They say numbers don't lie but in reality people lie about the numbers.
As a Quality Assurance Analyst many years ago, I dealt with Statistics on a daily basis.
They are great for measuring production, waste, employee performance, safety etc.
But the most important thing statistics DON’T tell you is WHY.

Let’s say you have 10% waste in your manufacturing plant. Is it a machine malfunction, is it poor inspection techniques or maybe a material defect or all of the above?
My point is Statistics only tell the result not the cause.

Liberals and racism baiters love to use statistics to “prove” racial bias. Take Obama’s statement that blacks are 10% more likely to be killed by cops. When you look at the numbers, 506 killed by cops this year, 123 being black and 383 being mostly white. At the surface you see 123 is about 23% of the people killed are Blacks yet Black’s make up only 13% of the population. So you can see that Blacks have a 10% higher chance per demographic to be shot by a cop.
So technically Obama is right on the “numbers” but is this because of racism? Not at all.
Statistically, a higher percentage of Blacks live in higher crime urban areas then Whites. So you would expect a higher percentage of Blacks would be exposed to police action in high crime areas because of crime not racism.

Another statistic thrown out there is Blacks are pulled over 30% more often than Whites. Unfortunately I can’t find any reliable numbers on this but let’s assume it is accurate.
The racism baiters jump to the conclusion it’s all about skin color.

Two arguments can be made about the “cause” of this statistic.
One being along the lines as the example above, If you’re driving around in a high crime area you’re more likely to be pulled over to see what you are doing there then in a rural area.
Second, statistically a higher percentage of Blacks live near the poverty level than Whites. This may account for a higher percentage of Blacks that may not have their car legal (registration on plate, inspection stickers or broken lights etc.) and would cause a higher percentage of pull-overs.

In both cases statistics can be used for disingenuous purposes, and most people won’t take the time to look behind the numbers.
To them it’s all black and white and they promote this idea that there is flagrant and widespread racism in our country.

Sure racism exists among all races, I’ve seen a lot of Blacks that hate Whites. The Dallas shooter is one good example as is the Black Panthers and Black Lives Matter groups. Both Whites and Blacks have their characters but I think they make up a very small minority in both races.
It’s the ones who have an agenda that ferment divide to further their political or financial goals that make numbers lie.

http://www.allenbwest.com/matt-palumbo/5-facts-about-police-shootings-msnbc-will-never-report


Here are the facts about police shootings Obama will NEVER mention
Written by Matt Palumbo on July 9, 2016
obama-foolish

The unifying issue of Black Lives Matter is clear: police brutality. Why do they say “black lives matter” when obviously we all acknowledge that “all lives matter”? Because they believe the problem of police brutality and killings is disproportionately affecting the black community.

Their radical behavior makes perfect sense when you understand they seriously believe that police are waging a war against them – and a problem of systemic, institutionalized racism exists among the ranks of law enforcement. But according to statistics presented by journalist Heather Mac Donald, these charges are completely unfounded.

Here are just five fascinating facts she’s uncovered, courtesy of the Daily Wire:

1. Cops killed nearly twice as many whites as blacks in 2015. According to data compiled by The Washington Post, 50 percent of the victims of fatal police shootings were white, while 26 percent were black. The majority of these victims had a gun or “were armed or otherwise threatening the officer with potentially lethal force,” according to MacDonald.

Some may argue that these statistics are evidence of racist treatment toward blacks, since whites consist of 62 percent of the population and blacks make up 13 percent of the population. But as MacDonald writes in The Wall Street Journal, 2009 statistics from the Bureau of Justice Statistics reveal that blacks were charged with 62 percent of robberies, 57 percent of murders and 45 percent of assaults in the 75 biggest counties in the country, despite only comprising roughly 15 percent of the population in these counties.

“Such a concentration of criminal violence in minority communities means that officers will be disproportionately confronting armed and often resisting suspects in those communities, raising officers’ own risk of using lethal force,” writes MacDonald.

2. More whites and Hispanics die from police homicides than blacks. According to MacDonald, 12 percent of white and Hispanic homicide deaths were due to police officers, while only four percent of black homicide deaths were the result of police officers.

“If we’re going to have a ‘Lives Matter’ anti-police movement, it would be more appropriately named “White and Hispanic Lives Matter,'” said MacDonald.

