It's Harder To Get an Uber or Lyft If You're Black, Study Says (time.com) 476
Black riders have to wait "significantly longer" for their Uber cabs and experience "double" the cancellation rates of white passengers, according to a new study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research. The study, which also observed a similar pattern among Lyft drivers, claims it has found "significant evidence of racial discrimination" in ride-hailing services based on a pair of experiments in Seattle and Boston. From a report on Time: Researchers pulled data from more than 1,400 field tests conducted using mostly Uber and Lyft, but also traditional taxi services. The findings in Boston and Seattle showed evidence of discrimination that manifested in either longer waits or a higher likelihood for cancellation. In Seattle, African-American UberX users on average waited 5 minutes and 15 seconds for pick-ups -- roughly 30% longer than white riders, who waited 4 minutes on average. Lyft users did not experience a significant difference during the experiment. When the research assistants switched between using white-sounding and African-American-sounding names, they did not find a significant increase in their wait times. But the overall rates at which drivers canceled the ride after it was assigned to them was more than one in 10 for riders with black-sounding names, roughly double than for riders with white-sounding names.
African-American sounding names? (Score:2)
What are these African-American sounding names? Are you saying that you can tell someone's race by their name? But if races are social constructs and not real, what are they really measuring?
Re:African-American sounding names? (Score:5, Informative)
>Are you saying that you can tell someone's race by their name? But if races are social constructs and not real, what are they really measuring?
Prejudice.
>can't tell heritage by name
You really can't tell if someone who has a french, indian, polish, italian heritage by their last name? You need to get out more.
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BMO
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You really can't tell if someone who has a french, indian, polish, italian heritage by their last name?
I understand what you're saying, but try that where I live (Honolulu). James Smith might be native Hawaiian and Suzie Nakamoto a haole (Caucasian). Here you can assume very little just from a name. Heck, sometimes appearance doesn't even tell you.
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My daughter was on a radio program for a while, and used the "personality name" of "Ming" ... everyone assumed she was of oriental descent. Her personality name was not based on being oriental either, it had other origins, similar to "Swimming" being shortened to "Ming".
People make all sorts of assumptions, and it is all prejudice. It is how the human mind works to fill in missing information. That process, is usually built out of experience (right or wrong, good or bad), and is a evolutionary design to kee
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No, stereotyping is literally making strong distinctions.
The root stere- means stiff, firm, solid, etc. It's original usage was to refer to shitty, hard soil that couldn't grow crops and grew to also be applied to livestock that couldn't produce offspring. It's where we get steer (the bovine) and sterile from.
A stereotype has nothing to do with assumptions or correlation (or lack thereof). A stereotype is a strong distinction applied to things. All square is a stereotype of a rectangle, which is a stere
Re:African-American sounding names? (Score:4, Informative)
Furthermore, if you're black and your last name is "smith" it's likely that it was the name of the family that owned your ancestors.
Which is why the whole "Shaniqua" thing. It's why Malcolm X used the name he used - to abandon the "slave name."
It's not a "stupid" cultural thing. There is a rationale behind it if you bother to even use google for 5 minutes (I knew this when I was 5. Before the Internet. Back when people had to travel miles to call me an asshole. Up hill. Both ways. In the snow.).
Knowing history makes the world less confusing.
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BMO
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I'd like to point out that there's absolutely nothing forcing you to keep your given name. You can call yourself whatever you want.
It's pretty easy to legally change your name. My ex-wife did it after we got married; many women still do these days, to take their husband's last name. But while you're filing the name-change request, there's nothing stopping you from writing in a different first name. That's exactly what she did: she hated her first name that her mother had given her. So she found a total
Re:African-American sounding names? (Score:5, Interesting)
When this study was done for job interviews, the test was always low class black names vs. obvious middle/upper class white names.
Nobody has tested 'LaTrina' vs. 'Harley', just 'LaTrina' vs 'Richard'. Because they know the answers they are looking for.
