Whence Afro criminality?

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[This will be the final of our three-part series in reaction to the 2012-13 Trayvon Martin Affair.]


The country has been in an uproar in the wake of the trial for the shooting of an Afro teenager by Floridian George Zimmerman.  The question being asked by many Blacks is, 'Why are we profiled?'  Having looked at the data,, Those Who Can See concluded: 'You are profiled because Afro crime is very high relative to other groups.'

If such is the case--and we believe the data points in that direction--one may ask, 'Why is Afro crime high relative to other groups?'  Blackness experts have proposed several hypotheses, of which the most popular is:

'The history of slavery and exclusion makes us commit crime.'

As we have seen, the opposite is the case: As slavery and Jim Crow recede further into the past, black crime is increasing, not decreasing.

(Data Source: National prison census data for 1926-1986, 1990, 1995,

2000, 2005, 2010, also 1979 and 1984)

As well, Afros who emigrate to countries that never practiced slavery or colonialism still commit more crimes  than other groups there.

Disproportionate Afro immigrant crime in France, Switzerland,

Australia, London, Canada.

Furthermore, many Sub-Saharan countries are well-known to be dangerous places inside and outside the cities.

The U.S. State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security reports on Haiti, Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, Liberia, and Ethiopia.

In addition, other ethnic groups who've suffered oppression, such as Asian-Americans, not only don't commit more crime than Euros--they commit less.

Click for full-sized graphs on Asian life outcomes.

'Oppression makes us criminal' does not seem, then, as an argument, to hold water.

So where do the real causes lie?

Why We Profile

In the outcry following the recent acquittal of Floridian George Zimmerman in the shooting death of an Afro teenager, many in the black community have voiced their displeasure.  Canadian graduate student Matthew Simmermon-Gomes is one: 

What I do know is what it’s like to be a Trayvon Martin. To be suspect. I do know what it’s like to be followed by staff in a nice clothing store; to be stopped by police for walking down the street; to endure the thousand micro-aggressions and the hundred fearful looks, the patronising astonishment coupled with quiet indignation at my education or erudition. I know, in other words, what it is to be a person of colour in a world that privileges whiteness.

While we must take this nearly Euro-looking young man from Ottawa at his word, we are left a bit bemused that despite his 'education' and 'erudition,' he is flatly unaware of basic statistics and probability.

We all live our lives based on probabilities. This gentleman's Afro father, for example, got itchy feet and decided to abandon life in beautiful but tiny Antigua (then under British rule).  Though he had the choice of over thirty Afro-run countries to emigrate to, he opted to take his chances in chilly white-run Canada. Why?  Easy: Statistically speaking, Euro-governed countries provide a better quality of life in nearly every way--rule of law, lack of corruption, solid infrastructure, plentiful white-collar jobs, generous welfare state, a cornucopia of material comforts. Mr Gomes took a chance--and was right.  Can we fault him that?

Antigua or Canada....Decisions, decisions...

We can't speak for Canada, but chance is also the reason U.S. Whites lock their car doors, clutch their purses, and cross the street in the presence of Blacks.  There is a folk knowledge culled from 400 years of disproportionate black crime in North America.  It can be seen in the statistics, in the anecdotes, in the earliest colonial writings.

Statistical probability is the wellspring of stereotypes.  It is what pushes us to avoid snakes, spiders, and scorpions; it is why Swiss clocks, German cars, and Jewish lawyers are so sought after; it is why the global South continually tries to emigrate to the global North.  Past performance is no guarantee of future success, warn the experts, but from our experience, we know it usually is.

So in response to Mr. Matthew Simmermon-Gomes, 'Why are Afros profiled everywhere they go?' is a question that has concrete answers.  Here they are.

We Are Wild Animals; Treat Us As Such

William Heirens, a 1940s Chicago serial murderer, became known as 'the Lipstick Killer' after using it to scrawl on a victim's wall: 'For heaven's sake, catch me before I kill more, I cannot control myself.'

 A plea for help

The infamous Zodiac Killer of San Francisco made a similar plea in a 1969 letter to police: 'Please help me, I can not remain in control for much longer.'  We commonly attribute such a sentiment to sociopathy.  But it has now sprung up again in a more unlikely place.

The recent criminal trial around an Afro teen's shooting death by Floridian George Zimmerman has gripped the nation.  The lesson to be drawn, say the pundits, is that young black men are akin to dangerous wildlife:  One cannot approach them, even innocently, without implicitly inviting them to beat one's head into cement.  'If only Zimmerman had stayed in his car,' the chorus sings, 'none of this would have happened.'

Computer animation presented in closing arguments of trial

We are to understand, then, that Afros are telling us, 'We cannot control ourselves.  Approaching us, looking at us, just getting in our space, can push us to spontaneous violence--for which we cannot be held responsible.'  In a word, 'We are wild animals.'

