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- Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a large crowd on Prince and Lafayette at 4:45am, 10-75 at Broome and Attorney in LES, and a barricaded EDP in Midtown East.
- Greetings from Washington Heights: the Castle Village retaining wall that collapsed in May 2005 has finally been repaired.
- If your landlord is trying to evict you to turn the building into an illegal hotel, you might soon get some relief-- the city is changing the loophole that allows landlords to get away with that.
- The Governitzer has come out in favor of saving the "freedom staircase" at the WTC-- until now, it seemed certain that it would be demolished during the building of Tower 2 at the site.
- Here's a fun map of all the neighborhoods in Manhattan.
- A controversial column from City Journal: "According to victims and witnesses, blacks committed 68.5 percent of all murders, rapes, robberies, and assaults in New York last year, though they are only 24 percent of the city’s population. Whites, who make up 34.5 percent of New Yorkers, committed 5.3 percent of those crimes... in light of this massive disparity in crime rates, the police stop-and-frisk data are not just reasonable but inevitable. Last year, 55 percent of police stops were of blacks—a proportion far below the 68.5 percent of violent crime that blacks commit—while 11 percent of stops were of whites, nearly double their 5.3 percent contribution to violent crime."
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According to victims and witnesses, blacks committed 68.5 percent of all murders, rapes, robberies, and assaults in New York last year, though they are only 24 percent of the city’s population. Whites, who make up 34.5 percent of New Yorkers, committed 5.3 percent of those crimes
Over the years on the various Law & Order TV shows, which are set in New York, more than 80% of the criminals have been white. I find that offensive.
Well I'm glad they defended it with numbers: it is hard to argue with that.
However, having been a victim of these stop-and-frisks in the past, I do believe they are too often related to finding drugs than weapons, which is what the law that allows them to perform a frisk without consent was created for: finding weapons that may pose a threat to an officer's life, in any "high crime area", which is obviously an arbitrary label.
The best thing you can do is say, "I don't consent to any searches, sir/ma'am" and make sure (s)he doesn't put any hands inside your clothes while you are being patted down.
Erm, isn't at least some discussion a prerequisite for controversy? Neither Google Blogs nor Technorati show any mention of this column, so it looks like you're trying to start controversy, unless I'm wrong, to back up your alarmist "news" story (a link to the NYT) a few days ago. I'm just sayin.
I blame (c)rap 'music' ....
Perhaps "potentially controversial" might be more accurate, as one can't control when people decide to zip their lips out of either politesse or willful avoidance.
Uncle Al getting drunk and dropping his pants on the dance floor at your wedding reception is probably controversial. Because everyone averts his or her eyes and pretends it isn't happening doesn't make it less so. People eventually will be arguing about whether he gets invited to the next wedding for sure. Likewise, an ignoramus friend announcing that he's loving his time in NYC , but is afraid of being robbed by blacks, is also saying something controversial, but embarrassed friends will often let that slide by unremarked and hope no one else heard. Acquiescence to ignorance doesn't nullify controversy, it just sidesteps it.
Either way, the author has little control over the timing of a reaction to a study's controversial conclusion: maybe blacks aren't being profiled enough.
That story is soooo Dec. 2006. That and h. macdonald has a weird lip problem if you'd seen her on CNN.
She has a fetish for cops, that's her claim to fame. don't be suprised if she gets tapped for some LE agency like that other wannabe copper j. miller.
Of course, racist gun nerds will find her attractive in the Ann coulter sense. excuse me while I barf.
Good God! I knew that that wall was going to be repaired on the cheap. Instead of putting in the effort (and money) that it would take to build a stone wall with modern engineering and construction standards, they put up a concrete dam. It is now an official eyesore.
Peter,
My favorite Law & Order trope is when they take a news story involving a black person and switch the perp to a white person. Just today TNT aired the episode about the woman who hit the bum and drove home with the guy still stuck in her windshield. In real life it was a black woman. In Law & Order, it was a white woman.
I left a comment to this effect over at City Journal, but I would just like to point out that the numbers could be skewed by the possibility that Whites are less likely to get caught... it sounds to me that the numbers could just easily mean that Blacks are more likely to get caught committing a crime because of prejudice. It can go both ways here. The chicken or the egg? Which came first?
The crime stats are referring to certain types of crimes, no? Example: robberies, drug use/selling/ assaults, homicides related to burglaries, passion/ignorance, etc. Somewhat low level crimes, more apt to be committed by people in the lower socio-economic classes with less education and more desperate, hopeless circumstances. Those are crimes that we in the USA make public and punish heavily for. Simultaneously there are crimes that affect larger groups of people negatively, such as, you know, using your power and money to discourage gas emission regulations, or sanctioning the murder of 650,000 Iraqi civilians (from the Lancet study) and 3,000 US soldiers to ensure control over oil, that go unpunished and are not publicized for the crimes that they are. If we did a stats study on those crimes, I'll bet we'll get a different color pattern.
I for one will be happy when this this stupid war is over for many reasons -- one of which is that THEN maybe we'll get a debate on issues such as culpability for crime on our streets instead of the predictable diversionary tactics that have become so commonplace. Is poverty also forcing blacks to celebrate violent thug culture? if so, is there absolutely no correlation between the values of this culture and the results we find in these statistics on crime?
