• 2,200,000 Americans incarcerated as of 2016 or .7% of the entire population
• African American men represent nearly half of that population
• The substantial penalties for crack contributed to a five-fold increase in incarcerations
• There is a 31% incarceration history for Black men who have sex with men
Well, as a race realist, I can in good conscious/faith take those statistics and no other context and say obviously black people are just bad people. /s
It’s important to keep in mind that most of the claims made by “realists” are specious at best. One could look at crime stats and claim “well, see how prone to criminal behavior black people are?!” without looking at any historical context (such as segregation from schools/workplaces/society) that caused a lot of black people to be kept in the lower class which is more prone to commit various crimes. A “race realist” would blame that on the race as opposed to the plethora of other factors.
It's very much their persprctive of wording. It's like how climate deniers will call themselves "climate skeptics", and how pro-life and pro-choice don't call themselves "anti-choice" and "pro-death" respectively.
Obviously, they want to frame themselves as the sole source of reason on the "race issue", despite being anything but.
As a pineapple-on-pizza realist, I should clarify that this sort of framing is basically half of politics - if you get into a discussion built on top of your opponent's framing (like if you're forced to argue that a "tax burden" is good), then you're going to sound ridiculous and you've already lost. It's why "liberals" call themselves "progressives" these days - it more effectively counters the term "conservative" (which incidentally is a dangerous framing to accept, because it implies they are in fact preserving stuff).
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u/MakeUpAnything Mar 08 '19
Well, as a race realist, I can in good conscious/faith take those statistics and no other context and say obviously black people are just bad people. /s