[jirdperson]

Save yourself a click - the author (Heather MacDonald) appears to be trying to create controversy by playing dumb.

To summarize - MacDonald cited, in speech and writing, a 2019 study on fatal police shootings by two academic psychologists. Apparently, a backlash to the study's findings then developed at one of the researchers' institutions (Michigan State University) and the study was ultimately retracted by its authors. You can read the statement they issued at that time here: https://retractionwatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/PNAS_... (MacDonald's 'misuse' of their research is explicitly mentioned as contributing to the retraction). MacDonald goes on to imply that the administrator responsible for approving funding for the study was fired as a result of this, but this claim is not corroborated by local news coverage (https://www.lansingstatejournal.com/story/news/2020/06/15/mi...), which pointed to a history of pro-eugenics, racist, and sexist comments as the cause of his dismissal and didn't mention MacDonald or the study she cited.

The supposedly controversial finding MacDonald cited in her writing (presumably without the sort of context that would likely have accompanied it in an academic setting, since that's how it appears in the above WSJ op-ed) is that race didn't serve as a factor in predicting fatal police shootings within a sample of 917 shootings from 2015 after accounting for "race-specific rates of violent crime" (emphasis mine). Downplaying the fact that black Americans are disproportionately subject to police violence, with regard to population, MacDonald's op-ed repeatedly makes variations of what she seems to think (or at least insists) are identical claims, namely "that racial disparities in policing reflect differences in violent crime rates," and "that civilian behavior is the greatest influence on police behavior."

While it might seem like she's saying that your behavior will influence how police officers might treat you, what she's actually saying is that the behavior of people who look like you will influence how you're treated by police. Put another way, it's OK for police to shoot unarmed black men with no history of violence if they seem threatening because of their superficial resemblance to violent criminals (i.e. race). The incredulity she expresses at the prospect that this viewpoint might provoke controversy seems to belie her lack of perspective (or, if I'm being cynical, her willingness to engage in rhetorical manipulation of her audience).

As if that's not disgusting enough, this op-ed's undercurrent seems to be that black Americans are disproportionately engaged in violent crime, and that media figures are simply too afraid of appearing politically incorrect to acknowledge the "truth." What seems apparent from her writing is that MacDonald is actually afraid to openly state her views, which - fairly construed - seem to represent the basic idea that, just a couple of generations removed from legal segregation, black America has already reached the point where it's unburdened by any racially-derived disadvantage and, thus, deserves what it gets. Since "what it gets," as of 2020, is a heap of disadvantages, as portrayed by available socioeconomic data, the only logical conclusion one can reach is that inferior performance must reflect inferior potential. Luckily for the world, MacDonald's ridiculous perspective is the product of a bevy of equally ridiculous assumptions - she's just not a very astute social scientist (assuming she actually believes what she writes).

Before the odds of anyone getting to the end of this approach zero, I'll close by briefly revisiting some of the nuances MacDonald completely glosses over when discussing crime rates. As a result of decades of policies like broken windows policing, whereby some neighborhoods receive disproportionate levels of police attention and minor offenses are heavily enforced, the reliability of crime rates, as an objective research measure, can be called into question. In short, we now know that the efficacy of broken windows policies is inconclusive, that there is a relationship between poverty and crime that can be strong enough to obfuscate the influence of other factors (and it can run both ways), and that increasing the amount of police presence in a neighborhood can produce more "criminals" (i.e. more arrests, people with criminal records, etc.) without improving the safety of that neighborhood (in some cases, it can actually reduce public perception of safety). We also know that the likelihood of being arrested for committing a given offense differs among races (ex. black and white Americans consume marijuana at similar rates, yet black Americans are 3-4x as likely to be arrested for marijuana possession). Together, these various conclusions (or lack thereof) paint a muddled, complex portrait that completely contradicts the tidy (and completely wrong) landscape that presumably hangs above the desk in MacDonald's home office - what determines how police treat you is not your own behavior, but a complex web of factors, some of which began to exist well before you did.

