March 24, 2012

Meanwhile ...

While America has been riveted on that single low-rent fiasco of a shooting in Florida the previous month, the Chicago Tribune ran their weekly round-up of all the mayhem in Chicago over the previous weekend:
Weekend of violence claims 10 shooting victims across Chicago 
March 19, 2012 
By Liam Ford, Peter Nickeas and Rosemary Sobol 
At least 10 people were killed, including a 6-year-old girl, in shootings over the weekend in Chicago. 

78 comments:

  1. I would bet 95% or more of these shootings are black on black, hence of no interest to race hustlers like Jesse or Sharpton, or the stooges in the Commie press.
    Although if having an African father makes Comrade Urkel black, why doesn't his Peruvian mother make George Zimmermann Latino?

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  2. What I wonder is the racial composition of the people who used the stand your ground defense in Florida. The Tampa paper reviewed 130 cases but as far as I can tell has not discussed this angle. Would be interesting to know considering the racial angle being played up relative to the law.

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  3. Dog bites man. BORING!

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  4. Notice the similarity to the Middle East: No one cares if Muslims kill Muslims but if Americans or Israelis kill Muslims it is front page news all over the MSM. It would be peculiar if it weren't pathetic.

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  5. There were at least 49 shooting victims, but, fortunately, today's advanced emergency health care managed to keep 39 of the 49 alive.

    That's something that usually goes unmentioned when the decline in homicides is discussed. Quoting from this paper:

    Compared to 1960, the year our analysis begins, we estimate that without these developments in medical technology there would have been between 45,000 and 70,000 homicides annually the past 5 years instead of an actual 15,000 to 20,000.

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  6. @Shrinkwrapped

    No you're wrong

    We've killed thousands upon thousands of people in the middle east for the past decade, no one gives a damn.

    The only reason the media is focusing on the incident surrounding the rogue soldier is because of the way it happened. We expect some kinda professionalism when it comes to our military. Regardless, people really shouldn't be surprised when a man cracks in war.

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  7. Kids shot, killed, and paralyzed by GSW are the metric of depravity that depresses me. They are collateral damage of a dying community. A boy shot at 17 seems normal, but a boy shot at 7 makes me want to give up, not go to work, and stop praying.

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  8. "49 shot in Chicago last weekend"

    Yes, but none of them died of mesothelioma, so President Obama can certainly claim a win on that score.

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  9. It was a warm weekend so news media talking heads were prone to blaming the heat for it, as well as the usual laundry list such as guns, schools, failure to properly serve the "underserved", not doing enough for the "underprivileged", etc etc. All just to point fingers in directions other than at those whose fingers are on the trigger. I guess they think of them as reactive, inanimate objects such as vegetables: they grow when the weather is warm, shrink when weather is bad.
    Supposedly there are a huge number of gang members here. This first hot weekend may have been the opening shot for the upcoming gangbanger gladiatorial contests of the season. They're not doing their job in my opinion unless a hundred gangbanger bodies hit the ground each weekend. Let the contests begin.

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  10. Ten deaths out of 49 shootings is actually more than would be expected. Handgun* shootings generally have a death rate between 10% and 15%. Guess a few people in Chicago were unlucky last weekend.

    * = rifles and shotguns have a much higher death rate, but they aren't often used in shootings

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  11. Kent Brockman3/24/12, 4:01 PM

    If it bleeds in a vanguardist/maximalist way it leads. See also Rahm on the epidemic of crisis-wasting stalking the land

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  12. Talking about violence in Chicago is raciss!

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  13. "Your first impression at the shooting of 49 people is to make a joke...and you're concerned about Barry?

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  14. http://www.myfoxtampabay.com/dpp/news/state/witness-martin-attacked-zimmerman-03232012

    The Trayvon Martin case may be about to turn. "Trayvona Brawley?"

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  15. Will Obama say the shooters and the shootees could all be his sons?

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  16. ShrinkWrapped, violence in Syria is in the news. Partially because some folks are pushing for the U.S to intervene and overthrow the government. Because that's worked out great for the Libyans, and Iraqis before then.

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  17. Dog bites man. BORING!

