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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   30574 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 22, 2025

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No, race realism is also wrong, the actual reason is class/subculture for which you are using skin colour as a proxy, due to the US having a underclass primarily composed of black people.

Why do you guys have to keep doing this? I'm perfectly happy leaving well enough alone when it comes to race, but then someone just has to post something like this. I don't want to become Steve Sailer, I've lost count of how many times I bit my tongue or scrolled past arguments like this, but every time is that much harder.

Do you really think this is true? Would statistics showing that rich black Americans commit more crime than poor white Americans change your mind at all? If not, in what sense is it a proxy?

The past month or so has made me suspect that Europeans(in general) are obsessively attuned to class in a way that America(in general) isn't.

So they default to class, whereas we default to stereotypes.

It's a subtle distinction, but I think it's very telling, and results in monstrously different assumptions and outcomes.

Firstly, social class is not really about money. Social class is about culture. A mechanic or a plumber can make more money than a university lecturer with two PhDs. How many rich black American are from stable, two parent households in high income areas and have the same cultural values as their white counterparts? Are they engineers, doctors, businesspeople, or are they in the stereotypical high earning occupations available to black people? And can they avoid social pressures and expectations - including that from the black community itself - for their own kids as well, who might look to role models that look like them?

But in any case, if you look at the statistics, the incarceration rate for black men still sharply decreases with income. That means if you want to decrease the black crime rate, facilitating their upward mobility is still the most effective way.

Firstly, social class is not really about money. Social class is about culture. A mechanic or a plumber can make more money than a university lecturer with two PhDs. How many rich black American are from stable, two parent households in high income areas and have the same cultural values as their white counterparts? Are they engineers, doctors, businesspeople, or are they in the stereotypical high earning occupations available to black people? And can they avoid social pressures and expectations - including that from the black community itself - for their own kids as well, who might look to role models that look like them?

If we're owning the race realists by channeling Thomas Sowell, I can only cheer for that, but I'm not exactly amused by hearing these arguments after being called racist for about 20 years for believing them. I'd also like some indication that the cultural parts are as well defined and measured as you'd demand of race realists before accepting their arguments.

But in any case, if you look at the statistics, the incarceration rate for black men still sharply decreases with income.

There's still a gap between blacks and whites at any income level, it's so big that blacks have to reach something like the 70th 60th percentile of income before crossing the incarceration rate of 1st percentile whites, and the gap actually increases in relative terms as income grows.

Blacks are massively underrepresented in low-education high-pay occupations except trucking and sex work. The oil rigs are pretty much all white and Hispanic.

High income blacks are probably more likely to be doctors than high income whites, because there’s not a lot of black master plumbers and the like.

High income blacks are probably more likely to be doctors than high income whites, because there’s not a lot of black master plumbers and the like.

Because affirmative action has rarely been a driving force in hiring/education decisions in those occupations. If you are a shit doctor they just assign you the flu patients, if you are a shit plumber you get covered in shit and then your company never gets hired for another job.

Getting a job as a plumber is so easy that affirmative action doesn’t make much difference. Granted it takes a few years to become a well paying job, but still.

Getting a job as a plumber is easy if you consider being a minimum wage plumber's apprentice to be "being a plumber". Keeping it and building yourself into one that makes money is not, years invested or not.

But in any case, if you look at the statistics, the incarceration rate for black men still sharply decreases with income. That means if you want to decrease the black crime rate, facilitating their upward mobility is still the most effective way.

That doesn't follow if the difference is caused by selection, the same traits that lead people to have higher incomes also leading them to commit less crimes. (Not to mention criminal convictions and prison time decreasing income.) If criminal income disparities were primarily due to lower income causing criminality, they would be much more affected by factors like economic growth. Per this random search result the median African-American income (in 2021 dollars) steadily grew from $9,034 in 1948 to $30,968 in 2021, yet their homicide rate did not have a corresponding steady decrease and indeed had several decades that were both higher income and more criminal.

That doesn't follow if the difference is caused by selection, the same traits that lead people to have higher incomes also leading them to commit less crimes. (Not to mention criminal convictions and prison time decreasing income.) If criminal income disparities were primarily due to lower income causing criminality, they would be much more affected by factors like economic growth

Thank you. As a genuine poor person, I've always hated "poverty causes crime" arguments.

I think the steel-man of the class/subculture argument here would be to point out that clothes and posturing are also doing a lot of work here: we're talking about someone putting their feet on the seats (not a 'proper' behavior). These cases are never about someone in a suit, or even a collared shirt, or about someone quietly reading a book or using headphones. It's always about someone swaggering around like they own the place.

I will absolutely concede that this correlates pretty strongly with race, and I won't take a side here on whether there is causation and in which direction. You can try to do so in a colorblind fashion, but I think it'll look pretty similar to an outside observer regardless.

I will absolutely concede that this correlates pretty strongly with race

It's the "black" vs "nigga" thing again combined with black culture having serious issues that make many people end up as niggas (sometimes irrespective of skin color). As you said, middle class black guys on their way to office are never the ones that cause these problems.

I'm reminded of when I visited San Francisco as a young guy 25 years ago and had my first proper encounter with a beggar. That guy was obviously black instead of "nigga" as he was reasonably well dressed, very polite and all "Excuse me sir, would you have any spare change" and very thankful when I gave him all the small coins I had wanted to get rid of anyway. The complete opposite of what I hear things are like these days.

If someone wants to say "well, it's not so clear, maybe it's this, maybe it's that, etc , etc." I don't have anything against that. It's the waltzing in, declaring one theory wrong, and proposing a wronger one as the true explanation, triggers my 'tism.

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