Quote:
Originally Posted by smc
Racism is about more than a "superiority of ability." It is belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities, and that racial differences produce some inherent superiority or inferiority of particular races. Hence, drawing a link between race and crime so generally is a form of racism.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TracyCoxx
... unless that link can actually be shown to exist. I don't think the person making the link should be immediately accused of racism. Wouldn't that be another ism?
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Tracy, there has never been any
direct link shown between race and the propensity to engage in criminal behavior. Even in the most dangerous U.S. cities, where crime runs rampant in black communities, sociologists across the political spectrum, law enforcement, scholars of jurisprudence, and so on, agree that it is the socio-economic conditions that create the conditions of crime. The fact that one particular race is committing the crimes under such circumstances is a function of those socio-economic conditions, which may very well be (and are likely) linked to racial discrimination of some sort at some time. But crime is a response by all races, to some degree, to their socio-economic conditions, be it the need to put food on the table or just the need to lash out in a life of desperation and a sense of nothing for which to live.
Therefore, I stand by my statement that drawing a link between race and crime so generally -- that is, brushing an entire race with the brush, explicitly or implicity, of being criminals -- is racism.