    Your tongue may be stuck in your cheek but I should still point out that everyone admits that dog bites man is normal; hordes of useful idiots deny the HBD equivalent, and are shocked - SHOCKED!!! - when someone points it out.

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  18. "Chicago said...

    It was a warm weekend so news media talking heads were prone to blaming the heat for it, as well as the usual laundry list such as guns, schools, failure to properly serve the "underserved", not doing enough for the "underprivileged", etc etc. All just to point fingers in directions other than at those whose fingers are on the trigger. I guess they think of them as reactive, inanimate objects such as vegetables: they grow when the weather is warm, shrink when weather is bad."

    Chicago, this is one of the best comments thus far! I'm in Chicago too and I hope we never go the way of Detroit.

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  19. "Dozens of people are gunned down in Springfield every day, but until now, none of them mattered."

    -- From "Who Shot Mr. Burns, Pt II", circa 1995.

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  20. Truth, what are you supposed to do, wring your hands and wail? It's been four decades since the great society unlessed Black violence epidemic.

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  21. Does anyone have the exact racial breakdown of these figures? I would be very interested to know.

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  22. Is there too much air time being given to the Martin murder? Sure, and it's because to his skin color. But I'm not that bothered about all media surrounding the case. For the most part when blacks are murdered or go missing, there isn't much sympathetic coverage. One only has to think of Missing White Woman Syndrome. All the major news networks and Nancy Grace give an absurd amount coverage to MSWS stories. The Martin case will likely return election time, if it gets tied to 'Stand Your Ground'. I'm sure Jeb Bush is worried about this biting his bum in 2016.

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  23. Blacks don't care, why should we?

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  24. Orlando metro is now in the top 10 for violent crime rate since the '09 FBI Uniform Crime Reporting data. They are still lower than Baltimore and Houston, but above Miami and well past Detroit, Philadelphia, and New Orleans which is a big reversal from the late 90s. (The far and away highest is Memphis but that MSA is significantly less populous)

    However in the past few years it's begun to trend downward for robberies & assaults. For whatever reason, Chicago-Naperville-Gary, Ind. isn't published...?

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  25. "Compared to 1960, the year our analysis begins, we estimate that without these developments in medical technology there would have been between 45,000 and 70,000 homicides annually the past 5 years instead of an actual 15,000 to 20,000."

    An interesting possibility, but...

    Rates for other crimes, from rape to burglary, have seen declines similar to those for murder. Most peaked aroud 1980 and again around 1991/92, and all have fallen by about half over the last 20 years.

    The only reason the media is focusing on the incident surrounding the rogue soldier is because of the way it happened. We expect some kinda professionalism when it comes to our military.

    In Band of Brothers, Stephen Ambrose cited a psychological study showing that most soldiers would crack after about 150 days on the front lines. We have tens of thousands of soldiers who have seen 3 and even 4 deployments to Iran and Afghanistan over the last decade. Bales had 4 deployment. A few articles I've seen suggest that the soldiers likeliest to crack, whether overseas or at home, were in units that saw heavy fighting. America's servicemen are getting screwed, and the DoD and our politicians know it.

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  26. The fundamental reason that the president stoked the racial fires is that he needs every black person to vote for him in November ... he knows that the voting block he is aiming at does not care about the truth.

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  27. Truth: Your first impression at the shooting of 49 people is to make a joke

    Yes. Come on, Truth, you are smart enough to figure out why that it is a totally natural reaction. Just try.

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  28. "Yes. Come on, Truth, you are smart enough to figure out why that it is a totally natural reaction. Just try."

    Enlighten me.

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  29. "For 100,000 whites, 1.21 will be the killer of a white
    For 100,000 whites, 0.09 will be the killer of a black
    For 100,000 blacks, 1.15 will be the killer of a white
    For 100,000 blacks, 6.57 will be the killer of a black ."

    This has to be a function of demographics in which these people live. Johannesburg and Detroit are dangerous place to go, irrespective of skin color. Why? % of population that is black.

    America's 13% black population aren't taking road trips to Maine to wreak havoc. These national statistics tend to understate the reality of living in a black community and hence the mechanism for ethnic cleansing of white people once a few black people move in, aka white flight.