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Re:African-American sounding names? (Score:4, Funny)
You are a racist for pointing out the alternative meaning.
Re:African-American sounding names? (Score:4, Interesting)
> But naming their son "John" is perfectly OK, right?
Yup. This is why off the boat immigrants will give their children nice WASP names. They aren't trying to actively sabotage their children's success.
Actual Africans will probably avoid this kind of nonsense.
Re:African-American sounding names? (Score:4, Insightful)
> When this study was done for job interviews, the test was always low class black names vs. obvious middle/upper class white names.
Bullshit. They used names like Jamal [behindthename.com] and Lakisha. [thenamemeaning.com] Those both are names from the african continent, neither are 'ghetto' mispronunciations of everyday products.
It is crazy what theories assholes will invent to deny that racism exists. The funny thing is that such denials end up as a sort of meta independent proof themselves.
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> When this study was done for job interviews, the test was always low class black names vs. obvious middle/upper class white names.
Bullshit. They used names like Jamal [behindthename.com] and Lakisha. [thenamemeaning.com] Those both are names from the african continent, neither are 'ghetto' mispronunciations of everyday products.
How the hell did you get modded up? Ever been to the African continent? Those aren't African-continent names, those are ghetto names. Names from the African continent are nowhere close to the names they used. Names like Jamal and Lakisha are clearly not the same as Xolani, Busiswe, Tembelihle, Musi, Lindiwe, etc. Those who don't have ethnic names either have English words seen by locals as auspicious (Hope, Precious, Patience, Blessing, Virtue, etc) or have Anglo names (Richard, Elvis, Mike, George, etc).
Na
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> When this study was done for job interviews, the test was always low class black names vs. obvious middle/upper class white names.
Bullshit. They used names like Jamal [behindthename.com] and Lakisha. [thenamemeaning.com] Those both are names from the african continent, neither are 'ghetto' mispronunciations of everyday products.
It is crazy what theories assholes will invent to deny that racism exists. The funny thing is that such denials end up as a sort of meta independent proof themselves.
While I think name-based studies like this have the potential to be the least biased because they remove hard-to-control issues related to appearance and behavior, that's a load of shit. Unless you have some income data (or other socioeconomic data) related to these names that you're holding out on?
If they can't bother to find "white" names that have socioeconomic stats roughly approximating the "black" names they're using, or at least find a plausible way to correct for the differences, AND establish t
Name stigmas: why, parents? Why? (Score:3)
Would you pick up someone named Judas Iscariot? Adolf Hitler? Josef Stalin?
Why would someone name their child a name that makes it harder for them in life?
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In the UK it was usually Asian (Pakistani, Indian) names and common British names. Names like David/Dave cross classes. The results are the same.
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You're personally value judging the class of a person based on their name, which is itself flawed. The studies I've heard about found: 'upper class' parents are biased to name their kids something unique and distinct. The next tier down social class is more likely to name their kids after kids from the higher social classes 'popular names'. Playing out, you could have an 'upper class' 15 year old and a 'lower class' one year old with the same name.
Your Harley or LaTrina may have been hot upper class names a
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Um, isn't that the whole f'n point (Score:3)
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They never did a fair test.
Watch the lack of responses to people named 'Harley', 'Bubba' and 'Billy-Joe-Jim-Bob'. But you'll never know, because that test wouldn't have gotten any press.
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I assume you're saying that tongue-in-cheek. There are a number of fairly common naming conventions used within the African-American community. One off the top of my head: Girls names that end in -—qua/a. Shaneequa, Tanisha, etc. That's of course, not to say only those are used, but they are ones at least that I've only seen used by that specific ethnic group.
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If you see someone named Kayesha, do you assume she's a blonde?
