askchapo

racial myths like 13/50

this one in particular is a problem of framing. Obviously the statistics are made up, but let's pretend they're true (just pretending, not as an intellectual but to show that the conclusions they draw from 13/50 are false even if 13/50 is true). They say POC make up 13 percent of the population but "commit" 50 percent of the crimes? No. The framing should be they are convicted of 50 percent of the crimes. Because there are no real statistics for "committing" crimes. There are only conviction rates. Reactionaries love to treat conviction as synonymous with guilt, because they don't want to admit that the justice system is racially biased, and regularly makes false convictions which are overturned at a later date (the central park 5 were all exonerated of their convictions after years of racists using them as "evidence" of POC proclivity to commit heinous crimes).

But let's say most convictions are true. Let's say for the sake of argument that 13/50 is really true (it isn't obviously) and 99.9999% of convictions truly are for crimes that were really committed, and not false convictions based on shoddy evidence...

OK. And? What do the racists want us to do with this information?

Racists want us to conclude from this that POC are bad people and... well they won't always say it out loud, but they are saying that POC should be exterminated. They want the listener to come to that conclusion. That's why they bring up 13/50. They want to lead you to their "final solution." But what are some other conclusions that can be made if 13/50 is true?

• It means that POC are convicted for more crimes despite committing them at the same rate as whites. This is because of existing systemic racism in the justice system as well as the legacy of segregation, colonialism, chattel slavery, etc.
• The root causes of crime are poverty, mental illness, and substance addiction. If the function of police is to protect bourgeois property from the property-less masses, then that means police are disproportionately placed in impoverished neighborhoods. This means the police are constantly ignoring the crimes of the wealthy and constantly investigating the crimes of the poor. A businessman is free to do line after line of coke in the comfort of his office, but if a homeless man does it on the street, he will be seen by police, because he has no property to protect him from the capitalist police panopticon.
• It means that POC are disproportionately targeted by the police and justice system so that they can be imprisoned, where they will be forced to do labor in prison. This is a continuation of slavery in a new "colorblind" disguise that justifies itself as "correctional" despite the fact that nothing is corrected through it.
• It means that POC are disproportionately impoverished, and suffering from things like homelessness, mental illness, and substance addiction, not through their own essential nature, but through, again, systemic racism and the ripple effects of past injustices which were never properly repaired. These tendencies arising from systemic racism are used as an excuse to further criminalize, harrass and imprison POC.

These above conclusions are demonstrably true based off of decades of research whether or not 13/50 is true. If 13/50 were true (it isn't) it would simply correlate with the above, and not with the deranged genocidal fantasies of the racists.

TL;DR Never focus on the arguments racist make. They're bullshit and a waste of time. instead focus on the conclusions they are trying to lead people to (genocide).