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  30. OT, or not

    You're quite lucky this would never, ever happen in K Street.

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  31. Heliogabalus3/25/12, 3:45 AM

    The Chicago Crime Blog has few posts but some interesting info:

    http://chicagocrime.wordpress.com/

    The most dangerous neighborhood in Chicago is more than 30 TIMES more dangerous than the safest neigborhood.

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  32. "Expanded Homicide Data Table 6, using 305 million US population for 2009 with 80% white and 13% black:

    So this data classifies nearly all hispanics as whites.

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  33. candid_observer3/25/12, 7:08 AM

    "Notice the similarity to the Middle East: No one cares if Muslims kill Muslims but if Americans or Israelis kill Muslims it is front page news all over the MSM. It would be peculiar if it weren't pathetic."

    And it's not front page news if a Muslim kills a Jew in Israel?

    Count the number of Jews killed by Palestinians in Israel, and the number of Palestinians killed by Israelis. Guess whose lives seem to get counted as more precious by our media?

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  34. The administration must have to walk a tightrope when considering stirring the racial flames. While it will help keep black voters voting for Obama, his real problem is with white voters, especially, it would seem white females.

    Although, of course, young voters are important as well, but if they feel they have been suckered, they they will probably stay away in November.

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  35. It appears Truth has never heard of "black humor".

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  36. Not all murders on the South Side of Chicago are committed by blacks and mestizos. There is always Dr. Henry Howard Holmes, who was very active in the 1890's murder scene. Chicago race hustlers can point to this man and say "Whitey did it too!", and all culpability goes away. Problem solved.

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  37. The reason this story bugs me so much is not because Zimmerman is so obviously innocent, though the evidence seems to be pointing that way. It's that as a nation we're going into convulsions to attack an imaginary problem: white on black racist kilings. They hardly ever happen, whether racist or otherwise.

    I'm reminded of the stupid remark of Michelle Obama during her husband's 2008 campaign, "As a black man, he could get killed at the gas station." Huh? What the fuck does that mean. If someone killed him at the gas station it would probably be another black; he'd be no safer if he were white. Whites hardly ever kill blacks, but the rare times they do, we go into a conniption fit as a nation. If Obama and his wife were more serious people, they'd be talking about what worthless trash some blacks are for killing so many people, white and black, and how such bad people need to be locked up a long time to protect decent people of all races.

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  38. "Blacks don't care, why should we?"

    Because whites are supposed to express compassion for blacks and accept any racial insults they care to dish out*.

    The major meltdown of that AA female in the FAU classroom is a perfect example. Many comments in response to her tantrum didn't touch the fact tht she committed several crimes caught on tape and front of witnesses, they were all about the "issues" she had and expressed hope that she'd get the care she needed.

    Or nearer home, we have our resident race man criticizing a commenter in this thread:

    "Your first impression at the shooting of 49 people is to make a joke...and you're concerned about Barry?"

    When just days earlier, he shared this insight from his community with us:

    "Man I don't want to hear what some racist ass kkkrakkkas have to say. They're ignorant, inbred, hateful bastards."

    See, we're supposed to be racist ass, ignorant, inbred, hateful crackers/bastards who care.

    Any clearer now?


    *I know the second comment I quoted supposedly didn't originate with our RRM. But repeating an insult about a group to that group is in and of itself an insult--yes, even if that group is a racist ass ignorant, inbred, hateful bastards/crackers. But the narrative we have now in this country is that the only concern whites are supposed to show is toward a group who routinely insults, threatens and endangers us.

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  39. I bet the results of the focus groups the Administration ran on whether to stir the racial fires were interesting.

    Errr, they did run some focus groups, didn't they?

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  40. For 100,000 whites, 1.21 will be the killer of a white
    For 100,000 whites, 0.09 will be the killer of a black
    For 100,000 blacks, 1.15 will be the killer of a white
    For 100,000 blacks, 6.57 will be the killer of a black ."

    As Steve has pointed out on several occasions, Hispanics are counted as White when committing felonies.