It is a curious line to take, in an advanced society.  The message is that though you may believe yourself in a city of civilized men, you are in fact no different than an Indian villager at constant threat of leopard attacks.  Your life en ville is a sort of urban safari.

In Somnapur Village, it just comes with the territory.

It is as though Black Americans are telling us that in their presence, we should follow the advice given to visitors by car to, for example, Namibia's Etosha National Park:

'Also remember to give a wide berth to elephants and rhinos which may become agressive if they feel threatened. Never get too close, never approach them too fast and never honk the horn. They can both outrun the vehicle if they decide to charge, so better not mess around. But if you are respectful and careful they will see you as part of their surroundings and will behave very peacefully. Warning signs that an elephant is annoyed is the raising and flapping of the ears whilst looking directly at you - retreat slowly and immediately.'

If Afros really want us to treat them this way--as dangerous wildlife--then we can only examine some case studies to see if simple guidelines could indeed change tragic outcomes for non-Afros.

Mad About Minstrelsy

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                                  "If I could have the nigger show back again in its pristine purity,

                                         I should have little use for opera." -- Mark Twain

Spike Lee's 2000 film Bamboozled follows the tale of a disgruntled black TV exec who tries to get himself fired.  Like the two Broadway scammers in The Producers, he picks the most shocking premise possible—a modern-day minstrel show—and is horrified to see it succeed wildly.

In 2000, then, it is understood that minstrelsy is the most odious entertainment imaginable. Why?

    Minstrel shows lampooned black people as dim-witted, lazy, buffoonish, superstitious, happy-go-lucky, and musical. … Racial integrationists decried them as falsely showing happy slaves while at the same time making fun of them.

The Stuttering Coon, H.Y. Leavitt, 1898

Mel Watkins, minstrelsy scholar:

So this was not advertised as a stage show. It was advertised as a peephole view of what black people were really like. To that extent, it affected all of society because those people who didn't know blacks, and there were many places where there were very few blacks, assumed that those characterizations, those depictions, those foolish characters on stage, were real black people. And so it had an immense effect on the way mainstream society thought about blacks.

The Future of America: Brown?

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Gregory Rodriguze (via Steve Sailer):

Latinos, whose history has been one of mixture and among whom mestizos are the rule rather than the exception, understand hybridity, a notion that America's discourse on race desperately lacks. ... Perhaps once we have fully adopted the concept of mestizaje into our racial dialogue, we will recognize that Los Angeles is well on its way to becoming a mestizo metropolis.

As goes Los Angeles, so goes the nation?  Rodriguez, and many like him, seem to be anxiously awaiting the future browning of America. Is it coming?

The model most bandied about is that of South America, specifically Brazil. Why Brazil and not Mexico?  While Mexico has West Euros and Native Indians, it is largely missing Afros. But Brazil has all three.  So does the U.S.  It is thus assumed that if the U.S. continues to let in tens of millions of mestizo (largely Indian) Mexicans, its demographic and, perhaps, political future will resemble that of Brazil.

Is this a viable hypothesis?  On what assumptions is it based?


I. Inter-marriage

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Trayvon Affair à la française

Trayvon Martin (left),  Clément Méric (right)

(Before getting back to regular topics, excusez-nous, a brief dispatch on France.)


Those in the HBD-sphere may or may not have heard about the new Dreyfus Affair gripping the French public.

Media version:  Cherubic lefty minding his own business is stomped to death in broad daylight by band of neo-nazi skinheads.

'A Fascist Crime--A wave of emotion after the murder of a young student in Paris'

Witnesses' version:  Group of 4 violent "antifas" (anti-fascists/anarchists) challenge group of 3 skinheads to a rumble, in the ensuing mélée a young lefty hits his head so hard on the pavement he dies instantly.

Clément Méric was allegedly a member of the Brest (Brittany) 'Redskins,' an 'anti-skinhead' street gang who wreaked havoc in the city

To wit:

A security guard who was present...has pointed the finger at the four anti-fascist militants, one of them in particular.  According to him, this young man, very agitated, had boxing gloves in his bag and egged on the others to fight the skinheads. The latter were trying to avoid a confrontation and to leave quietly.

...The witness added that Clément Méric stated, in regards to the skinheads, 'These people shouldn't even be alive.'

Back in the saddle

As our long and unexpected voyage draws to a close, just a heads-up that we will be back online shortly, sharing HBD data with any who may find it of interest.

Thank you to all readers and commenters for your patience.

A long pause

The vicissitudes of life having kept us far from home for months, with no return on the horizon, we are very sorry to announce that Those Who Can See will be on hold indefinitely.

Many thanks to all the interesting readers and commenters who have passed through.  If we keep talking about HBD and public policy with a cool head, hard data, and a civil tone, minds will begin to change.

A très bientôt j'espère,

M.G. Miles