Search found 2 matches

by G.C.Montgomery
Sat Aug 30, 2008 4:45 pm
Forum: Off-Topic
Topic: Why is race indicated on criminal related posts?
Replies: 55
Views: 8242

Re: Why is race indicated on criminal related posts?

03Lightningrocks wrote: It is a fact that each and every item in your list is dominated by certain groups based on race. There is no getting around it. For instance when I read pedophile my first thought was white male authority figure. Not female...not black. This is due to the FACT that most of the pedophile crimes I read about are commited by white guys in positions of authority and trust. Making it politicly incorrect to mention the ethnic group/race a criminal belongs to is NOT going to change the fact that certain groups are responsible for certain types of crimes.

Why would mentioning the race or sex of a criminal make anyone uncomfortable? Fighting some internal demons maybe???? This would be the most likely reason for the discomfort. Maybe trying to convince yourself your not racist by publicly stating your not a racist? If your really concerned with the general image of the ethnic group mentioned in a crime, maybe you could do something to change the situation that is causing this particular group to commit a particular crime. IMHO...living in denial is not going to change the facts. Making the rest of us live in denial is not going to change the facts either. But it could put us in jeopordy of becoming the victim of a crime.

As the old saying goes. If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck....chances are...your dealing with a duck.
That old saying is true but I think something is being missed in this discussion because a lot of people are automatically put off by discussions of race or racism. Racism itself is a hot potato in modern society that no one wants in their lap. People get defensive in most discussions about it and the original issues get clouded. And we are all bringing some personal issues to this discussion…Hence the complaint by some that in America, white Christians are being persecuted by the Politically Correct. I personally think that’s just as big a load of toro caca as saying “The Man is keeping ‘tha brothas’ down” particularly when the majority of people in this country are still white and Christian.

I agree mentioning the race or sex of a criminal shouldn't make anyone uncomfortable. But I don't think the point of this thread was to say it was wrong to do so. The OP asked if anyone else has noticed that race is sometimes left out of news reports and even some posts on this forum when similar crimes are committed by whites. That’s not the same as saying it is wrong to include race. It’s simply asking the question if anyone else has observed a pattern in which ethnicity/race, more often than not, is omitted when the crimes are committed by whites. As I’ve said, this is not a new pattern and not a new complaint. But it is something that has been repeatedly dismissed as a figment our imaginations by the majority of people

Now if the purpose of including race/gender information is just to perpetuate the idea that said crime should automatically be associated with a particular gender or ethnic group then we should all take issue with that. Others may disagree but, I reject the idea that one’s ethnicity, gender or nationality makes that person more likely to commit a particular type of crime. I also take issue with the exclusion of that information ONLY when the crime involves one particular race or ethnicity.

I’m not the most eloquent writer in the world but, I’m still going to struggle through trying to make a point. So bear with me a little longer. Let me try to paint a hypothetical world in which one-hundred people posted storied of 100 crimes committed by males. In that world, we know the majority males in the population are mammalian males and another third of the males are reptilian.

Now, let’s go back to the stories of those 100 crimes committed by males. 88 of the stories don’t mention whether or not the male was mammalian or reptilian. But twelve stories do. In all seriousness, which stories do you think would stick out in the minds of that population? The 88 usual stories of crimes committed by males or the 12 odd-balls committed by reptilian males? I may be wrong but I think the odd-balls are going stick out and might be what we think of first when we hear of a crime similar to those mentioned in the original 100 stories. It’s this theory that is behind the question of whether or not race is wrongly omitted from some reports and not others.
by G.C.Montgomery
Sat Aug 30, 2008 11:47 am
Forum: Off-Topic
Topic: Why is race indicated on criminal related posts?
Replies: 55
Views: 8242

Re: Why is race indicated on criminal related posts?

BigBlueDodge wrote:I've been a member for a short time, but have read a TON of threads, and I noticed a disturbing trend. I have read many postings that discuss a news event, or situation that occurred to the post, and the race is always pointed out of the attackers. For instance I've read postings similar to

"three BLACK males robbed the store"
"a HISPANIC male broke in to the house"
"a MEXICAN male pulled a gun"
"two AFRICAN AMERICANS stole some items"

When the event involves a white criminal, you generally don't see the poster indicate that attacker was white. So I ask, why do we feel that race should be indicated on the posts when referring to an criminal event?

For example, here are 3 post on the first page of this forum that I looked in
and then the two thieves, mexicans for the record, turned onto the paved
http://www.texasshooting.com/TexasCHL_F ... =7&t=18237
Three armed black males, walked into
http://www.texasshooting.com/TexasCHL_F ... =7&t=18374

The attacker was white, but was never pointed out
http://www.texasshooting.com/TexasCHL_F ... =7&t=18236

Dude, you aren't the first to notice that trend and it's not a new trend. Minorities have complained of that issue for decades but, the majority tends to dismiss it as a “fig Newton” of our imagination. It is part of basic human logic to recognize patterns and the report of, or failure to report, race with respect to crimes is a recognizable pattern to anyone who chooses to pay attention. That’s not necessarily good or bad.

What is bad is when we don’t take that sort of thing into account and recognize that it can create subconscious bias. Nearly all of us have a pre-conceived image of a person connected with certain terms based on life experience and the images to which we’ve been subjected during our lifetimes. That image may include gender and race. As an example, what pops into your mind for the following terms:
Cop
Gangbanger
Priest
Pedophile
Pharmacist
Dealer
Doctor
Rapist
Lawyer
Robber
Judge
Criminal
Singer
Serial Killer
Supremacists

No need to post what come to mind here, it is just something to think about. But with respect to the original topic, I will say my observations are in line with those of the original post and I would agree that, at least to me, it seems race is reported more often when minorities commit crimes.

Return to “Why is race indicated on criminal related posts?”