How Statistics Threaten White Privilege

Now is a great time to go off, just FYI.

I've noticed the "skewing" and "refurbishing" of statistics when race gets involved.  Drunk driving's a good example.  Notice that in earlier years, the report has no problem putting in race (where whites are reported as driving drunk the most).  But by the later years, there's no more mention of race.  And when there's no mention of race (cough, cough, like when Stack crashed his plane into the IRS building, cough, cough), it's safe to assume "white".  Because when POC misbehave, agencies have no problem reporting that.

Like the Bureau of Justice statistics.  The top half of the page puts stats about black issues in bold.  The reader nods, figuring Negroes are as violent and as vicious as ever and doesn't bother scrolling down (past the stats which shows whites have killed and died more than blacks in gang-related violence, by the way) to get the full story in which the reader will soon notice Negroes aren't the biggest problem with homicide.

Which brings me to the most recent National Survery on Drug Use and Health.  You click the link, scroll down to categories involving race and you get the statistics that black did the most drugs...for the past month.  Keep in mind the report is supposed to cover the entire year, and this "month" isn't specified nor is ultimately even relevant.  Why?  One, notice that whites (aged 12 & older) still have the market cornered on binge drinking, and yet that's not in big, bold letters anywhere.  Two, if you go to the actual data tables of the Substance Abuse & Mental Health Data Archive (which you really have to dig to find), you'll find that whites do more drugs than any other group in an America...contradiction much?

Now, a question you might be asking right now is...why is Ankhesen focusing so much on whites misbehaving?  The question you should be asking is...why not?  What would happen if, say, cops, judges, schools, and employers (and, gee, maybe parents) seriously took this data into account?

Tim Wise wrote:

How many Americans do you figure have even heard, for example, that black youth arrested for drug possession for the first time are incarcerated at a rate that is forty-eight times greater than the rate for white youth, even when all other factors surrounding the crime are identical (4)?

How many know that white men with a criminal record are slightly more likely to be called back for a job interview than black men without one, even when the men are equally qualified, and present themselves to potential employers in an identical fashion (6)?

How many have heard that according to the Justice Department, Black and Latino males are three times more likely than white males to have their vehicles stopped and searched by police, even though white males are over four times more likely to have illegal contraband in our cars on the occasions when we are searched (7)?

He also wrote in an another, about the school shooting in Santee:

But listen up my fellow white Americans: your children are no better, no nicer, no more moral, no more decent than anyone else. Dysfunction is all around you, whether you choose to recognize it or not.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, and Department of Health and Human Services, it is your children, and not those of the urban ghetto, who are most likely to use drugs. That's right: white high school students are seven times more likely than blacks to have used cocaine; eight times more likely to have smoked crack; ten times more likely to have used LSD and seven times more likely to have used heroin. In fact, there are more white high school students who have used crystal methamphetamine (the most addictive drug on the streets) than there are black students who smoke cigarettes.

What's more, white youth ages 12-17 are more likely to sell drugs: 34% more likely, in fact than their black counterparts. And it is white youth who are twice as likely to binge drink, and nearly twice as likely as blacks to drive drunk. And white males are twice as likely to bring a weapon to school as are black males.

And yet I would bet a valued body part that there aren't 100 white people in Santee, California, or most any other "nice" community who have ever heard a single one of the statistics above. Even though they were collected by government agencies using these folks' tax money for the purpose. Because the media doesn't report on white dysfunction.

Well...what if it did?  What if white guys were the ones getting pulled over, busted and sent to jail? What if white guys with criminal records didn't get called back as much for jobs?  What if white guys stopped getting slaps on the wrists when they got busted?  What do you think would happen to American society as we know it?  What effect would that have on white privilege?

This rubs me raw especially because of the research I do in addictions and recovery.  The clients are guaranteed complete confidentialty before we begin an interview.  Most the of the women I interview are white; in fact, very rarely do I sit down to interview a woman of color.  One of the most alarming things I've noticed about my data is how and why these women get busted.  It has nothing to do with drugs.  Their kids get them busted when they don't show up to school enough or when their moms don't pay child support.  Meanwhile, the women are getting away with violence, arson, prostitution, drug dealing and such.  These women...all they have to do is survive a few months of rehab and they're home free.  The cops don't know (and don't care) what they're doing to whom.  And these ladies...if they don't finish rehab, then they won't get their kids back.  Ahhhh...but they don't want their kids back because their kids got them busted the last time.

But next time? *shakes head*

I think anyone who looks at statistics and such needs to contact the aforementioned agencies and go off.  Demand that they just get to the point.  They're using our tax money to fund these studies--make them list who does what and and how many of them do it.  Let's make them just give us the numbers plain and straight and deal with whatever awful truth it is they're trying so hard not to deal with.  After all, you don't see the suicide stats people trying to bury their heads in the sand...like, at all.