Is there a racial double standard, and is it detrimental to society?

Yes, there is a double-standard. NOBODY should be judged or given ANY leeway based on their color, or any other differences. We are ALL equally equal!

Yes, there is a double standard: the assumption that white male history is the history of the American People, and that no meaningful contributions came from anyone else.

Of course there is and it’s bullshit

@AdventureElephants Ever hear of the term “white on white crime”? No? Didn’t think so. “Black on black crime” is a term used to distract people from the issue at hand – which is that, regardless of violent crime in general, they still experience more death and arrests at the hands of police and harsher sentencing than white men who commit the same crimes. Unless “white on white crime”, “male on male crime”, “female on female crime”, and “child on child crime” become terms that people use, there is no reason in the world to say “black on black crime”.

Edit: Furthermore, trying to ignore racial inequality is like a doctor saying “Let’s just pretend like we don’t see the cancer so the problem goes away”.

@DrasticDreamer I wish I could agree with you 100% The real issue is “poor on poor crime” Specifically inner city on inner city crime. People don’t want to talk about that because we would have to admit that inner city poor are mostly black and economically disadvantaged. I served on my local grand jury and 95% of the crime in my area comes from the housing projects. It’s a real thing and basically being ignored. If someone is assaulted in a good part of town it makes the news. It basically happens every day in the poor areas and we never hear about it.

When they say “Black Lives Matter” they of course don’t mean black lives matter more than white lives. But some people twist and twist it to make it sound like it is what it is meant.

@flo How come no one chants white lives matter when a white kid is gunned down or Cops lives matter when a cop is assassinated sitting in his squad car??

@Cruiser You’re free to start a movement. This is America. And the truth is we all mourn unnecessary killing of anyone.

Isn’t black history month celebrating how they were no longer slaves? I guess we could make a white history month vice versa for any race but would it really catch on?

@Cruiser Because the fact remains that more black people are killed by police disproportionately – even for lesser crimes. And I’m sure if police started being killed as much as black people are by police, people would say something. But they don’t, because they aren’t.

@ARE_you_kidding_me Addressing the fact that violent crimes happen more in poorer areas is an important distinction to make, but what people fail to realize is that, in really poor white areas (where crime is also higher), people never refer to anything as “white on white crime”. It’s BS.

@janbb if that was really true then why are only the dead black kids getting riot, chants and rallies??

I don’t see the world though rose colored glasses to where “we all mourn unnecessary killing of anyone” If that were the case there would be chants and rallies for dead white kids and slaughtered cops.

The reason there is no “white history month” for example is that it would sound like the Mcdonalds vs hot coffee case

@DrasticDreamer Are you sure about your statement?

“According to data from the Centers for Disease Control, between 1999 and 2011, 2,151 whites died as a result of being shot by police compared to 1,130 blacks.”

In the same period of time “A total of 1,466 law enforcement officers died in the line of duty during the past 10 years” Hmmm…that is more dead cops than dead black kids. Again I ask where are the dead cops rallies and chants?

@Cruiser Ah, but you’re also missing an important piece of information: Black people killed by police are more than twice as likely to be unarmed than the white people killed by police. Statistics matter, but so do nuances in them.

@Cruiser ”…1999 and 2011, 2,151 whites died as a result of being shot by police compared to 1,130 blacks.”
Out of how many whites and how many blacks?

@Cruiser That’s where the word “disproportionately” comes in. It’s as a proportion of the total population that more blacks are being killed.

A twelve year old boy had a b.b. gun in a playground. He was killed after no confrontation and the cops were not indicted. If your sons were Black would you not be more afraid that they would be harmed by police? I would.

And btw, I have empathy for the police too. I know that there are many caring ones and I know it is a tough job.

There are tons of white friends of black people who could tell you story after story, how when they are with their white friends nothing happens, no incident at all, eventhough they do the same kind things with their black friends as with their white. But it’s when they are with their black friends that let’s say they are stopped by police etc.

@DrasticDreamer I am not here to argue nuances especially when these nuances you offer do nothing to address the real problem of why kids are getting shot, why they were where they were and what were they doing when they got shot. A vast majority of these kids armed or unarmed were involved in criminal activity and why is that? Why are so many kids out involved in criminal activity that is getting them shot??

@janbb I would be lying if I did not say I would of course I would worry if my kid was black living in a poor area. Even still I raised good kids who know better to avoid trouble at all costs and none of my boys would be in a park waving around a BB Pistol either.

Lastly @DrasticDreamer since I am a stat man…18% of whites shot by police were unarmed and 24% of blacks shot by police were unarmed. A nuance that is hardly reflective of a (I will use @janbb‘s term) “disproportionate” trend of the number of unarmed kids of any color killed by police.

