This quote from Stupid White Men doesn't really say anything about
Martin's original argument (i.e. that murders tend to target members of
their own ethnic group).

In fact, if we read through it, there are two general conclusions:

a) anecdotal evidence (and it is only anecdotal - this is a selection of
examples; though I will accept that this does NOT mean that the general
conclusion is correct) suggests that the larger and more significant
crimes have predominantly been perpetrated by people from a white ethnic
background. That is fine in itself (though as I point out above, this is
more anecdotal than scientific), but it tells us nothing about
individually targeted crimes.

Furthermore, in most cases you could probably replace the term "whitey"
with "individual(s) from a relatively well-off background who have the
opportunities to get into a position of power that allowed them to act in
the way that they did". And in many cases this is "whitey" (Michael
Moore's words) as wealth and opportunity is unfairly weighted towards
people from a white ethnic background.

b) That the blame of crime is over-proportionally ascribed to people from
a black ethnic background in comparison to the number of crimes that they
actually commit. Again, this tells us nothing about the relationship
between victim and perpetrator, but rather more about fear of crime, and
in particular the possible racial prejudices shown by the majority ethnic
groups picked up in surveys.

This second point takes us back to the criticism of the crime statistics
someone raised earlier in the week - the official statistics give the
ethnic origin of the victim, but not the criminal. Without this latter
piece of information, it becomes very hard to reconcile the fear of crime
(that are committed by separate ethnic groups) with the actual crimes
(that are committed by separate ethnic groups).

Regards,
Daryl




At 05:52 PM 6/28/2007, Professor David Gordon wrote:
with apologies to Michael Moore (Stupid White Men, 2002)-

"No black guy ever built or used a bomb designed to wipe out hordes of
innocent people, whether in Oklahoma City, Columbine or Hiroshima. No,
friends, it's always the white guy. Let's go to the tote board:

· Who gave us the black plague? A white guy.

· Who invented PBC, PVC, PBB, and a host of chemicals that are killing us?
White guys.

· Who has started every war America has been in? White men.

· Who invented the punchcard ballot? A white man.

· Whose idea was it to pollute the world with the internal combustion
engine? Whitey, that's who.

· The Holocaust? That guy really gave white people a bad name.

· The genocide of Native Americans? White man.

· Slavery? Whitey!

· US companies laid off more than 700,000 people in 2001. Who ordered the
lay-offs? White CEOs.

You name the problem, the disease, the human suffering, or the abject
misery visited upon millions, and I'll bet you 10 bucks I can put a white
face on it faster than you can name the members of 'NSync.

And yet, when I turn on the news each night, what do I see again and again?
Black men alleged to be killing, raping, mugging, stabbing, gangbanging,
looting, rioting, selling drugs, pimping, ho-ing, having too many babies,
fatherless, motherless, Godless, penniless. "The suspect is described as a
black male... the suspect is described as a black male... THE SUSPECT IS
DESCRIBED AS A BLACK MALE..." No matter what city I'm in, the news is
always the same, the suspect always the same unidentified black male. I'm
in Atlanta tonight, and I swear the police sketch of the black male suspect
on TV looks just like the black male suspect I saw on the news last night
in Denver and the night before in LA. In every sketch he's frowning, he's
menacing - and he's wearing the same knit cap! Is it possible that it's the
same black guy committing every crime in America?

I believe we've become so used to this image of the black man as predator
that we are forever ruined by this brainwashing. In my first film, Roger &
Me, a white woman on social security clubs a rabbit to death so that she
can sell him as "meat" instead of as a pet. I wish I had a nickel for every
time in the past 10 years that someone has come up to me and told me how
"horrified" they were when they saw that "poor little cute bunny" bonked on
the head. The scene, they say, made them physically sick. The Motion
Picture Association of America gave Roger & Me an R [18] rating in response
to that rabbit killing. Teachers write to me and say they have to edit that
part out of the film, if they want to show it to their students.

But less than two minutes after the bunny lady does her deed, I included
footage of a scene in which police in Flint, Michigan, shot a black man who
was wearing a Superman cape and holding a plastic toy gun. Not once - not
ever - has anyone said to me, "I can't believe you showed a black man being
shot in your movie! How horrible! How disgusting! I couldn't sleep for
weeks." After all, he was just a black man, not a cute, cuddly bunny. The
ratings board saw absolutely nothing wrong with that scene. Why? Because
it's normal, natural. We've become so accustomed to seeing black men killed
- in the movies and on the evening news - that we now accept it as standard
operating procedure. No big deal! That's what blacks do - kill and die.
Ho-hum. Pass the butter.

It's odd that, despite the fact that most crimes are committed by whites,
black faces are usually attached to what we think of as "crime".

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