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That very well may be - but I don't need a predictor if I can get the actual thing measured!
Possible, but why invent such proxy if there's no need in it?
Well, yes, but there are more direct metrics for the quality of schools, why anybody would be interested in metrics that are secondary or tertiary?
Ok, there's a correlation. But so what? There are a lot of correlations: https://tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations Given that I have access to direct metrics, how this correlation is more useful to me than correlation between butter production in Bangladesh and marriage rate in Kentucky?
I never said you needed it, like I have said multiple times now. I was saying that it was valid. Furthermore, that's not what that line of argument was about. It was about whether or not you were implicitly avoiding black people via your stated preferences for safety and the added measures of 'good schools'. By the same token you self described as avoiding poor people you are avoiding blacks, that was the point.
To reiterate again, no one said race as a proxy was needed. I, however, maintained that there was no reason for a person who did not care about race to dismiss the metric since it still contains information.
It's not an either or. Having more is better than having less. For example, as Don Lemon said, even in the rich black neighborhoods he was living in there were problems there he did not see in white ones. You, as a person who says they don't care about race, should have no problem recognizing that fact. It might contradict your experience or it might not, but there is no basis here to act as if it has no value.
Because no measure or metric is perfect. Why not have an interest in a wide array of metrics? Even though they are not all equally as good at some specific thing there might be cases where one happens to matter more. If say, schools start implementing a policy of suspending their black students less despite their behavior, then race seems like a very pertinent metric. I mean, I wouldn't want my kid growing up in such an unfair and racist environment.
There are a lot of spurious correlations that can be made so therefor what? If you think the correlation between %black and violent crime is not informative in this context then I don't know what on earth you were talking about when you insinuated that you were implicitly avoiding poor neighborhoods earlier. Given that the correlation between %black and violent crime is higher than economic factors in the vast majority of cases.
Valid for what? There should be some goal in mind, collecting data just for the sake of collecting data is pointless. If you make a predictor, you should have a goal in mind - what you want to predict and why. And if there's much better way to predict the same, it's pointless to consider an inferior predictor.
I will be avoiding some blacks, yes. And some whites. And some Native Americans. And - gasp! - some Jews. Maybe among people I'm avoiding there would be more blacks than white Jews. I am just not seeing why it's so important to you to point out this fact and emphasize it. For me, it's a bit of pointless trivia - like pointing out that average middle toe length on the left foot in my neighborhood is exactly 2 inches. Maybe it is - but I gain nothing by knowing that, and it proves nothing. So why are you investing so much in pointing it out?
I surely have no problem recognizing the fact that Don Lemon said it. I am just not sure why there's any importance to me in it. I have no idea which neighborhoods he was talking about (and also I probably would never take advice from Don Lemon anyway, he doesn't look like somebody particularly fit for that - and I am not referring to his skin color by that, but rather to his body of "work") and I already have much better criteria for evaluating neighborhoods - so his evidence, while I do not deny its existence, changes nothing in my calculus.
That's not enough. Metric A being imperfect doesn't mean you go grab for any random metric B. You have first to show metric B is actually less imperfect than metric A. But this is clearly not the case here.
That would be a very bad, very stupid and very racist policy. And of course, nobody wants their kid to be educated by stupid racists. But I'd notice that schools prone to doing that also tend to have very poor evaluation metrics, so if you choose (provided, of course, you have that option) better school, you would be able to avoid it.
I'll explain. I was talking about the fact that if I want to choose a good neighborhood, I don't have to count how many black people are there and try to estimate the level of crime there - I can just directly look into the crime statistics and know the level of crime with better accuracy. Thus, this correlation is not useful for me for the purposes of choosing a low-crime neighborhood.
Everything that it can predict. I don't think it's pointless to have a correlate that outperforms economic factors, considering the weight people place on those. If there's a metric that is better or worse, you as a person who doesn't care about race has no reason to care about using the race metric or not. Telling stories about how your black neighbors were better than the white ones in some area you lived in is not you not caring. Which is why I asked what the big deal was. Some people are a different color and commit more crime. Using that one can predict various things. Given that it can predict this, I'm inclined to believe that it has some value. I can not possibly understand why you take issue with this. Like I've said countless times, it's not either or.
For instance, black people have ingroup bias greater than that of whites. Black children are more likely to bully than white children. These two things might show up on some direct metric like crime or school evaluation, but they also might not. Since no metric is perfect. Considering we don't care about race, do we care that one group of a different color has a baseline higher rate of bullying than another when we are choosing a school? Knowing that bullying can be very insidious and go under the radar of any stat collecting authority for a long time. Maybe that's parental paranoia, and the factors that account for bullying are reliant on not just the bully but the victim and whatever else. But regardless of that, if we don't care about race, why on earth would we place our lot with a group that has a baseline higher than another? All else being equal.
I asked a question that relied on you acknowledging the fact that you were implicitly avoiding blacks. You, for some reason, said you weren't implicitly avoiding blacks. Now that we have that finally sorted maybe you could just answer that question.
That's not the fact I was asking you to recognize. I was asking you to recognize that there might be truth to the proposition that different racial groups have different problems that don't show up in crime reports. And that this might influence ones decision about where to move. You said you have better metrics, but don't elaborate on what those are. I think expressed racial kinship is a relevant factor. If it's one black neighbor, I see no reason to assume anything. If it's a group of black neighbors or a black neighborhood, they seem to have decided to live with 'their own'. I don't find that irrelevant regardless of how well behave they are.
Like I said before, it's not an either or. I'm not looking to placate your baseless need to only use one metric when making a prediction about something. I honestly find it ridiculous and I don't believe you would be so adamant about only using a single metric in a different context. Considering I've given use cases for race in areas that crime rate does not cover I don't see the objection as being relevant to anything I'm saying.
Right, the link to spurious correlations threw me for a loop. The point I was making wasn't that it would be more useful than direct metrics, like I've said many times now. That doesn't mean it isn't a useful predictor for related things, like if the neighborhood is growing darker or lighter or whatever else. In that case, moving to an area that is growing darker would likely be bad in the long run. But you could not tell by looking at crime stats for the past year.
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