Re:African-American sounding names? (Score:4, Insightful)
As for names it's simply a combination of perceptions weighed against what someone feels are averages. In short, it looks like for white people, somewhat unusual names are more commonly found given to the children of wealthy households. Common names are commonly given to children in wealthy, middle-income, and poor households. There are very few names that indicate that a white person grew up in a poor household, so it's hard to pre-judge a name on a screen if it's something like John or Judy or William. By contrast, it appears that among black people, uncommon or unusual names are more often found among those who were born into poor households than those born into middle-income or wealthy households. Those latter two appear to source names from basically the same set as everyone else. It's probably also accurate to say that lots of children born into poor black households also get common names.
Now, how this applies to the world we live in. America has a fairly socially-mobile society. Poor people might become rise to middle-income or wealth in the right circumstances and those who started out life in other ranges themselves could end up better or worse off. Unfortunately a lot of people that start out life poor don't get the best upbringing in terms of education or parental example and discipline. When someone has a name that is commonly found among all walks of life then that name does not tell someone else anything about the person, but if someone's name is most likely found among a segment of of the population that has all of the negative perceptions of being poor associated with it and might imply negative things about the parent that gave the name and raised the child, then it's very easy for someone to make conclusions, right or wrong, about the person. Add racial prejudice in on top of that and it's a recipe for problems.
A lot of Americans of Asian ancestry realized this and basically stopped giving their children names that are obviously of Asian origin. A friend of mine that's Muslim has suggested to his friends that they not give their children names that are very obviously Arab or Persian or Pakistani. That doesn't mean that they have to use "Christian" names, but there are plenty of other names that are more ambiguous.
The name given to one's child is very important. Any desire for whimsy must be balanced against real consideration for how that name will let the child, and later the adult, be perceived.
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http://freakonomics.com/podcas... [freakonomics.com]
^
Interesting talk on the subject.
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the researchers found that the job applicants with white names needed to send 10 resumes to get one callback
Part of that could be because it's easier to call back and ask for John Smith, Catherine Jones or Marianne Bertrand than it is to try to figure out how to pronounce Tadhg Ng, KaÊanoÊi KamakawiwoÊole or Sendhil Mullainathan.
The point is when you're an HR rep (Score:2)
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Not surprising (Score:2)
What is an "African-American sounding name"? (Score:2)
I'd really be interested, are there now names for blacks and names for whites? I thought we're finally over that shit.
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You don't get out much do you?
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If you mean that I don't get to spend much time in the US, then yes, it's been a while that I was across the pond.
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They are not mis-spellings, they are simply part of the dialect. Formal English is rather constrained, but that doesn't make it superior. Dialects from black culture just have different rules.
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Find a news story about any of the recent black involved shootings. Look at the names.
OK, let's see. I'll take the easy way out and simply crib from a page that lists a bunch of people who have been shot by the police. Before anyone asks, it's the result of a Google search and the first page that had a decent number of names. The complete list can be found here [mappingpol...olence.org].
Keith Childress ... no, wait, that's Mexican. Does it count? On a scale of black to white, is Mexican black enough?)
Bettie Jones
Kevin Mathews
Leroy Browning
Roy Nelson
Miguel Espinal (Hey that's
Nathaniel Pickett
Tiara Thomas (ok, that one
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Ah, so the parents' stupidity to give their kids idiotic names is now racism. By whom, if I may ask?
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Hey now! I would LOVE to name my kid Golgarth! That sounds like an awesome name and it DOES sound Viking.
"This is my son, Golgarth. His sister's name is LaTanya"
That could work.
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Had a little white girl in my wife's daycare for five years- whose name was Ema Lee. Not Emily, but Ema Lee.
We now have a Hadrian, a Jameson, a Bray, a Sophia, and a Moya. All except the last one, spelled just as you'd think, and even the last one spelled right if you are a Farscape fan.
And I insist on my son's name being spelled right- Christopher.
Worth being pedantic on this one (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not that the riders were black, but rather that the names chosen "sounded black". This is significant as it introduces culture as a possible data point which wasn't controlled for.
