A Fisking

So I REALLY don’t want this to be a page that slams on the black race. I wasn’t going to post anything about black crime for awhile, but Cassandra came into comments and decided to show his ass.

In no particular order, I will address his claims. First, his claim that I am a hypocrite for prohibiting ad hominem attacks while engaging in them. Since he apparently doesn’t know what ad hominem means, we can start with a definition:

Ad hominem is a Latin word that means “against the man.” As the name suggests, it is a literary term that involves commenting on or against an opponent, to undermine him instead of his arguments.

Literarydevices.net, retrieved 10/14/2022

So now that we know what an ad hominem is, let’s look at what I said and see if it was an ad hominem. What I said was this:

But hey, Cassandra, these two just happen to be two more of what you call “a small subset of violent black males that disproportionately commit violent crimes.”

Cassandra in comments claims that this is a small subset of blacks, yet has not yet provided one shred of evidence to support that claim. I wouldn’t call one third being a “small subset.” He might as well claim that there is one black male committing every crime, for all of the evidence he has provided. That man’s name is Sum Dood.

Nope. Neither one of those quotes were attacking you, they were attacking your claims that most black men don’t commit crimes and pointing out that you were making unsupported claims. Had I been engaging in ad hominem attacks, I would have said that you are an ignorant little troll with delusions of adequacy, but I didn’t do that. I hope you can see the difference.

You also accused me of editing the title of my post, but not the content. You apparently missed the part where the post said:

Because of an attack in comments, I am adding the following:

I have never, not once, altered the content of a post on this site without making the changes transparent.

Now that we have passed the attacks on my character and integrity, let’s get to your weak argument. You spent the first part of your comment claiming that my sources weren’t sufficient to your exacting standards, so let’s look at what the US Department of Justice has to say. I will quote directly from their study on the topic: Lifetime Likelihood of Going to State or Federal Prison (Retrieved 10/14/2022) (pdf alert)

Blacks in the U.S. resident population (16.2%), regardless of their sex, are nearly twice as likely as Hispanics (9.4%) and 6 times more likely than whites (2.5%) to be admitted to prison during their lives.
Among men, more than 1 in 4 blacks and 1 in 6 Hispanics, compared to 1 in 23 whites, will enter prison at least once if current incarceration rates do not change. An estimated 28.5% of black men, 16.0% of Hispanic men, and 4.4% of white men are expected to serve a State or Federal prison sentence.

You do quote the Washington Post in claiming that the 1 in 3 chance of black men being incarcerated is a ‘stale statistic’ which is actually a pretty good argument, the only one you actually made. Sadly, it is incorrect, doesn’t attack the original premise (see below) and completely overshadowed by your juvenile attempts at character assassination.

Then you spend the rest of your comment setting up a strawman argument that you then tear down- attacking a statement that I never made.

Accounting for the 37% decrease in imprisonment rate for black men, and that about half are jailed for violent crimes, the lifetime likelihood for black men to be jailed for violent crimes is much closer to 10% than the 1/3 you incorrectly claimed. Yes, that’s still too high, and far higher than the rate for white men, but it refutes your 1 in 3 claim conclusively. I guess “Sum Dood” hasn’t been as busy as you thought he was.

Nowhere did I make the claim that one in three blacks were in prison for being violent. The claim that I made, one that you still have not addressed, still stands:

Isn’t it time that we admit that blacks are largely a race of criminals who have a pathological inability to live in civilized society? It’s well documented that more than half of all homicides and nearly half of all violent crimes, are committed by blacks.

The one in three statement that you latched onto was this:

The Sentencing Project estimated in 2001 that the likelihood of a Black man spending time behind bars in their lifetime was 1 in 3.

You still are not providing any evidence to support your own position. You are merely attempting to attack me by calling me a hypocrite, and are attacking selected strawman arguments where you have taken a statement that I have made, twisted into something else, and then attacked that. Your attempts at discussion are sadly poor, and lacking in any real substance. I have given failing grades to better papers than yours, and seen better arguments from 14 year old children.

I have spent enough of my limited time on your childish attempts to argue a position without a bit of evidence.

And before you engage in any more accusations of me being a hypocrite, let me spell out the rule of this blog:

This is my blog. It is a website paid for by me, on a server leased and paid for by me. I invite argument and disagreement, and actually welcome healthy debate. What I am not going to do is permit ad hominem attacks against the person who pays the bills here, namely me. It’s the same as being in my house- you can disagree with me while you are a guest within my walls, and we can have a healthy discussion. What I won’t allow or tolerate is for a guest on my property to insult or attack me personally. I also don’t allow people on here to attack each other. You have been repeatedly told this. This is your last warning. If you don’t like that, you are free to use your own funds and start your own blog. Heck, I will even rent you the server space with which to do it. The rate is $25 per month.

Until then, I decide. One more personal attack, and I will drop the ban hammer on your ass. In the nearly two years this blog has been here, I have banned only four people. Don’t become the fifth.