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The Rationale Quest - Politics, Economics and Philosophy

 
Explore the latent response of philosophy and philosophy to the global economic arena. Early posts include the study of heresies in the early church and the problems of Liberalism and Raw Capitalism in our times

The Duke case and interracial rape

January 15th 2007 07:07
Nicholas Stix has an extensive article on VDARE about the Duke lacrosse rape hoax. Definitely worth a read.

I have to take issue with these comments on interracial rape, however:

"As the U.S. Department of Justice's National Crime Victimization Study (NCVS) has shown, between 2001 and 2003, there were, on average, 15,400 black-on-white rapes per year, while whites averaged only 900 white-on-black rapes per year (a black-white ratio of 17.1:1). As Parker noted, the proportion of single-attacker white-on-black rape is so rare as to be statistically non-existent (less than one-half of one percent).

"Since there are five-and-one-half times as many whites as blacks in America, that means that blacks rape whites over ninety times as frequently as whites rape blacks. Except that the black-white interracial gap is actually much higher. The 'white' figure (900) is inflated by Hispanic offenders being counted as white. And no reliable statistics for interracial prison rape were included in the NCVS. Thus, the real black-white ratio is likely 200:1 or higher."

Now, it's true that a random black is, by these numbers, 200 times more likely to rape a white than a random white is to rape a black. But shocking as it is, 200:1 is not a useful number in this scenario.

I'd like to draw attention to the five-and-one-half number. Stix assumes that because there are more whites than blacks, there should be more whites raping blacks. This makes sense on its face.

But the problem is this: Blacks are a minority, so blacks will make up a minority of potential victims for a white rapist. And whites are a majority, so they represent a majority of potential victims for a black rapist.

Let's figure out what the statistically "neutral" ratio would be, and compare it to 17.1:1. According to Wikipedia, the U.S. is 75 percent white/Hispanic and 12 percent black. That's 87 percent of the population. So out of every 87 rapes within the black and white/Hispanic communities, whites "should" commit 75 and blacks 12.

Of the whites' 75 rapes, 13.7 percent of them (12/87) "should" be of blacks. That's 10.3 white-on-black rapes.

Of the blacks' 12 rapes, 86.3 percent (75/87) will be of whites. That's also 10.3 rapes -- statistically, the fact there are more whites than blacks in America means nothing. More whites may mean more white rapists, but it also means more white victims, and the two cancel. Stix assumes there should be five-and-one-half white-on-black rapes for every black-on-white rape, but in reality there would be a one-for-one swap in a statistically "fair" world.

1:1 is, of course, still a far cry from the 17.1:1 Stix reports. Is this because blacks target whites, or simply because blacks rape more?

Blacks indeed are three to four times more likely than whites to rape. Even using the higher estimate, we "should" have a 4:1 interracial rape ratio. The fact there's a 17.1:1 ratio implies that in addition to raping more in general, blacks choose whites as victims more often than the reverse happens.

So, Stix's broader point -- that black-on-white rape is more common than white-on-black rape, both in absolute numbers and in proportion -- stands. The media is out of line to imply otherwise. But a 200:1 ratio, even counting prison rape and the conflation of white and Hispanic racial categories, seems out of the question.

Robert VerBruggen blogs at http://www.therationale.com.

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