Were I a freelance driver, I'm not sure how much I'd want to deal with a "La-DASH-ya" either.
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It's not that the riders were black, but rather that the names chosen "sounded black". This is significant as it introduces culture as a possible data point which wasn't controlled for.
The whole experiment was about culture. Race is a cultural artifact. The most compelling example of that is the study that found that being arrested makes you black [npr.org]. Racial identification -- both by self and by others -- is often influenced by both culture and by life experiences, and often changes throughout individuals' lives.
Having a black-sounding name is a strong indicator of being a member of black culture, and apparently Uber and Lyft drivers don't want to pick up blacks.
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There isn't much difference between discriminating against common black culture and against black skin.
As someone with a.. non-Christian name in the UK, I'm rather interested to know why you wouldn't want to deal with someone with a particular kids of monica.
Well tough (Score:2)
In other news.... (Score:2)
...people are cunts. Film at 11.
Big data! Insurance! Web of Trust! AI Racism! (Score:4, Funny)
Quick! Someone do a TED talk!
-1 Racebait (Score:2)
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You are lucky... here in Texas, the -only- vehicles that allow you to drink booze past the driver's cab are taxis, limos, and hearses.
No Uber/Lyft here in Austin though... but Fasten and Yellow Cab are decent enough.
Use a damn handle (Score:2)
More thorough analysis needed before citing racism (Score:5, Insightful)
Technically this still counts as a prejudice (pre-judging the customer as a bad tipper based solely on where they live). But it's one which is statistically correct most of the time rather than some of the time.
If it makes you feel better (Score:2)
Re:More thorough analysis needed before citing rac (Score:4, Insightful)
When I was in college I volunteered in a community service group and became one of the managers. I noticed that one of the other managers complained a lot about his volunteers -- they had a bad attitude, they weren't reliable, etc. Which was weird because I'd worked with the same people and found them to be perfectly reliable and enthusiastic. So I began to watch this guy, and the problem became obvious: he was a condescending jerk who pissed his volunteers off, and when they wouldn't work with him anymore he'd badmouth them. Then the other managers would get a negative attitude towards that volunteer and he'd end up quitting.
Now I don't want to overstate the case here, but there is such a thing as a self-fulfilling prophecy. If drivers try to avoid low-income neighborhoods, then people in that neighborhood will experience, on average, bad service from your pizzeria. Even when a delivery is on time, expecting it to be late poisons the experience. It takes a lot of good customer service to undo even a single instance of bad service, much less a pattern of it.
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Having also delivered pizza. The _worst_ tippers are in the rich neighborhoods and the ghetto. People that also _work_ for a living are likely to tip decently.
Private driver (Score:2)
Now on the other hand, if I was working for a transportation service, hauling people around is my job, and I wouldn't care less who is in the car as long as they are paying.
I have so far taken in only one hitchhiker in my car, I was stopped
Calling this a study is giving it a lot of credit. (Score:2)
African-America "sounding names" well that's scientific.
Oh wait no that's racist.
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Its not racist at all. With birth records, you can map a person's name as well as their race, and all kinds of random other data.
If Eliyah are almost entirely named to black babies, it's a 'black' name statistically.
If Cody's are almost entirely named to white babies, it's a 'white' name statistically.
Once you've got a baseline of extreme limits of 'white', 'black', 'hyspanic', 'asian', etc.. names, you can perform blind tests on how people react to different names. There's nothing racist about it. Its pret
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Um... this is how studies go (Score:2)
Maybe the pickup location... (Score:2)
...had something to do with it.
Just assume racism (Score:2)
"...they did not find a significant increase in their wait times. But the overall rates at which drivers canceled the ride after it was assigned to them was .. roughly double than for riders with white-sounding names."