@Cruiser But it matters in terms of general population. Black people only make up something like 12% of the entire population of America. That absolutely matters. You may not be here to argue nuances, but to deny that they make a difference is extremely detrimental if you want to actually fix a problem. Criminal activity or not, getting killed if you’re unarmed and not being violent isn’t okay anywhere, for any reason.

Addressing the issue of why it seems kids in general are engaging in criminal activity more than they used to is an important discussion to have, but in terms of the OP’s question, is starting to veer off-topic.

@Cruiser I don’t have the stomach to keep discussing this but can you entertain the idea that even well-behaved and wealthy blacks are harmed or harassed just because they are suspected of something? For example, the man who successfully sued Barney’s for racial profiling when he was followed by store detectives after buying a $350 belt. Can you imagine how corrosive it can be to live like that?

@DrasticDreamer You are skewing the facts by what you are saying. My numbers reflect percents of a specific race and that won’t change by the ultimate total number of peoples in that race.

Another factoid for you to mull over…

“From 2011 to 2013, 38.5 per cent of people arrested for murder, manslaughter, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault were black. This figure is three times higher than the 13% black population figure. When you account for the fact that black males aged 15–34, who account for around 3% of the population, are responsible for the vast majority of these crimes, the figures are even more staggering.”

You are trying to promote statistics that just don’t carry water in the real world and that is even more detrimental to eventually finding a solution to the real reasons so many black and white kids are getting shot dead.

I will also ask you to rationalize why cops are demonized for shooting anyone dead who has repeatedly ignored their orders to stop and drop? In each of the Black Live Matters tragedies these young dead men did just that. Had they stopped and listened to the cops commands they would still be alive today. I don’t know why they didn’t listen to the cops and to me that is a good place to start.

Of course there are bad cops that give black kids a reason to fear them but if these same kids stay out of trouble they stand a lesser chance of having a police gun pointed at them. Seriously in all these situations there was some reason or cause for that office to draw their weapon and obviously firing 16 rounds into an unarmed kid is unconscionable no matter if he was a suspect in a crime and that cop should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

@Cruiser The number of black males arrested for those crimes is not representative of anything, except even more racial crap. White males who commit the same crimes are not as likely to spend time in prison.

@DrasticDreamer Says who? You? I do respect your passion for this topic and I am no less passionate and nothing frustrates me more when I debate a person who debates from misinformation passion as opposed to facts which IMHO is why we have people screaming Black Live Matter instead of screaming Good parenting, better schools and good jobs Matter.

One more set of facts for you to consider and then I am done with this thread….

“Felony Sentences in State Courts, 2004, indicates that, of the nearly 1,079,000 adults convicted of a felony in 2004 in state courts nationwide, 59% were white, 38% were black, and 38% were persons identified as American Indians or Alaska Native, Asian, Native Hawaiian, or Pacific Islander.”

No, says a whole bunch of statistics. And again: the number of white people in prison is not representative of the fact that black men spend time in prison for offences that white men do not get convicted for, typically. If there are more white men in prison (you don’t say where that statistic comes from), it’s not surprising, because there are far more white men in the country. It does not mean that black people aren’t sent to prison easier than white men who commit the same crimes.

Also, according to the US Department of Justice in 2014, 6% of all black males ages 30 to 39 were in prison, compared to 2% of Hispanic and 1% of white males in the same age group. And keep in mind that only 12% to 13% of the entire US population consists of black people.

You also have to take into consideration that black males are something like 31% more likely to be pulled over than white males, even though there are far more white men – which means, mathematically, more white men are guilty of traffic violations, yet they aren’t pulled over as often. That is blatantly indicative of racial profiling.

The statistics for the “stop and frisk” law in NYC were similar. Minorities were targeted far more often than white people. Therefore, they will be convicted at numbers disproportionate to their overall population size. So again, if there are more white men in prison, it doesn’t mean anything, because there are far more white people in the country in general.

It’s not a double standard. Of course black people relate more to other black people on tv. And rather than continue to be content with seeing token blacks in minor roles we now have BET. In the same way that the LGBT community likes to have gay and lesbian representation. It’s validating to see someone like you on tv. Someone to whom you can relate. I don’t think white people can really understand what it feels like unless we lived in another country where whites were in the minority. So to whine like a bitch and expect people to pretend that we don’t have differences is absurd and insupportable.