3. The Post’s data does show that unarmed black men are more likely to die by the gun of a cop than an unarmed white man…but this does not tell the whole story. In August 2015, the ratio was seven-to-one of unarmed black men dying from police gunshots compared to unarmed white men; the ratio was six-to-one by the end of 2015. But MacDonald points out in The Marshall Project that looking at the details of the actual incidents that occurred paints a different picture:

The “unarmed” label is literally accurate, but it frequently fails to convey highly-charged policing situations. In a number of cases, if the victim ended up being unarmed, it was certainly not for lack of trying. At least five black victims had reportedly tried to grab the officer’s gun, or had been beating the cop with his own equipment. Some were shot from an accidental discharge triggered by their own assault on the officer. And two individuals included in the Post’s “unarmed black victims” category were struck by stray bullets aimed at someone else in justified cop shootings. If the victims were not the intended targets, then racism could have played no role in their deaths.

4. Black and Hispanic police officers are more likely to fire a gun at blacks than white officers. This is according to a Department of Justice report in 2015 about the Philadelphia Police Department, and is further confirmed that by a study conducted University of Pennsylvania criminologist Gary Ridgeway in 2015 that determined black cops were 3.3 times more likely to fire a gun than other cops at a crime scene.

5. Blacks are more likely to kill cops than be killed by cops. This is according to FBI data, which also found that 40 percent of cop killers are black. According to MacDonald, the police officer is 18.5 times more likely to be killed by a black than a cop killing an unarmed black person.

And regarding the last statistic – while the rhetoric of BLM is founded on lies, its consequences are very real. So far this year twenty-six police officers have been killed in the line of duty, which is 44 percent higher than at this point last year.

Statistician's Lives Matter

Yes. Statistics are meant to be used to discover patterns. However, you can make numbers say anything you want them to. It's all about comparing the optimum objectives to reach the intended goal.

These days the media finds facts and numbers to achieve attention and/or shock value. They could care a less about putting forth an accurate portrayal or not.

The average American IQ ranges between 90 and 100. That's just enough to believe whatever they are told without the desire or knowledge of how to to research the facts for themselves.

So, to sum up what both of you are saying......

Statistics are killings to black folks.

I agree that statistics dont always tell why, but there are statistics that are inclusive of whys that tell more of the story

in your examples, for instance


123 blacks killed and 383 white , includes everyone killed and so yes, those numbers dont take int account the likelihood of an encounter with a cop

that is why statistics that consider more elements are more useful

if we remove the concern for how much more likely blacks will be stopped, and seek out more specific statistics

for instance, only look at the percentage of unarmed arrests that end in death by race,, than the likelihood of that race being stopped is a non issue

and the discrepancy still exists,,,,


but the choice of which statistics to use can be a way that the less than honest push an agenda,,, that is why the rest of us need to read between the lines and seek out more details , and more detailed statistics


'i am always weary, for instance, of details that have chosen only specific range of years to include, because people can search for years that fit their perspective, and skip over those that dont, even in conrads response, the person trying to 'disprove' the legitimacy of black lives matter lists a set of statistics from 2015 and justifies them with unrelated statistics on the black criminal demographic from 2009

http://www.allenbwest.com/matt-palumbo/5-facts-about-police-shootings-msnbc-will-never-report


Here are the facts about police shootings Obama will NEVER mention
Written by Matt Palumbo on July 9, 2016

The unifying issue of Black Lives Matter is clear: police brutality. Why do they say “black lives matter” when obviously we all acknowledge that “all lives matter”? Because they believe the problem of police brutality and killings is disproportionately affecting the black community.

Their radical behavior makes perfect sense when you understand they seriously believe that police are waging a war against them – and a problem of systemic, institutionalized racism exists among the ranks of law enforcement. But according to statistics presented by journalist Heather Mac Donald, these charges are completely unfounded.

Here are just five fascinating facts she’s uncovered, courtesy of the Daily Wire:

1. Cops killed nearly twice as many whites as blacks in 2015. According to data compiled by The Washington Post, 50 percent of the victims of fatal police shootings were white, while 26 percent were black. The majority of these victims had a gun or “were armed or otherwise threatening the officer with potentially lethal force,” according to MacDonald.

Some may argue that these statistics are evidence of racist treatment toward blacks, since whites consist of 62 percent of the population and blacks make up 13 percent of the population. But as MacDonald writes in The Wall Street Journal, 2009 statistics from the Bureau of Justice Statistics reveal that blacks were charged with 62 percent of robberies, 57 percent of murders and 45 percent of assaults in the 75 biggest counties in the country, despite only comprising roughly 15 percent of the population in these counties.

“Such a concentration of criminal violence in minority communities means that officers will be disproportionately confronting armed and often resisting suspects in those communities, raising officers’ own risk of using lethal force,” writes MacDonald.

2. More whites and Hispanics die from police homicides than blacks. According to MacDonald, 12 percent of white and Hispanic homicide deaths were due to police officers, while only four percent of black homicide deaths were the result of police officers.