Rather than just conveniently assume "racism" they should first dig a little deeper and, say, check with the drivers themselves for the existence of other correlations.
i guess racism exists (Score:2)
Re:Not Like There's a Law Against It! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Not Like There's a Law Against It! (Score:5, Insightful)
Irrelevant. Being a member of a minority does not mean you aren't capable of being a racist asshole.
Re:Not Like There's a Law Against It! (Score:4, Insightful)
Irrelevant. Being a member of a minority does not mean you aren't capable of being a racist asshole.
Didn't you get the memo? A member of an oppressed minority cannot be racist.
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Yeah, but it was a racist who sent out that memo so it doesn't count.
Re: Not Like There's a Law Against It! (Score:4, Insightful)
Second. I'll admit I'm am racist, and so are most people we know. A lot of us feel prejudice and judge people by their appearance, and even within a race. We are more likely to hold the door open for the prettier blonde, criticize the fat person ordering more than they require, and so on. The reason we judge people is because it was incredibly important for our survival pre-civilization. Faces are incredibly expressive, and sizing one another up tells you a great deal about the possible outcomes of a given encounter. The blonde excites you. Dwayne "the Rock" Johnson would scare the piss out of most people if his face was angry. We needed that information to survive.
The reason Uber drivers do not pick up black people as willingly as whites is because history has taught them to be racist. But it's not their fault. They are wired that way, they follow their prejudices. Their prejudice tells them "a black person is more likely to commit a crime, and I may be the victim of that crime". And statistically, that prejudice is right. Black men are more likely to get arrested, and convicted of violent crime. [wikipedia.org] The problem is that the state of racism is a twisted sort of self-fulfilling prophesy. Statistically, that Uber guy you picked up later than his white counterpart would be slightly later to a job interview, get the job less often, earn less as a result, and render him more desperate to commit a crime in the first place. Thats the problem.
The disadvantage non-whites experience is due to our prejudices, is what it is due to their circumstances. Now, I'm not excusing any crime anyone commits ever, I'm just point out the cycle of self-perpetuating racism that exists. If you want to solve the problem, first understand the data. Our prejudices make their lives harder, and when they react badly to that hard life, we stand back and think "See? I was right all along. Next time I encounter one, ill be weary". It's so sad.
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Racist != prejudiced or bigoted.
Can you clarify what it does mean then?
Re:Not Like There's a Law Against It! (Score:5, Informative)
That's so 1990s. The modern SJW definition is "prejudice plus power" which is how they exclude minorities from being racist even when they are blatantly racist by the older definition. See, a black Uber driver may be very very prejudiced.. but he has no power, due to the assumption of a white supremacist society propped up by structural racism etc... so he's not racist.
Re:Not Like There's a Law Against It! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not Like There's a Law Against It! (Score:4, Informative)
Maybe they're reacting from experience and don't want to visit certain neighborhoods
This is actually insightful, but not in the way the author and mods probably think.
The thing is, the people of color I've seen comment about Uber almost all love the heck of out it. Sure, they get double the turndowns a white rider might get, but they can actually eventually get a ride with Uber. Taxis flat out refuse to go into their neighborhood. Plus, an Uber driver that refuses a rider in a way that rider finds unfair is pretty much guaranteed to get a bad review, dropping their driver rating. That's really important to drivers, so there's incentive to not be a douchebag that taxi drivers don't have.
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Re:Not Like There's a Law Against It! (Score:5, Insightful)
Irrelevant. Being a member of a minority does not mean you aren't capable of being a racist asshole.
Indeed. Surprisingly, it's even common that some members of minority groups are racist assholes against their own group. The stereotypical example is black male police officers who racially profile and even brutalize black men.
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Yeah ? You want unlimited immigration ?
Because if you don't, and I'd be pretty shocked if you really believed that in real life, then at some point you have to stop someone from coming.
You can't have it both ways, either you're pro unlimited immigration, or you're in the same boat as the brexiters.