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  41. This is more than about race. There are, after all, other cases of whites or hispanics killing whites. Why did this issue become big? It's cuz a 'white guy' did it in the name of justice, peace, and social order. He 'took law into his own hands with his own gun'. Thus, this is really an anti-gun issue. Progressives are saying citizens don't deserve to own guns and watch their own neighborhoods. They should give up their guns and leave it all to the government.

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  42. Age limited offenders aging out and relatively fewer young people is the main reason for the overall crime decline.

    Male Population of the USA, 15-34 years of age, total and percentage of population

    1970 - 29,800,000 - 14.7%
    1980 - 39,900,000 - 17.5%
    1990 - 40,300,000 - 16.2%
    2000 - 40,100,000 - 14.2%
    2010 - 43,000,000 - 13.9%

    http://www.ucrdatatool.gov/Search/Crime/State/RunCrimeStatebyState.cfm (Click on "Get Table")

    You can eyeball a correlation there, but it's too much to call age structure the "main reason" behind declining crime.

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  43. When it comes to those with megaphones of some sort, other than a chastened Bill Cosby, a few people from CORE(whom the main stream media mostly ignore), blacks, including the guy in the Oval Office both now and during his campaign, remain silent on the topic of black violence, black violence against one another and against all of society.

    On the rare occasion someone else brings it up and they are asked a direct question, they revert to tired canards such as "unemployment, drugs, poor education, years of neglect, years of discrimination"....blah, blah, blah. And, oh yeah, "Most of our people who are in jail or prison shouldn't be there." Right.

    They'll be saying that 50 years from now too, after even more money is thrown down the tubes for more attention in the form of employment training, drug counselors, and education, implementation of yet more anti-discrimination policies that actually discriminate against others.

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  44. Good article on Detroit:

    http://www.alternativeright.com/main/blogs/hbd-human-biodiversity/the-detroit-destiny/

    Ironically, cities are destroyed, yes, but look around and you see suburbs being destroyed in the same way.

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  45. "America's 13% black population aren't taking road trips to Maine to wreak havoc. These national statistics tend to understate the reality of living in a black community and hence the mechanism for ethnic cleansing of white people once a few black people move in, aka white flight."

    Proportionally, almost as many whites are killed by blacks as are killed by other whites. If whites didn't exert great effort to stay away from black neighborhoods the rates would be much higher.

    "Age limited offenders aging out and relatively fewer young people is the main reason for the overall crime decline."

    Right. If you really want to look at the effective crime rate of a race, only look at crimes for the male population ages 16-24 (or whatever).

    The proportion of the population in that range has fallen since 1991, but not by half. Is there a serious study out there that examines why crime rates have fallen so steeply over the last 20 years? Did prison populations also soar around 1991? Is it technology? Abortion? Absence of lead? Stricter punishment? All of the above?

    Lead in paint and gasoline were banned in 1974, and 17-18 years later, the crime rates peaked. Which is interesting, though it still does not explain why crime rates increased so much from 1960 to 1980.

    Studies here, here, and here.

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  46. "If you combine this fact with these advances in medical tech, kids today may totally be much more violent and dangerous than in the past."

    The reason I don't buy that is because crime rates for a wide variety of crimes all peaked at almost the same time, and have all declined by similar rates (sometimes even faster than murder rates). See the second table here. Medical technology can explain why fewer gunshot and knifing victims are dying, but it doesn't explain why fewer people are getting shot and knifed to begin with.

    Rates for murder, robbery, larceny, and vehicle theft all peaked in 1991. Forcible rape and aggravated assault peaked only a year later, in 1992. Burglary actually peaked in 1980 (where most crime rates had their first peak) and was already down over 25% by 1991.

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  47. "Anonymous Matthew said...

    ""Compared to 1960, the year our analysis begins, we estimate that without these developments in medical technology there would have been between 45,000 and 70,000 homicides annually the past 5 years instead of an actual 15,000 to 20,000.""

    An interesting possibility, but...

    Rates for other crimes, from rape to burglary, have seen declines similar to those for murder. Most peaked aroud 1980 and again around 1991/92, and all have fallen by about half over the last 20 years."