“If we’re going to have a ‘Lives Matter’ anti-police movement, it would be more appropriately named “White and Hispanic Lives Matter,'” said MacDonald.

3. The Post’s data does show that unarmed black men are more likely to die by the gun of a cop than an unarmed white man…but this does not tell the whole story. In August 2015, the ratio was seven-to-one of unarmed black men dying from police gunshots compared to unarmed white men; the ratio was six-to-one by the end of 2015. But MacDonald points out in The Marshall Project that looking at the details of the actual incidents that occurred paints a different picture:

The “unarmed” label is literally accurate, but it frequently fails to convey highly-charged policing situations. In a number of cases, if the victim ended up being unarmed, it was certainly not for lack of trying. At least five black victims had reportedly tried to grab the officer’s gun, or had been beating the cop with his own equipment. Some were shot from an accidental discharge triggered by their own assault on the officer. And two individuals included in the Post’s “unarmed black victims” category were struck by stray bullets aimed at someone else in justified cop shootings. If the victims were not the intended targets, then racism could have played no role in their deaths.

4. Black and Hispanic police officers are more likely to fire a gun at blacks than white officers. This is according to a Department of Justice report in 2015 about the Philadelphia Police Department, and is further confirmed that by a study conducted University of Pennsylvania criminologist Gary Ridgeway in 2015 that determined black cops were 3.3 times more likely to fire a gun than other cops at a crime scene.

5. Blacks are more likely to kill cops than be killed by cops. This is according to FBI data, which also found that 40 percent of cop killers are black. According to MacDonald, the police officer is 18.5 times more likely to be killed by a black than a cop killing an unarmed black person.

And regarding the last statistic – while the rhetoric of BLM is founded on lies, its consequences are very real. So far this year twenty-six police officers have been killed in the line of duty, which is 44 percent higher than at this point last year.

the relevant statistic that initiated BLM

unarmed black men are more likely to die by the gun of a cop(or more accurately, at the hands of cops, not always shot but choked or mauled or beaten) than an unarmed white man…




all that other garbage that 'some' are attacking is distraction to diminish the statistics



its not about blame, its about how the system and media reinforce and teach an inherent bias and stereotype of the fatally dangerous black man,,,makes sense that people, including cops, are not as concerned when encountering a black man in trying to deescalate as they are in trying to defend against the preconceived notion that the encounter will be fatal to them


and , more importantly, there is little to no accountability for people killing unarmed citizens if those people wear badges or if those citizens are black males

BLM lied and People died!

well if blacks are stopped more often than whites and there are 383 whites killed compared to 123 blacks killed it would be fair to say that whites are killed more than blacks per stop incident

either they are wrong when they say they are stopped more often or when they say they are killed more often

you cant have it both ways

more stops would be more deaths but thats not the case or less deaths would mean less stops which is it

only if 'more often' is a numerical indicator

if one group is stopped 10000 times to anothers 2000, that would be more often,, but being that there are five times as many whites as blacks,, I doubt 'more often' is referring to raw numbers,,,,but instead referring to 'likelihood'

and then if we look at the 'likelihood' of a stop ending in death,, what comes before the stop becomes irrelevant,, since everyone in the study would have been stopped

for instance

lets say the jones and the smiths are neighbors, each with five member families

lets say the jones are robbed five times a month and the smiths are robbed 10 times a month

those numbers indicate that the smiths are being robbed more often

however, if four of the five times the jones were robbed, someone died,,, that means 80 perencent of their robberies end in a death


and if five of the ten robberies ended in death at the smiths,, that means 50 percent of the robberies ended in death'

so although the smiths were 'more likely ' to be robbed
the jones were much more likely to be killed during a robbery

Here's an even "bigger picture" observation for you to recognize, Searchin4...

the reason WHY people of ALL kinds try to use statistics in the ways that you are fussing about, AND why they do a generally bad job of it:

it's because using statistics is what the mainstream American business and political world has been shoving down our throats, ever since the idea of Business Science got going way back when.

It is NOT because the people you happen not to like are any worse than the people who you DO happen to like, whoever they may be.

It's the same reason why, when pretty much ANY problem is brought up these days, the people charged with addressing it DEMAND statistics, specifically so that they can LIMIT HOW MUCH THEY SPEND TO ADDRESS IT.

Further: how ELSE do you propose to try to deal with things such as racism? Really?

Here's a true personal story example:

I grew up here in Pre-Civil Rights Virginia. I saw first hand, how the racists pulled stunts, when a local swimming club my family wanted to join, started to offer memberships. We had to fill out forms, make phone calls, prove income, and then there was one more step:

We all had to go down to the club offices in person, for final approval.

