent]

  Troll and Req you were way off. I was saying the US has an issue with racism and it can be shown statistically. Blacks commit more crimes statistically, so what? That's not racist. The systematic racism comes when blacks get put in prison at a higher rate for the same exact crime.

  No need to call names and freak out.

I was being sarcastic- but then ended up taking the post in a non-humorous direction. Didn't mean to offend-

My point of contention implicitly dpends upon the fact that people have to be convicted to go to prison. If black people do in fact commit more crimes, then it is logical for the rate of convictions to be higher. It might also be possible that convictions against white people tend to fail because they are in fact innocent.

[guest509]

  Again I think you may have missed it. I'll restate.

  For the SAME EXACT CRIMINAL CONVICTION non-whites get higher sentences. Whites are far more likely to get no time in prison at all FOR THE SAME EXACT CRIME, the SAME EXACT CONVICTION.

  If you look at any individual case it looks like the judge is being very fair and consistent, but when you look at the system as a whole it's obvious there is a problem. This includes capitol cases as well. The chance of being executed if convicted of a capitol crime are much lower if you are white.

  The Supreme Court actually stopped all execution in the US for some years because of the discrepancy. After studying it and not finding any overt racism the executions continued.

  It's a well known problem but no one knows how to fix it. They thought getting more nonwhite and women judges would help smooth things out, but it hasn't. The types of people that run for judge tend to be similar enough to not normalize the stats much, regardless of their demographic profile.

[requerent]

 Racism is a major problem in the US and has been for a long time. It's become tied with immigration in the last couple decades. If you are black in the US you are many times more likely to go to prison for the same crimes as a white person.

You make note ONLY of the binary relationship between going to prison or not. This implies rate of conviction, not sentence severity.


Conviction and sentencing depends on a number of factors including current wealth, criminal history, education, and crime rate in current residence. If a white person commits a crime in an area with a low crime rate, the DA probably isn't trying to make a point of 'cleaning up the streets.' If a person commits a crime in a high-crime area, the need to inflict harsher sentences is important to a number of parties- The local political platforms probably focus more heavily on creating a safer environment. In this way, there are a number of other factors that are important explicit and implicit confounders to your claim.

Statistically, black people are more boned in these regards- but these aren't racial factors. It's just coincidence that they are black. I'm willing to bet that if we look at data socioeconomically or as a proportion to local crime rates or through other more significant perspectives, we'll find that racism isn't nearly as pronounced as you may think.

[Krice]

but these aren't racial factors. It's just coincidence that they are black.

It may have more to do with culture, which in many cases will affect how people act. US is a special case, because it's a country with long history of immigration based on greed. Europeans who went to US wanted to become rich and many of them were criminals. The culture of US is based on that freedom to fight for wealth and that can be seen in every aspect of the culture: neoconservatism that hides true problems, corrupted laws, power of capitalism and in freedom to die on the street.

I think black people play their role as former slaves. They were taken from Africa, their own culture and even names were lost in history. Racism was reality for a long time and certainly is still something they can remember even "official" racism no longer exists. In a way they still are lesser people.

[jim]

I halfway asked you whether you felt that human beings have a basic duty to attend to the welfare of their fellow human, regardless of race or nationality. What are your thoughts there?

It's not that simple. Yes, it's a good rule. But our resources are not without limits. Why should we take care of people from other countries, just because their own country sucks? We also have unemployment and poor people, that should be first in priority. Then some creep foreigners if it's possible.

Why does the home clan take priority?

[Krice]

Why does the home clan take priority?

Why anything. Why your family members are more important than complete strangers.

[jim]

Why does the home clan take priority?

Why anything. Why your family members are more important than complete strangers.

Yes, that is pretty much the question. Is the answer a foregone conclusion to you?

[Krice]

Is the answer a foregone conclusion to you?

If it was then I guess we would not even have to think about it. Foreigners are not better than us, in fact they are worse. Do you think romanians would help us if we ever needed help?

[Paul Jeffries]

I live in an area of London with a large immigrant population - in fact I think where I live there is technically no such thing as an ethnic majority, since no one ethnic group has over 50% of the population.  If one hundredth of the bullshit scare tactics that the media and people like Krice came out with about immigration were true I would probably be lying in the gutter with a stab wound right now outside the burned-out remains of my house while fighting off plague rats with a stick.

(Spoiler warning:) I'm not.

In fact it's fine.  If anything I have less problems here than in the area with 99% native white population where I grew up.  The so-called 'problems' of immigration exist solely in the minds of people so deluded that they think being born one side of an imaginary line makes you somehow 'better' and more 'deserving' than those born on the other side.

[Krice]

If anything I have less problems here than in the area with 99% native white population where I grew up.

Sometimes there is no difference between natives and foreigners, if both of them are creeps.

[guest509]

Sometimes there is no difference between natives and foreigners, if both of them are creeps.

Oh fuck! Zing!

@Req - Normalize the numbers however you want, the effect is still racism. The stats take into account criminal history. The intent of the system is not racist, the racism comes from the human factor. A manifestation of the human fear of 'the other'. Note that criminal history is the only thing properly taken into account in sentencing out of the things you listed. The others are likely considered at a more subconscious level, but amount to no more than racism by proxy. Or more accurately, classism.

[requerent]

Sometimes there is no difference between natives and foreigners, if both of them are creeps.

Oh fuck! Zing!

@Req - Normalize the numbers however you want, the effect is still racism. The stats take into account criminal history. The intent of the system is not racist, the racism comes from the human factor. A manifestation of the human fear of 'the other'. Note that criminal history is the only thing properly taken into account in sentencing out of the things you listed. The others are likely considered at a more subconscious level, but amount to no more than racism by proxy. Or more accurately, classism.

Well- I wouldn't say at a subconscious level, but rather at a functional or pragmatic one. I think the reason why it isn't racism is because the system is not targeting members of that race. They just happen to be in the statistical majority of crimes committed warranting more severe punishment. The statistics will make it look like racism no matter how you wind it. Judges most definitely take into account your station in life-- if you get caught for possession as a student in a 4-year university, you're less likely to see significant punishment as you would from, say, an unemployed 40-year old single man living in section-8 -- even if in both cases there were no criminal records.

I may be completely off-basis, but my experience with judges suggests that they take personal character, location, and position in life into account when sentencing people. This is most definitely classist, but if we look at the stats irrespective of race and focus solely on class, then the trends show that poor folk commit crimes more often. Even if that bias isn't held against someone in court, the fact that they live in an area where there is a zero-tolerance policy toward crime will bone them.

I will certainly concede that blatant racism exists in a number of places in this country- but I don't think that the statistical racism that your talking about is as substantial as the statistics may imply.