    You seem to be missing something. What that poster brought up is not "a possibility". It is a certainty. The number of people killed by gunshot is necessarily a subset of the number of people shot. And modern trauma medicine has indeed gotten much better at saving the lives of people who have been shot.

    Now the overall number of both murders and assaults (or attempted murders) may be declining, but were it not for advances in medicine, there would be more murders today relative to assaults than there are.

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  48. Technology has really helped re: Auto theft (GPS) and rape (DNA). Decline in burglary I'd guess contains several factors-- increased rates of incarceration (less criminals on street plus a decrease inter-generational know-how transfer), technology for house protection(home alarms/video), gun rights/right to defend habitation, and information technology making fencing less profitable/higher risk.

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  49. Changes in medical technology are usually ignored in discussing rises or falls in homicide rates because they are a red herring.

    As someone else already mentioned, the rates for all violent crimes move together over time, and only homicide would be sensitive to med tech, not rape, robbery, or assault. Excluding causes that aren't needed to explain the observations, we ignore changes in life-saving technologies when talking about the decline of violence in general.

    Even if we were sticking to homicide as though it were something unique, the look at med tech is still a red herring. It is an attempt to point to some exogenous factor, outside of the ecology of criminals and potential victims. "Ah see, it's not that so much has changed in those interactions -- more in some outside factor."

    Of course once you open that can of worms, you commit yourself to looking at *all* changes in exogenous factors, technological (medical or otherwise) and non-technological. These will all push in different directions, so you have to sum up their net effect.

    Otherwise it's just cherry-picking the one change that allows the self-styled debunkers to feel like they're overturning the received wisdom.

    Last, changes in med tech since 1960 may make recent declines in murder rates "artificially" low, but that's true for the rising-crime period from the '60s through the early '90s. If we're going to adjust the recent rates upward, then we have to adjust the early '90s peak upward too.

    The overall shape of the time series won't change -- a rise and a fall -- and neither will the locations of the peaks and valleys. The relative drop since the peak probably wouldn't change either, given its upward-adjusted value.

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  50. "The number of people killed by gunshot is necessarily a subset of the number of people shot. And modern trauma medicine has indeed gotten much better at saving the lives of people who have been shot."

    From DoJ statistics: "The number of gunshot wounds from assaults treated in hospital
    emergency departments fell from
    64,100 in 1993 to 39,400 in 1997, a
    39% decline. Homicides committed
    with a firearm fell from 18,300 in 1993 to 13,300 in 1997, a 27% decline."

    So, hospitals got so awesome at treating gunshot victims that they didn't even have to treat them!

    The number of gunshot victims fell faster than the number of gunshot deaths. Either hospitals were actually getting worse at treating gunshot wounds, or criminals were becoming better shots. Larger caliber rounds? A decline in drive-bys in which bangers don't bother to aim?

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  51. Beecher Asbury3/25/12, 4:31 PM

    You seem to be missing something. What that poster brought up is not "a possibility". It is a certainty. The number of people killed by gunshot is necessarily a subset of the number of people shot. And modern trauma medicine has indeed gotten much better at saving the lives of people who have been shot.

    The military frequently quotes better survival rates in our current wars versus WW2 and prior because of helicopter airlift, body armor and better medical tech. So this probably has an effect on gun shot victims too.

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  52. Gringo, I was referring to the second set of data (thus, "proportionally"). Which data doesn't even factor in the share of whites or blacks being killed by "whites" who are actually Mestizo. If you removed Mestizo numbers, then blacks, proportionally are killing more whites than other whites are.

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  53. "Although if having an African father makes Comrade Urkel black, why doesn't his Peruvian mother make George Zimmermann Latino?"

    My black friends on facebook explained to me that Zimmerman's Peruvian mother makes him "ethnically" Hispanic, but "racially" Anglo on both sides. Yes, I was told that the man's a purebred Anglo. I presume they meant Anglo-Saxon. Didn't get a chance to ask because I was defriended simply for suggesting that, even though the killing was a terrible tragedy, it wasn't a white on black hate crime.

    Look, the point is not that these people neither know nor care what the word "ethnicity" means. It's that Zimmerman has to be white because they want him to be. Period. He'd be a white man even if his picture would be that of a Chinese school girl.