Hey Redneckers,
DIXIE CHICKS!
And, take your racist stats with you.
And women would get more speeding tickets if only the cops would stop letting them off with "warnings".
That crime/race stat was in the original Times article a week ago. It seems like most people who made comments about the issue did not read the entire thing. It was a little hidden near the end of the article, so you should blame the Times for trying to start something.
rabble rabble! one another note, regarding the 10-75 on the gothamist news map. can anyone settle a bet? i am too lazy to walk down, but does attorney run into broome? I say that that attorney and broome cross street doesn't exist. also, is that where the firehouse is?
Donald,
the voice of reason. Thank goodness.
by the way, every time i see this big dumb white guys face all asleep or dead, i just want to step on it. just looks like such an ignorant, oppressive cracker who is taking a rest from his hateful, imperialist, colonialist, slave-owning project.
For suposedly being on the opposite end of the spectrum from evangelicals, you far lefties sure have the same routine down. Enjoy bathing in your light of absolute righteousness. Also, if and when you guys actually get anywhere near a poor black neighborhood and get mugged, don't beat yourself up too bad over it if the guy who is kicking your face in happens to be black.
re: 15
attorney and broome do not intersect, attorney terminates at the williamsburg bridge.
there's a website that helps answer questions.. its called "google"... give it a shot.
I don't particularly enjoy "bathing in the light of absolute righteousness", if that's what one can call trying to perceive all the races as equals. That apparently is an audacious assumption on Gothamist! My previous comment was intended to provide a bigger perspective on crime, because of course people are going to see those police stats and be all riled up about how black people are all committing all the crimes. Street crime affects us directly, so I understand that that's what a lot of us are concerned about, but if we looked outside our niche of life, to say, the carnage and curfews in Iraq, then it's obvious that their misery is a result of crimes that are not done by black people.
I don't deny those police statistics; thus I certainly wouldn't beat myself up if I got mugged by a black person. Personal accountability does exist, as evidenced by the fact that most blacks aren't out on the streets mugging and killing people. However, if one is disturbed by the disproportionate representation of blacks in street crime, there are plenty of historical, social, and economic factors that help explain why things are the way they are. That's an attempt to be rational about the whole thing and not taking the easy way out, ie., blaming the problem on blacks and ascribing it to a problem with their value system. That's a cop out. You can't take that snippet of information (about the crime statistics) and proclaim that black culture is prone to violence any more than you can take that time from American history where European explorers were committing mass genocides of the indigenous people and say that white culture is inherently violent.
IN conclusion, yes, I think there's a correlation btw perceived African-American pop culture and violent thug culture, one that has been shaped by being wretched away from your homeland, separated from your family, perceived as less than human for about 300 years, as 2nd class citizens for another 100, and having to deal with the ramifications of such a history. I'm sure there's people who are like, "Whatever, it's such a long time ago! Like, get over it already!!!" Yeah, that's easy for you to say. While I was learning American history as a kid, it was easy for me to believe in the democratic principles that the country purportedly based itself on, and think about how my parents immigrated here for a better life. If I were a black kid I might have been a little confused about how my ancestors, who didn't choose to be here in the first place, could be slaves in such a democratic country; I would read about the Constitution and know that our forefathers excluded people like me from it. Then, perhaps it's more understandable that I would grow up cynical and disillusioned with the American government and value system. As a wise person once said, you can't judge a person until you've walked a mile in their moccasins. Have a blessed day.
right on donald,
violent culture? you mean like "the fightin Irish"?
The real axis of evil, USA/Great Britain/Israel. More killin in the name of those three than any other.
#21 - Go ahead and google Gulag, Holocaust or Cultural Revolution for a minute and let me know how those compare to your 'axis of evil'.
well stated, but i disagree, donald. focusing on a history of a race doesn't help anyone get over it. blaming anything but yourself for your actions is, in fact, the easy way out. blaming disproportionate violence on something that happened generations ago is the cop out. the tough road is actually the one where you recognize the evil that has existed before you and help yourself and those around you to improve their lot in life.
while i agree we have war criminals in office, pointing to our current administration while we discuss violent street crimes is not a 'greater perspective', that's a diversion. does, "if they do it, we can do it" make sense to you? and how does a selfish street mugging compare to a military action in the name of 'national security' (whether you agree or not, that is the reason the majority of america voted for the misguided adventure in iraq)? if you want to look at government sanctioned violence, look worldwide. it is not a white phenomenon as you would imply. africa and south asia have us beat handsomely.
as with most ethnic groups, blacks have had a troubled past (not only in america). however, jews experienced worse and their crime rates are very low. the chinese where slaves with no rights whatsoever. they are largely disenfranchised, yet low crime rates. japanese internment camps in ww2. low crime rates. i don't know what it is, but it's clear there must be something within black culture that causes disproportionate crime beyond 'history'. unfortunately, that is a difficult, politically incorrect thing to accept which means no real progress in uncovering root causes. to ignore the reality and let your heart bleed with guilt is the cop out. to point fingers at people other than the perpetrators of violence is the cop out.
as long as we're quoting wise men: be the change you want to see.
The True Axis of evil, again.
USA/Britain/Israel.
google that.