Double standards exist just about everywhere, not just with race. They flourish and exist mainly because of ideology over logic. There really is nothing wrong with having a ”Caucasian Club” on campus or in town. If Caucasian people wanted to cobble together and deal with challenges Caucasian people face in modern times and some of those challenges are centered around a particular nationality, how can they have an honest discussion about it among themselves if they have to let anyone join, and some of them are present? They could be offended because they are the center of some of the problems Caucasians face.

There are double standards in the sexes, race, income status, etc. there is always some thought that ”those people” or that group will get over on us, if they aren’t already. To those who perceive to be on the short end, they get allowances, their own club, their own this, their own that, etc. I don’t know the depth of any of those double standards on society, society seems pretty good at botching things in other areas.

Good morning @DrasticDreamer Once again you present statistics to support your “agenda” (whatever that is I have yet to discover) Perhaps you might consider the fact that black males are something like 31% more likely to be pulled over than white males is simply due to that blacks commit 34% more petty crimes than white people in NYC. So would it just make sense that blacks would be pulled over proportionately to the number of crimes being committed by their race? Makes sense to me and hardly something to be jumping up and down and waving your hands over. Again I will ask why are these black kids “disproportionately” committing so many crimes and why are you not focusing on the why this is? Focusing on the “statistics” of black kids getting arrested should flip your switch to realizing this is not about the police doing their job which by the mere virtue of the statistics get them arresting more black kids disproportionately because of the simple fact more black kids commit crimes. I wish I would see you or anyone for that matter ask why are cops having to arrest so many black kids, why are so many black kids shooting other black kids, why are families having to bury so many black kids?

This as the OP intones is not a racial double standard and it is way overdue that people like you stop trying to make it so. It’s a parenting issue and time you, our President , leaders like Sharpton and Jessie Jackson step up and call it like it is.

@flo Yes, I find most of these answers to be extremely off-topic to the OP, and considering this is a question under general, I was disappointed more of them were not removed for being off-topic.

I’m tired of this same old black on black vs black on white, blacks vs whites vs cops, social class led racism fed bullshit conversation. Very few of the facts spouted in these conversations come from unbiased factual data, kudos to those of you that did choose fact based data gathering from reputable resources, because so many are being spoon fed racism and misinformation by the media spin and don’t even see it. So I wanted a different conversation. I specifically asked in my OP that posters attempt to leave social class out of it, and specifically asked that we address double standards.

Very few responses, in my opinion, addressed double standards. Haven’t we beat the gun violence angle to death already? I was hoping we could examine our society from a different angle, but I guess not. There are so many other double standards in our society when it comes to race, are there not? Maybe I should have made the OP more clear and specific.

Thank you for all responses. If you would like to address the OP and how double standards affect our society from any angle other than a violent one, I would very much like to hear those responses. Genuinely. Thanks again.

Ok. Maybe I can address it this way more appropriately. It seems to me that while a group feels kept out of the mainstream culture – which may be true or may be their own perception – they are more inclined to form separate groups. I’m thinking about immigrant groups such as my own people, the Jews, who set up landsmanschaft or fraternal organizations for new immigrants from their towns. More recently, in my area, Jews were not allowed to join the local swanky golf course so they set up one of their own – across the street. Now, I would imagine they could apply and be accepted to the goyishe golf course – I don’t know how much crossover there is. Certainly as Jewish people have been assimilated into the broader culture they have less and less need for separate cultural institutions. I believe that Black people still have a long way to be fully integrated and I’m not sure that full integration is desirable for any group. I think we need a mish-mash of separate and together cultures and I don’t see a double standard in that at all.

Thank you, @janbb! I remember as a kid growing up we would drive across the state to see my grandparents. The road we took passed by a giant billboard and a turnoff for a town called Soulville. My dad explained to me that the governor created that town so the people of color could have a town of their own if they wanted it. The town failed, ultimately, but the big sign to the turnoff is still there. I’ll see if I can remember the current name of the town… The history of its establishment is very complex because of the forced vs chosen segregation angle… But still segregation none-the-less.
He was born in the 30s. I was always so intrigued by the stories he told of segregation.

Yes there is a double standard

IF i was to start a group called White entertainers or White business men or the White Caucus I would be called racist but it is okay for so called minorites to have these groups.

IT is nonsense and we should just put and end to all this crap and labelling

Why can’t we just be human beings with different physical features.

I am sick of this.

My children will be mixed race and I am not going to force them to identify with one particular race.

They will be human beings with a multicultural background.

No you do not have an identity crisis if you refuse to be labelled . This is all psychological garbage stemming from the days of slavery and segregation and just plain human ignorance.

I am sick of this nonsense.

Just put an end to it. We need to move forward as a human race.

Even in America you find people that are mixed race identifying with only one race

WTF ?

This is just sad and pathetic.

This nonsense needs to stop.