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  54. Proportionally, almost as many whites are killed by blacks as are killed by other whites



    Proportionally, more whites are killed by blacks than are killed by other whites.

    In raw numbers, in 2010 whites murdered 2,777 other whites, while blacks murdered 447 whites. In proportional to their population share, black kill more whites than whites do.

    In spite of the supposed epidemic of white-on-black violence, whites killed only 218 blacks in the same year.

    All the numbers are skewed by the insistence of the state on counting AmerIndians, aka "Hispanics", as "white". The true white homicide rate is lower than it appears based on government data.

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  55. "The major meltdown of that AA female in the FAU classroom is a perfect example. Many comments in response to her tantrum didn't touch the fact tht she committed several crimes caught on tape and front of witnesses, they were all about the "issues" she had and expressed hope that she'd get the care she needed."

    Kylie, to be fair that girl probably does have some major medical issues. An undiagnosed bipolar diabetic? People who are THAT entitled and delusional are rare. Even those baby mamas who fist fight over their one baby daddy in front of the kids in our cafeteria aren't as belligerent.

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  56. "Lead in paint and gasoline were banned in 1974, and 17-18 years later, the crime rates peaked."

    Lead, eh? Are people who take piano/keyboard lessons or children of people who play keyboard/piano more likely to be violent criminals? Both of my usb keyboard controllers, and both of my electric keyboards (all purchased within the last 6 years) have keys painted with lead paint.

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  57. So when they identify the alleles that make one more likely to be violent/aggressive than peaceful/docile, guess what they are going to find?

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  58. "Matthew said...

    The number of gunshot victims fell faster than the number of gunshot deaths. Either hospitals were actually getting worse at treating gunshot wounds, or criminals were becoming better shots. Larger caliber rounds? A decline in drive-bys in which bangers don't bother to aim?

    Perhaps an increase in execution-style murders, where the victims are shot at close range in the head. Even trauma surgeons can't do much about that.

    Still, I don't see what your point is. Do you dispute the assertion that a person who has been shot but does not die, has not been murdered but has still been shot?

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  59. I think Steve has observed before that people tend to get most worked up/argumentative over things about which we can realistically do nothing much, with the literally impossible-to-solve cases as favorites. So rather than deal with questions of what might marginally impact street crime in Sanford, Fla. or elsewhere, it's time to go all in on the sideshow, a timeless morality snapshot of privileged oppressor victimizing the innocent powerless everyman. Never had a damned thing in the entire hubbub to do with the reality of crime. Hence, the funniest newspaper headline of the month (college division)

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  60. anon says:

    the funniest newspaper headline of the month (college division)

    But the article says:


    For him, even the remote possibility that race was involved in the shooting of Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Fla.. strikes a deep and powerful chord.


    Because he salivates at the possibility, knowing that he needs something to keep his re-election hopes alive.

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  61. Truth said at 3/25/12 9:41 PM...

    Stand Your Ground, Punk!


    What are you trying to tell us Truthy? The presence of a witness invalidates the President's narrative?

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  62. "Kylie, to be fair that girl probably does have some major medical issues. An undiagnosed bipolar diabetic?"

    I was being fair. I based on comments on my observations/experiences watching black women do this back in my old neighborhood. Now they weren't quite as bad but 1) they were older--the media say she is 24 2) less politicized--this was back in the 90's and 3) had fewer whites around. I think she got as bad as she did bcause so many whites were around. She acted up and acted out b/c she knew she could.

    "People who are THAT entitled and delusional are rare."

    Not in my old neighborhood. You need to get out more.

    "Even those baby mamas who fist fight over their one baby daddy in front of the kids in our cafeteria aren't as belligerent."

    You think those black gals are going to get as upset with each other as they get with whites who they decide have "dissed" them?

    I've been around bi-polar people (black and white). When they are unmedicated or when they go off their meds, that's not the way they get manic. That video looked to me like a temper tantrum, pure and simple.

