The graduation thread was close to closing, but fortunately we can keep the flame of color-blind white justice warriors burning here.
Yeah, about that phrase āLies, damned lies, and statisticsā¦ā
Or, as more elaborately expounded āA good statistician should be able to use one set of data to āproveā diametrically opposed conclusions.ā
Iāve taken to calling out that sentiment as the anti-intellectual bullshit it is; the (very slightly) more mature version of sticking ones fingers in ones ears and chanting āI canāt hear you, I canāt hear you, la la la la, I canāt hear you.ā
I find that the cynical, blanket dismissal of the whole science of statistics is mostly offered by people who donāt want to let facts get in the way of their own beliefs/opinions/conclusions.
I really like the authorās advice to be transparent with both data and methods, and remain open to the possibility of being incorrect.
s
What a radical notion; changing oneās beliefs/opinions/conclusions based on evidence? Thatās crazy talk!
/s
Edit: Iāve had an apostrophe!
Iām jumping out now then!
The article should probably highlight that the findings only explain 6% of the variance. This means other features not examined (the author suggests āthe facts of the caseā as a likely one) may matter far more than income.
But then one would have to re-emphasize that the result is real and pernicious and measurable and (probably) fixable.
But then youād have to reiterate that it is small.
But then youād have toā¦
Thatās well above the 1% line.
As a back-of-the-envelope calculation:
$500K earners appear to be around 0.3% of the population, on average.
And how many of those are people of color?
*** reads headline ***
*** raises hand ***
āItās a trick question. There is no level at which a black defendant will be treated like a white defendant of equal wealthā
*** reads post ***
Ah well, I guess itās a good thing that I was wrong, but not really all that good, all things considered.
Sweet link, Cory. Thanks!
strictly speaking, weāre only talking about the Virginia Criminal Circuit Courts in 2006-2010
So itās a pretty good bet that things were dramatically worse before then, and are slightly better now. Theodore Parkerās arc and all that.
So we can see that a defendantās race is positively correlated with the sentence they receive, and their income is negatively correlated.
Well, I think itās pretty easy to see which of those things can be changed without resort to genocide.
Iām working on a more detailed analysis of this data that seems to suggest that, at some points in the course of a case, oneās race plays no significant role in determining an outcome. What we see here is the aggregate effect of many interlocking parts. Reality is complex. Good people can find themselves unwitting cogs in the machinery of institutional racism, and a system doesnāt have to have racist intentions to behave in a racist way.
Every time you leave your computer on when youāre not using it, or buy a ceiling fan with a remote control, you contribute to structural racism. Totally not kidding, Wangari Maathai and all that. Itās all related and is very intricate; people want it to be just about one raceās struggle or another raceās privilege, but itās really far more complex than any simplistic slogan can contain.
What if the computer is in sleep mode? hibernate? Unplugged?
Iāll just set this down right here, and be on on my way:
We all know where your biases lie.
by chronicling his experience, Rock has demonstrated that even the most famous and successful black men in America are more likely to get pulled to the side of the road than your average white guy.
I talked to my 6 year-old niece about Indians living here in America and she said, āDid they come from India?ā Then I felt very old.
I laughed.
And yeah, I know Iām going to have my moment, too. Probably when referencing the game ācowboys and Indiansā. And no matter how many times I tell those precocious little glue-eaters that Iām using the term in its then-contemporary context, Iām still going to get that eye-roll from them that makes me want to call an old friend over, crack open a cold can of Moxie, and commiserate in feeling hopelessly misunderstood even though we thought weād passed through that phase several decades ago.
Indigenous people in the USA that I have known personally have generally preferred to be called āIndiansā over other options. Your mileage may vary.
Thatās actually somewhat comforting, because the phrase āNative Americanā still leaves me grappling for a single word that I can never find because Iām almost entirely ignorant of the different confederations and collective identities that fall under that umbrella term.
Native American is an oxymoronic term that arises from white guilt. And itās not just me who says so.
Iāve heard many preferences expressed for Indigenous, American Indian, or just plain Indian, however messed-up the last two are.
Echoes of āAre you Black or African-American?ā
