African Americans are more likely to be lower income, lower income folks are more likely to live in housing that is not up to code (missing sprinklers, detectors, fire escapes, and run by slumlords who simply don't care in ways that would likely be shocking to most decent people who haven't lived near the poverty line), where many, many people live in a single unit to make it affordable -- or because e.g. an uncle just got out of prison or someone you know is having some kind of emergency. When you're poor, you have a lot of emergencies and you know a lot of people having emergencies. Someone in your network is always having an emergency.
And yes, when you're making $9 an hour and your rent is 2/3 of your income, buying batteries for your chirping smoke detector is not top of mind.
This is all a byproduct of centuries of brutal economic warfare.
> "These risk factors appear to be related to socioeconomic status of the victim to a greater extent than one’s race," Onwuachi-Saunders wrote.
(from the article linked below)
But it turns out that in the US socioeconomic status and race are closely linked, at least in the aggregate.
I like how there's a persistent effort to make excuses on behalf of african americans. They're not being held back by history, they're being held back by chronically low expectations.
Pluck an average, random nobody from the 3rd world and drop them off in the USA. After a decade they'll be driving a Mercedes to inspect one of their several rental properties.
That doesn't seem to be the point? The point is (and I, not an American, have seen a few studies of this kind) that race predicts many outcomes, but not after controlling for income.
In other words, poor people in America are screwed, Black Americans tend to be poor (and mostly due to terrible socioeconomic processes in history).
It's not that it is OK if people are screwed "merely" due to income not race, but surely understanding the dynamic is key, no?
I'm talking from an ivory tower of statistics and papers, I barely spent a week in the USA in my whole lifetime.
> But it turns out that in the US socioeconomic status and race are closely linked, at least in the aggregate
In every country socioeconomic status is linked to subgroup culture and across the world different cultures have very different outcomes. That is not surprising. Neither the world nor people are uniform.
I have offered no justification or even an insinuation that it should continue. However it is a common thought today that the US is particularly bad at race. It's not
1-3 seem to be historical. In 4.a, I don't see any causation of the problems you identified. Is it that blacks mostly live among other blacks (segregation) and its those other blacks who are always having emergencies and getting out of prison, etc? That doesn't explain why whites who are also segregated don't also suffer from those problems. Is it because blacks' housing is more expensive, leaving them not enough money for smoke alarm batteries and they choose not to move to the better (historically white) areas for some reason?
I live in the whitest part of the whitest city in America (Portland). I am not white if that matters. Anyway, no one has once checked for hardwired alarms and we even had our whole home rewired (chose not to get hardwired alarms because they're a menace).
I'll submit and admit my experience is probably different than other regions in my country. However, from my professional experience in my region, the richest communities inspect for hardwired smoke detectors and the poorer communities don't care so much.
The randomly going off thing can be made better by more expensive detectors. Sure, you need an electrician.
This looks like lamenting the inconveniences of smoke detectors. My point is that hardwired smoke detectors function more consistently than battery powered ones.
I can't help but notice that the meme starts with white comedians noticing how often it occurs among their (presumably largely white) listeners, and KnowYourMeme is quite unconvinced that "the issue is so common with black Americans." It seems like a joke became a meme, which almost immediately became a stereotype, sped along by social media irresponsibility. There's not a shred of actual evidence there; and even to the extent the data might shake out to support the claim, there are way too many confounding variables for you to be saying stuff like this.
The background chirp of smoke alarms needing new batteries is a well understood phenomenon across the internet, but something I have never seen mentioned by the captured media, education, or government. This recognition of African American fire risk is the closest I have ever seen without being ripe with social justice style disclaimers
And yes, when you're making $9 an hour and your rent is 2/3 of your income, buying batteries for your chirping smoke detector is not top of mind.
This is all a byproduct of centuries of brutal economic warfare.
> "These risk factors appear to be related to socioeconomic status of the victim to a greater extent than one’s race," Onwuachi-Saunders wrote. (from the article linked below)
But it turns out that in the US socioeconomic status and race are closely linked, at least in the aggregate.
https://www.northjersey.com/in-depth/news/2022/02/03/fire-in...