NYT lumping victims and criminals together

[noamnety]

"Seven months after two powerful hurricanes blew through the Gulf Coast, elected officials, law enforcement agencies and many residents say Texas is nearing the end of its ability to play good neighbor without compensation.

Houston is straining along its municipal seams from the 150,000 new residents from New Orleans, officials say. Crime was already on the rise there before the hurricane, but the Houston police say that evacuees were victims or suspects in two-thirds of the 30 percent increase in murders since September. The schools are also struggling to educate thousands of new children.

<snip>

Evacuees have been victims of or accused of committing 39 of the 235 murders in Houston since last September, said Houston's police chief, Harold Hurtt. In January alone, there was a 34 percent rise in felonies over the previous year in the city.

"I can't tell you what percentage of that group is evacuees," Chief Hurtt said. "But I am sure they are really represented in that group."

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/20/us/nationalspecial/20texas.html?ei=5065&en=175fbf59b92a5b17&ex=1146110400&partner=MYWAY&pagewanted=print

That sure is an odd way to report crime statistics.

[patdem]

1. Using stats again to deride...2/3 of 30% increase..I had to reread that

a couple of times after I read 39 of 235..I kept saying 39 of 235 is not 2/3...I reread it..went back to the real numbers..then realized what it said 2/3 of 30% increase. Actully it is 16% of the total murders..and SOME were victims..but they do not say how many? so the murders are something smaller than 16% of all murders?

This has to be some of the MOST misleading newspaper article I have EVER read..it is of course directly out of the mouths of the administration in Texas and NOT something the reporter put together...DISGUSTING..AND THEY FIRED JASON BLAIR WHY?

[noamnety]

3. I had to reread the same stats

for the same reason. 2/3 of the increase, yes. And that part's up front, so what people are likely to remember is that 2/3 of the crime is the fault of the evacuees, which is wrong on two counts.

[newswolf56]

2. Don't blame The Times, blame the racism of Texas officials:

In that part of the world, "evacuee" has become a synonym for African-American, much as "crime problem" became a synonym for black activism 30 years ago.

This passage from the story is especially telling:

But results on standardized tests suggest that "the students from Louisiana were substantially behind the Texas kids," Mr. Abbott said.

Note how "Mr. Abbott" deftly blames the students for New Orleans schools -- schools that were among the very worst in the United States.

This was, by the way, entirely predictable: the beginning of what will develop into a huge and unprecedented wave of American homelessness -- a debacle that will reveal the United States for the Third World country it truly is.

[noamnety]

4. I blame the officials AND the Times

A decent reporter would have caught that lumping of victim and criminal, and would have asked for the breakdown. I'm sure the police have it; if they know the exact number of murders involving evacuees (39), there's no way they haven't figured out how many of those numbers were victims. It should have been the reporter's job to question the numbers, and not let the police chief act as the unquestioned spokesperson for racism.

I'm not even sure what to say about the students' test scores. No matter what the state of the school system was in New Orleans, it's not that hard to figure out that children who have lost their homes, seen floating bodies, lost family members, and then been displaced as they were, might have some problems with concentration. Not that hard to figure out they might have some issues trying to figure out why 5 apples divided by 3 people should be all that important, right at the moment.

[newswolf56]

5. The reporter did question the numbers, and the cops refused...

to answer: "I can't tell you what percentage of that group is evacuees," Chief Hurtt said. "But I am sure they are really represented in that group."

In a news story (as opposed to an analysis or an opinion piece) that's all you can legitimately do.

And -- just as she wrote (the reporter is Jennifer Steinhauer) -- "The New Orleans schools, surrounded by far greater poverty than Houston, are among the nation's most troubled."

Speaking as someone who has written about poverty and related social issues for close to 45 years, the underlying difficulty in ALL U.S. public schools is deliberate dumbing-down bolstered by the vicious combination of socioeconomic and ethnic bigotry: in other words, class warfare intensified by racism. This is inherent in the mission of public schools under capitalism: producing conformist, obediently zomboid wage-slaves to serve the ruling-class and its endless quest for profit.

While Asiatic kids face the same American-as-apple-pie prejudices, the bigotry directed against African-Americans is infinitely more hateful and therefore infinitely more crippling; that's why (generally speaking) Asiatic kids "who have lost their homes, seen floating bodies, lost family members" (think Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia etc.) often transcend the hatefulness while others may not.

Paul Krugman, in what I think is probably the most important sociopolitical essay written since the Civil War (and maybe since the Revolution) notes here that our welfare policy -- the most unabashedly savage in the industrial world -- is entirely a product of America's malicious anti-black racism:

http://www.pkarchive.org/column/091905.html

I believe the very same analysis applies to our public schools, public transport and health care systems -- each of which is also the worst (that is, the most inefficient, expensive and therefore savagely discriminatory) -- in the industrial world.

I'm not questioning your anger; indeed I share it. I'm merely saying The Times is not the bad guy here -- quite the opposite, for having the courage to report this increasingly censored story.

[noamnety]

6. You really believe the chief couldn't come up with numbers?

I understand he's at fault also, but I wish the Times had made a point of noting it as a refusal to supply the numbers - if the Times was going to include the statistics, they should have followed through, asked who would have that information. Instead, the reporter lumped the two groups together twice, and let the chief get away with implying that the evacuees were responsible for a higher level of crime than they really were.

I am angry the reporter didn't call him on it more directly - blaming the victims is a big part of the story.

[newswolf56]

7. No I think the chief is hiding the numbers. But you can't say that in a...

news story. You can only say it in an opinion piece. And The Times is usually (though not always: note the Miller outrages) unyieldingly strict about such matters.

But I surely do agree with you the point could have been made better: Steinhauer, nominally a damn fine social issues reporter, was probably writing on deadline or maybe just having an off day.

And I think too the ultimate truth of the overall story lies in this: Houston's school system has also experienced fighting between local and New Orleans students in its schools — 27 students from the two sides were arrested in one melee...

Fact is, the Displaced Persons from New Orleans were forced on Texas by its Republican politicians to take some of the heat off Bush. That is the REAL story here, and as far as I know, nobody -- not even The Times-Picayune (which just won a Pulitzer for its post-Katrina coverage) -- has dared cover it. Instead it's spun as another example of "American charity," when in fact the United states -- no matter what it might have been in the past -- has under Bush become the most savagely UNcharitable nation on earth.

[noamnety]

8. That IS a story I'd like to see covered. (n/t)