Re:Not Like There's a Law Against It! (Score:5, Interesting)
Most blacks tend to live in black neighborhoods, many of which are referred to as 'hoods' and not in a positive way. There are probably many less drivers in those areas or that wants to go there, is why there is a delay.
Most drivers don't want to go 15 miles out of their way to a known bad neighborhood at extra expense and risk to pick up someone. Its not racism but reality.
I am white but live in a 'hood' so I do know a little bit about this. No pizza delivery is available to me from any of the major pizza companies either.
Re:Not Like There's a Law Against It! (Score:5, Informative)
Most blacks tend to live in black neighborhoods
Actually, they don't. Most blacks live in neighborhoods with sizable populations of white, Hispanic, etc. At the last census, only 28% of blacks lived in neighborhoods that were at least 85% black.
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What do you mean, "Out of their way"? They're ride sharing! Someone has to be going that way.
Or did you mean the Uber and Lyft cab company drivers don't want to go pick up a ride in exchange for money?
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Are you still flogging that deceased ungulate? No one thinks Uber or Lyft are "ride sharing". Nor are they a taxi company, nor a limo service. They're a hired car company of a new kind.
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maybe if uber let it's drivers C & C they would pickup / go to more rough areas
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Kane lives in death!
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I think he means conceal and carry, and by that I think he means have a gun within reach to shoot people who try to mug them.
Wait... (Score:2)
...do their apps specify race when you are reserving a ride?
Or maybe it's because the pick up point is in a high crime area.
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...do their apps specify race when you are reserving a ride?
Or maybe it's because the pick up point is in a high crime area.
According to TFS (yeah, I know), the results varied on whether the rider's name "sounded" black or white.
Re:Wait... (Score:5, Informative)
Or maybe it's because the pick up point is in a high crime area.
No. The study controlled for that. The pickup locations were the same.
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The statistics are clear, a never-accused white is more likely to commit a crime than a never-accused Black. But Blacks are much more likely to be falsely accused, and end up in jail (or dead, like Trevon Martin) for some false accusation by someone. And once they've been through the prison system, they have recidivism similar to everyone else, and end up re-offenders.
If we stopped
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Assuming you aren't trolling;
If 'they' weren't disproportionately from the lower end of the socio-economic spectrum, 'they' wouldn't commit a disproportionate number of crimes.
Crime correlates pretty well with poverty and wealth disparity. Even if you argue that the criminal behaviour is part of what keeps them in poverty, how do you break the cycle? It's certainly a reasonable argument to insist that people are responsible for their own actions, but that's kind of simplistic - not everyone has equal access
Re:Stop stinking up the car with weed (Score:5, Funny)
Or at least pass the spliff, you cheapskate!
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African Americans do in fact, like to make up names/spellings.
No I don't know why.
IIRC there were something like 300 unique spellings of unique used as a name. How many do you think aren't black?
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Of course that's nonsense.
Nobody named their kids 'Trevon' in 1960. It's some sort of new insanity.
Granting it is current illiteracy that leads to 'Latrina'. It must be 'acting white' to have any french vocabulary.
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Maybe true, maybe an excuse. All you are doing is examining why they are acting like dumbasses, not disputing their dumbassness.
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Re:African-American-sounding names (Score:4, Informative)
"Elon" (as in Elon Musk).
He's an African-American from South Africa.
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The language of "ride sharing" implies that the driver is already heading in that direction for their own unrelated business, and is merely attempting to make their costs back by taking someone else along as a paid passenger.
Basically no short-haul drivers that do this. I expect that there are probably at least a few road-trip drivers that would, but that's the exception, not the norm.
A friend of mine drove for Uber for awhile and now drives f
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"naberhood"? Really? And half a dozen punctuation/capitalization errors, too.
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'People of color' are shot above their % of the population, they are also shot below their % of violent criminal population.
Now is where you claim the % of violent criminal population is a racist fact.
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