[xenophonium1]

"As if that's not disgusting enough, this op-ed's undercurrent seems to be that black Americans are disproportionately engaged in violent crime, and that media figures are simply too afraid of appearing politically incorrect to acknowledge the "truth.""

This is literally true though.

"As a result of decades of policies like broken windows policing, whereby some neighborhoods receive disproportionate levels of police attention and minor offenses are heavily enforced, the reliability of crime rates, as an objective research measure, can be called into question."

You are so dishonest, differences in crime rates are based on victim studies, not arrests and prosecutions, to account for specifically the issue you cite. Most of the stats about black violent crime come from reports by THEIR BLACK VICTIMS

[jirdperson]

> This is literally true though.

It's true that black Americans are overrepresented among violent criminals, but it's not true that the reason this isn't widely reported (at least without any other context) isn't because "media figures are simply too afraid to acknowledge it" - that was a tongue-in-cheek characterization meant to illuminate the baseless conspiratorial orientation frequently demonstrated by those who consider themselves 'victimized' by political correctness (in other words, those who might consider themselves oppressed when pressured to respect the rights of oppressed minority groups). "You can't handle the truth" is literally a super-popular meme.

The reason media figures aren't going around proclaiming that black Americans are disproportionately likely to be violent criminals is, for one, because that would be irresponsible reporting. While that simple statistic is music to the ears of simple-minded racists everywhere, you're not likely to hear them stating other, equally-relevant statistics such as black Americans are disproportionately likely to be poor, unemployed, high-school dropouts, subject to housing instability and poor nutrition, and so forth - all factors that correlate highly with future criminal activity. They're not committing crimes because they're black, they're committing crimes because they're in situations that produce criminals (and they're statistically more likely to be in those situations than other major American racial groups). Academics and (old-fashioned) reporters are accustomed to thinking and communicating in nuance. The average internet racist probably is not, so it's a good thing that media figures aren't adding fuel to their fire by regularly spouting context-free data likely to create confusion and animosity.

> You are so dishonest, differences in crime rates are based on victim studies, not arrests and prosecutions, to account for specifically the issue you cite. Most of the stats about black violent crime...

Do you actually think I'm making this up? I ask because it seems indecent enough to boldly claim that a random human you're interacting with is lying to your (virtual) face, but it seems even more egregious when you don't have your own facts straight. First of all, you're not being thorough at all - what do you mean by "differences in crime rates?" Which crime rates? According to who? Secondly, while victimization surveys are one source of information regarding criminal activity, "Uniform Crime Reports represent the primary source of data used in the calculation of official statistics regarding serious crimes such as murder and homicide" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_crime_in_the_United_S...). Victimization survey data is used for generating statistics regarding lesser crimes. UCR statistics are periodically collected from state and local law enforcement agencies and compiled by the FBI.

Aside from the slanderous implications, none of that really matters - I wasn't directly calling into question to veracity of our crime statistics, i.e. claiming that the numbers are wrong, I was implying that the numbers themselves present a muddled picture that presents few obvious conclusions for researchers.

> ...come from reports by THEIR BLACK VICTIMS

What's the name of this rhetorical device? The one where you seemingly feign concern for someone while apparently arguing against that persons interests? This is another one of those statistics that racists and the generally-uninformed frequently riff on without realizing that it's actually irrelevant. It's not beneficial to black Americans, victims of crime included, to repeat irrelevant claims that reinforce historically-held racist stereotypes and do nothing to enhance their security.

The fact is that most violent crime occurs on an intraracial basis, so most violent crime is white-on-white, black-on-black, or Hispanic-on-Hispanic. Have you ever heard anyone talk about white-on-white crime or Hispanic-on-Hispanic crime? No, well that might be because the American people didn't spend the past few centuries socially-conditioning themselves to the concept that white or Hispanic Americans are uniquely predisposed to criminal activity (or generally inferior, for that matter).