Glen Contrarian
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If we define "homicide" as the Bureua of Justice Statistics does we're looking at murder and non-negligent manslaughter. So let's take a look.
The homicide rate in the U.S. as a whole was 4.5 per 100,000 residents in 2014, according to the FBI. In Alaska, the homicide rate was 5.6. There were 41 reported homicides in the state that year. If the state adhered to the national average, there would have been 33 reported homicides, a difference of eight people (taking the state's population of 736,732). I would call that statistically insignificant. And I'm not really sure why you're picking on West Virgina, since that's state's homicide rate of 4.0 was below the national average (https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2014/crime-in-the-u.s.-2014/tables/table-4).
Meanwhile, let's look at some "Blue" states:
Illinois: 5.3
Michigan: 5.4
Maryland: 6.1
And in the gun-grabber paradise of the District of Columbia, the homicide rate was an eyepoping 15.9 :shock: per 100,000.
I know this doesn't fit in with your narrative, but almost all of the Red states with high homicide rates are Southern states with large black populations. Much of the violence is concentrated in larger metro areas and most of that is related to gang and/or drug activity in lower-class, inner-city neighborhoods. To deny the link to race is disingenuous when about 13% of the population is committing more than half of all homicides in the country.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_crime_in_the_United_States#Homicide)
Regarding Harlem, it's not the slum it used to be. A major gentrification has occurred and is occurring. About 65% of the population works in white-collar professions. People of all races have figured out that they aren't making any more Manhattan real estate.
What will happen when Harlem becomes white? | US news | The Guardian
Harlem Demographics & Statistics -- Employment, Education, Income Averages, Crime in Harlem
Look at your bolded section above - that is PRECISELY my point. Raise the standard of living, and the homicide rate goes down. YES, the states of the Deep South generally have larger black populations...but they're also - almost without exception - among the states with the LOWEST standard of living.
So now we've got a correlation/causation conundrum - "beerftw" (and you, apparently) want to point out the correlation between blacks and the homicide rate...and I say it's the standard of living that directly drives the homicide rate.
How to determine which is which? Okay, how many places with a relatively high percentage of blacks does NOT have a high homicide rate? Look at what I posted back in reply #40:
"Now, to destroy your attempted point: New York has over 3M blacks, and has the 13th-highest percentage of blacks in the state population...yet it's 30th on the list of states by homicide rates (from the reference in my last comment). Alaska is 34th on the list of states by percentage-black population, yet it's 12th on the list of states by homicide rate. Nevada is 23rd on the list of states by percentage-black population, yet it's 6th on the list of states by homicide rate.
That should be enough to disprove your personal correlation-causation logical fallacy...but look back at New York - it has more blacks than Mississippi has total people, yet its homicide rate is much lower. New York City itself is 26% black...yet it has one of the lowest homicide rates of a major city in the nation."
Yes, you addressed Alaska...but Alaska's not my only example, is it? I pointed at the entire state of New York - are you going to claim the size of the sample there is not significant? And look at LA - it also has a large black population, but its homicide rate isn't much higher than NYC's.
On the other hand, can you show me a region or a state - not just within America, but anywhere in the world - that has a high standard of living compared to the local norm, that has a higher homicide rate than the areas with a lower standard of living?
Good luck with that.
Guy, I was raised in the MS Delta - the "blackest" part of the nation, and I've been around the world...and thanks to my travels, I had to unlearn the racism I'd been taught in my youth. People ARE people ARE people, local religions and social mores notwithstanding...and if you want the homicide rates to drop, do what is necessary to raise the standard of living.
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