re: I am not going to "wear" that stat about black men going to jail more

All in good fun, of course.

He's not asking if black people go to prison more than whites per capita, we know that is true.

He is asking, for the same crime, do blacks get tougher sentencing than whites? I think someone above sort of touched it.

And yes, there are a bunch of studies on this, but the veracity thereof or how many variables they tested I couldn't tell you.

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Black men go to jail far more often than white men (percentage wise). Black men come from far more broken homes (percentage wise).

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And poverty, of course.

Poor people commit crimes in greater proportions than middle class or wealthy people, particularly violent crimes.

And I'm not making character judgments - in the final analysis, poor people deal with more dire circumstances, are surrounded by poverty and violence, and ultimately have less to lose - not that they're "worse" people, necessarily.

However, like lots of destructive and anti-social patterns, it tends to create a self-perpetuating cycle.

Addressing poverty directly has done little, because subsidizing anything tends to generate more of it. The difficulty is addressing the root causes of poverty and violent crime - namely lack of education, lack of work ethic/motivation to work, lack of resources/role models, etc. - all of these abound in poor communities - without talking down to people or implying that poor people of color (or poor people, generally) are "inferior".

How can I help you stop doing things that are wrong or counterproductive if pointing them out is racist or prejudiced? (That's why it is tough to even get the conversation started...)

Way to own your foible that you've foisted upon us this morning

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A page and a half and I still don't know what OP wants out of this thread

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A concession that "Black men are bad - dangerous wild animals that deserve to be caged as such"?

In any event, like many of the world's problems, this one just isn't so easy to explain away.

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"Black men are bad - dangerous wild animals that deserve to be caged as such"

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Sentences are longer for crack than powder. Blacks use more crack; whites more powder. The reason for the sentencing disparity is 'related violence.' The crack business involves waaaay more shootings than the powder business.

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Well - and for the longest time, powder cocaine was the purview of doctors, lawyers, politicians, rockstars, etc.

Crack is the cocaine of poor people and the street - "Crack is whack!" - so true, sister, RIP Whitney.

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But there is a lot of evidence that the race of the VICTIM matters. IE, more defendants get harsher sentences if they killed a white person than if they killed a black person.

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And if there is one thing that truly troubles me it is the relative devaluation of blacks - and not the offenders for whom I care little - but the black victims of crime, both the direct victims, the children they leave behind when they're incarcerated or killed, the multi-generational societal damage, taxpayer burden, etc.

And another entire class of black victims that are forgotten - the brothers and sisters who do everything right - they get looked at askance, followed in stores, prejudged before people know anything about them - why? Because of this media image, grounded in some fact (as all stereotypes are, to a certain degree), of young blacks, particularly males, as roving agents of crime and chaos.

Tbird - you know I don't mean you, right, brother?

We cool.

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A concession that "Black men are bad - dangerous wild animals that deserve to be caged as such"?

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Come on, dude.

Our national discussion seems to be premised on the notion that our justice system treats blacks less well than it treats whites. I refuse to accept any kind of responsibility for that, and I am sure there's more to it than the stats show. For example, perhaps the disparities are strongly regional and can be blamed on the South. What are the races of the judges/prosecutors who are sticking it to blacks?

There has to be more to it than meets the eye (i.e., we all can't help ourselves and we simply devalue black lives).

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I refuse to accept any kind of responsibility for that

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unless you're a judge or a prosecutor, why would you be expected to accept the responsibility?

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and I am sure there's more to it than the stats show

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you already admitted that you don't know shite about this, so how can you be so sure there's more to it?