Our family heritage was from the midwest, so my parents didn't think anything of it, and were very pleased when they were immediately welcomed into the club membership.

It wasn't until a few months later, during the height of the swimming season, that my parents began to notice that there were nothing but white folks there. They put two and two together, and we left.

That kind of thing was the staple for all the racists in the area, whether they were selling memberships in clubs, or houses. No one ever WROTE DOWN that people were rejected for the sake of race, they just quietly did so, and then denied, denied, denied, that there was any such thing going on.

It wasn't UNTIL the statistics were used, that something legally actionable could be accomplished.

Statistics in this kind of situation are indeed annoying, and frustrating impediments to actually dealing with the problem.

But the thing is, there ARE no other tools that can be used to stop the bad behavior.

yes there is proper and stiff penalties for those that break the law

one example

they say to many people are dieing from pain medications

mr x goes dr shopping with fake ids sell the medications they get and make thousands and maybe even ten thousands of dollars a week

o that poor drug dealer couldnt help it and gets 5 years and then gets out in 30 months

govts idea to fix it is not to make the punishment harsh enough to deter the crime but passes more laws to restrict the law biding citizen that has a true need for the pain medication

the pain med patient has to see the dr every month and usually within 2 days of being out of medication thus no extended travel for them ----- it doesnt matter they are retired and planned on touring the country ----TOOO BAAAD we dont want to punish criminals we want to control you

i seen this situation first hand the dealer and the patient in true need that cant travel because not only does the dr restrict their travel drug stores will not fill early prescriptions and insurance companies rufuse to pay for early prescription ----- and you are only permitted to see 1 doctor and there is a data base tracking all pain medication dispensing through out the country (so why if they have this data base do they need to be so hard nosed about one doctor and monthly visits ------------ citizen movement control there is no other real reason

Serchin4MyRedWine is describing Six Sigma, which is used in manufacturing to eliminate unwanted variations. The statistics are helpful to discover the existence of problems, but the statistics don't tell you why the problems are happening.

The swimming-club example that IgorFrankensteen gives illustrates that statistics can point to racial disparities that are not logical if all races are being treated the same way.

The tragedy/insult of current days, is that some people are pretending to fight back against the misuse, or over-valuation of statistics in cases such as this, and are doing so NOT in order to find a better solution than statistics, but rather to try to persuade everyone to stop ALL efforts to fight racism and other problems.

The fact that the statistics of a given problem are misunderstood, or are misapplied, do not change one fundamental fact: there could be no statistics at all to misunderstand, if the problem wasn't real.

You have it all backwards...You are Assuming the problem (I suppose you mean racism) is real because there are statistics of "pull-overs".
The FACT is there are only statistics that show Blacks, like any other race are pulled over in traffic stops.
You would need a lot more stats like how many were in high crime areas,
how many were involved in a crime(stolen car etc), how many had repair issues(maybe because low income areas).
It's easy to jump or ASSUME there is a problem and then use general statistics to "prove" the existence of your intended "problem".

From the New York Times:



"But when it comes to the most lethal form of force - police shootings - the study finds no racial bias."

Click here to read the study that the NYT is referring to.

I saw this study reported last week. If I remember he is a black economist. Notice he says "even when accounting for where, how and when these circumstances occurred". I hope he included this "data" in the report so it's not subjective to bias.
And actually according to his report Blacks were LESS likely to encounter deadly force than Whites.

"And actually according to his report Blacks were LESS likely to encounter deadly force than Whites."

Exactly. The actual statistics go against the claim that "unarmed black men are more likely to die by the gun of a cop(or more accurately, at the hands of cops, not always shot but choked or mauled or beaten) than an unarmed white man"

The key limitation of the data is they only capture the police side of the story


and


The other two datasets – event summaries of officer
involved shootings in ten locations across the US, and data on interactions between civilians and
police in Houston, Texas, in which the use of lethal of force may have been justified by law



that's 10 locations based on the officers summary, and Houston TX based upon 'data'

,,,pretty BIG limitation,,,dontcha think?

msharmony, apparently you didn't read that study thoroughly if at all.

From page 4: "The second dataset is the Police-Public Contact Survey, a triennial survey of a nationally representative sample of civilians, which contains – from the civilian point of view – a description of interactions with police, which includes uses of force."

So, yes, the survey captures the civilian side of the story, too.

Anyway, your dispute is with Dr. Roland G. Fryer, Jr., not with anyone on this site.


Roland G. Fryer, Jr., Ph.D.