<p>Re #47</p>
<p>Do you often walk alone at night in neighborhoods where “there are a lot of black people walking around”?</p>
<p>I personally don’t think there’s a difference between “scary / dangerous” and “run down / rough.” If you want to allege racism on the part of people who use these phrases to describe areas with “a lot of black[s] walking around,” I think it would apply to people who use “run down / rough” as well.</p>
<p>As for the idea that racism is involved, <em>sigh</em> I’m not going to pretend that “black male” wasn’t the most common vague description of suspects in reported on-campus crimes at Georgia Tech. (In no way am I even hinting that there is a racial predisposition to commit crime.) I’m also not going to pretend that the guy who tried to panhandle me as I walked back from class during lunchtime wasn’t black. Nor am I going to pretend that the guy who tried to swindle me of $20 by concoting a story that he lost his wallet wasn’t black. (A week after, a guy fitting the same description was reported in the campus newspaper as having swindled $80 from a student who was more trusting than I was.)</p>
<p>At the same time, I’m not going to pretend that whites haven’t tried to panhandle me or that whites haven’t tried to con me; no “race” has a monopoly on crime. But I see no contradiction between stating an obvious truth–no “race” is inherently predisposed toward crime–and refusing to ignore that most of the posted crime reports have “black male” as the suspect.</p>