Relative risks

One of Althouse' commenters, "The Crack Emcee, wrote "Black people don't go anywhere because we don't feel free to roam, simple as that."

I wondered at that. Under what circumstances would that be reasonable? I gather he is a composer and DJ, both of whom run into a different section of society than I see, but I'm not sure that skews the environments that much.

My naive incredulity arises because, statistically, in the USA, a random black man is an order of magnitude more likely to commit violent crimes than a random white man.

But when he goes out into the rest of the US, the white men abound by an order of magnitude more than the black, so the likelihood of running into a violent white predator is roughly the same as of running into a black one.

There's something else that skews the numbers even more. Within his own culture, he can probably spot the "tells" for people he wants to avoid better than he can in the "white culture," especially in rural areas with which he seems to have little experience.

The folks I hang around with are not a representative sample of Americans. I can probably find white druggies and "rowdy" drinkers without too much effort, but I avoid them. Sometimes the signals are obvious.

If he is doing the same, he probably is at greater risk from white folks whom he can't read than from the black folks he can.

"Better the devil you know than the devil you don't."

FWIW, yesterday the police chased down a fellow who shot at his girlfriend in the house across the street from us. (nobody hurt) I had not made an effort to get to know the man.