There is evidence to suggest that African American women are impacted by IPV at higher rates than are Caucasian women, yet little of the IPV literature addresses the cultural and structural factors that differentially affect African American and Caucasian couples.
Bill, how on earth did you manage this research without coming across as racist to yourself? The obvious converse of black women being impacted by domestic violence at higher rates is that black men are guilty of domestic violence at higher rates. The special concern for one must have constantly threatened to turn into special blame for the other. Curious how much that weighed on you. Did you worry that white supremacists might randomly quote your study out of context as evidence of some wretched racist theory about the innate or cultural defectiveness of black males?
A couple questions:
· What was the basic gap in IPV between blacks and whites, and how did you express it? Meaning, if out of every 100 white couples there are two couples plagued by IPV, and out of every 100 black couples there are four, would you say that 1) black couples are twice likely to suffer from IPV? Or would you point out that 2) the difference amounts to a) a single troubled black couple out of 100 solving their issues and b) a single untroubled white couple out of 100 developing new issues? How important do you personally feel it is that 196 out of 200 couples regardless of race would be sharing the same fates re: IPV? In other words, did it trouble you to be emphasizing a small pathological difference between races versus acknowledging the overwhelming commonality?
· Did you control for class, income, wealth?
It has long unnerved me that the social science left uses such relatively small differences compared to total populations to make sweeping statements about the general condition of this or that race. By definition, uncommon problems are going to constitute small sample sizes, no? But I'm sure there's some science-y explanation for why the samples are large enough to be valid. The real problem is that, as I said, when the left focuses on discrepancies between tiny percentages to demonstrate that blacks are 65% or 300% more likely to be in [X] condition or do [X], it is always just a slight edit and sinister cut away from being exactly what a Klan propagandist would want to paste on a newsletter.
The left's interest in magnifying the unique plight of black people might be interfering with the need to remind ourselves that the vast majority of black and white have an equivalent racial counterpart, the vast majority of us are in similar boats, good or bad, high or low, more or less. Constantly seeking discrepancies and expressing them in the largest possible magnitudes puts the left in a twilight zone between antiracism and racism. Ratesism, perhaps? The belief that tiny discrepancies phrased for maximum effect can tell us about the essential nature of being black or being white?
Might need to clarify what I'm saying.
If not, what are your thoughts?
. It's a scapegoat to get what they want in negotiations because everyone is scared to be labeled a racist in the media and some of you're black leaders know this and that's the card they like to play.