    You're making the mistake I've seen so often in teachers and social workers whose students and clients are "disadvantaged" blacks. You're assuming their behavior in your classroom or office is representative. It seldom is, it's usually much worse. I have lived among them and seen how cunningly they play the professionals who make a career out of trying to "help" them. Working with them is very different from living among them. I've listened to them advising each other on how to play the system and its workers, laughing and joking about the ones who were easiest to fool. Then they'd go go the "welfare office" (they never called it "social services") and be ever so humble and downtrodden, explaining away missed appointments, getting gullible social workers to give them extra vouchers and fill out their forms for them, etc.

    You know what? I never despised them for that. But it left me with a lasting contempt for teachers and social workers who unwittingly and witlessly encourage them to think it's OK to game the system. And those "helpful" professionals do that by responding just the way you have here.

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  63. Orlando Sentinel (HT to Occidental Dissent):

    Police have been reluctant to provided details about all their evidence, but this is what they’ve disclosed to the Sentinel:

    Zimmerman was on his way to the grocery store when he spotted Trayvon walking through his gated community.

    Trayvon was visiting his father’s fiancĂ©e, who lived there. He had been suspended from school in Miami after being found with an empty marijuana baggie. Miami schools have a zero-tolerance policy for drug possession.

    Zimmerman called police and reported a suspicious person, describing Trayvon as black, acting strangely and perhaps on drugs.

    Zimmerman got out of his SUV to follow Trayvon on foot. When a dispatch employee asked Zimmerman if he was following the 17-year-old, Zimmerman said yes. The dispatcher told Zimmerman he did not need to do that.

    There is about a one-minute gap during which police say they’re not sure what happened.

    Zimmerman told them he lost sight of Trayvon and was walking back to his SUV when Trayvon approached him from the left rear, and they exchanged words.

    Trayvon asked Zimmerman if he had a problem. Zimmerman said no and reached for his cell phone, he told police.

    Trayvon then said, “Well, you do now” or something similar and punched Zimmerman in the nose.

    Zimmerman fell to the ground and Trayvon got on top of him and began slamming his head into the sidewalk, he told police.

    Zimmerman began yelling for help.

    Several witnesses heard those cries, and there’s been a dispute about from whom they came: Zimmerman or Trayvon.

    Lawyers for Trayvon’s family say it was Trayvon, but police say their evidence indicates it was Zimmerman.

    One witnesses, who has since talked to local television news reporters, told police he saw Zimmerman on the ground with Trayvon on top, pounding him and was unequivocal that it was Zimmerman who was crying for help.

    Zimmerman then shot Trayvon once in the chest from very close range, according to authorities.

    When police arrived less than two minutes later, Zimmerman was bleeding from the nose, had a swollen lip and had bloody lacerations to the back of his head.


    Based on that account, yes: Trayvon=dead dumbass.

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  64. Is there too much air time being given to the Martin murder? Sure, and it's because to his skin color. But I'm not that bothered about all media surrounding the case. For the most part when blacks are murdered or go missing, there isn't much sympathetic coverage. One only has to think of Missing White Woman Syndrome. All the major news networks and Nancy Grace give an absurd amount coverage to MSWS stories.

    Uhm, what are they going to do? Start blanket-covering when a Black suspect does in a Black victim? There aren't enough hours in the day, and that would be too much info in the hands of citizens. Condense it down into statistics? There are enough hours in the day, but that's way too much info in the hands of citizens.

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  65. ABC News

    "He said this man was watching him, so he put his hoodie on. He said he lost the man," Martin's friend said. "I asked Trayvon to run, and he said he was going to walk fast. I told him to run, but he said he was not going to run."

    Eventually, he would run, said the girl, thinking that he'd managed to escape. But suddenly the strange man was back, cornering Martin.

    "Trayvon said, 'What are you following me for,' and the man said, 'What are you doing here.' Next thing I hear is somebody pushing, and somebody pushed Trayvon because the head set just fell. I called him again, and he didn't answer the phone.”


    LOL, I was right. He was too dumb for "feets don't fail me now" (and for "don't bring bags of pot to school") And he "cornered" himself by turning and confronting the guy following him, and winding up on top of and beating him.

    Trayvon=Dead Dumbass. Zimmerman=Live Barney Fife.

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  66. >Lead, eh?<

    Doncha remember this classic?
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNxGOz5WUe0

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  67. Roach:

    There is a problem, just not the one they're talking about. Black teenage boys and young men get shot by the cops fairly often. This happens for two related but painful reasons:

    a. Young black males are involved in a lot of crime.

    b. Cops are likely to suspect young black males of being involved in crime, due to (a), even when they're just walking home in the dark, and this sets them up to get arrested, beaten up, or shot a lot more than young white males.

    Now, there is also a lot of mixing of those two problems--probably few parents can really accept that their darling 16 year old boy who was shot by the cops was really involved in serious crime, rather than just hanging around with a bad crowd and being shot by a trigger happy cop. But the other side is, when the cops shoot some black kid for having a coke can in his hand and the kid was totally innocent, the cops definitely think "yeah, but he looked just like that guy a few years back who took a couple shots at me" or some such thing.

    It's worth noting that this problem happens regardless of the race of the police, police chief, mayor, or for that matter, president. Presumably, it's worse in places where the cops are all white guys who hate blacks, but I'm not sure a black kid running from a cop is a whole lot safer in DC or Baltimore than in Atlanta or Dallas.

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  68. Sounds like a classic case of "better to be judged by 12 than carried by 6."

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  69. @Shrinkwrapped

    No you're wrong

    We've killed thousands upon thousands of people in the middle east for the past decade, no one gives a damn.


    The only reason the media is focusing on the incident surrounding the rogue soldier is because of the way it happened.

    And perhaps it's political cover for the withdrawal of troops.

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  70. For 100,000 whites, 1.21 are killed by a white
    For 100,000 whites, 0.19 are killed by a black
    For 100,000 blacks, 0.53 are killed by a white
    For 100,000 blacks, 6.57 are killed by a black

    For 100,000 whites, 1.21 will be the killer of a white
    For 100,000 whites, 0.09 will be the killer of a black
    For 100,000 blacks, 1.15 will be the killer of a white
    For 100,000 blacks, 6.57 will be the killer of a black .


    Aside from the ridiculous assumption that 80% of the population was White in 2005, there is another problem. These statements presume that no one commits more than one murder in the same year.

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  71. Why did this issue become big? It's cuz a 'white guy' did it in the name of justice, peace, and social order. He 'took law into his own hands with his own gun'. Thus, this is really an anti-gun issue.

    Close, but not quite. This is an anti-immune-response issue. The function of the immune system is to discriminate between self and non-self. Anti-discrimination laws are intended to disable the societal immune system. But, acting through people like the mixed-race Zimmerman, this little mixed-race gated neighborhood (49% White, reportedly) had the audacity to engage in such discrimination.

    Das ist streng verboten!

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  72. "You know what? I never despised them for that. But it left me with a lasting contempt for teachers and social workers who unwittingly and witlessly encourage them to think it's OK to game the system. And those "helpful" professionals do that by responding just the way you have here."

    Never wanted to be a social worker because, as far as I understand, one signs up to work with dysfunctional humanity, by definition.

    As for teachers, it's different. Many kids are pleasant, curious and a joy to help in their exploration of the world. Kids also screw up from time to time. School isn't the real world, and it's the teachers job to show equal compassion and interest in teaching every child. Students should feel that the teacher is always expecting them to do better, and that they will not be defined today by their yesterday's screw up.

    All of this is supposed to work well with normal children who have real parents and who had been socialized to function in a normal society. Obviously it doesn't really work here, but with our current rules and resources, what would? Eventually (SOON), I will get away from THIS, and find myself a real teaching job with real students. However, while I'm here, don't you think I owe these kids the same love, care and compassion I plan to grant my future teachable students? There is this 1% here that might actually make it.

    You are right, of course, in that I AM too soft with them. But that's only because the majority here requires a prison guard on steroids. They are elementary school kids, and they illicit a certain natural response from me. If that's not the right reaction for the situation, on my part, then something's wrong with them rather than with me. If I hope to ever be effective in a saner environment, breaking my psyche to fit into an insane world isn't the way to go.

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  73. "Never wanted to be a social worker because, as far as I understand, one signs up to work with dysfunctional humanity, by definition."

    And that differs from signing up to be a teacher in the inner city in what way[s]?

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