Hube’s Race Problem
I’ve been checking on Hube now and then and recently he is on a jag about the fact that the NJ has a policy regarding reporting on the skin hue of anyone who turns up in the police blotter.
You can check that out or not. Probably best to let Hube work out his issues on his own.
Anyway, when I was reading it reminded me of the time I was the night clerk in a youth hostel in Scotland which was robbed.
When the police interviewed me I described one of the crooks as looking “Very Scottish.” You see, to me many of the native Scots I met were kind of short, had very pale skin, and a kind of flat oval face with a typical sort of bone structure. I didn’t mean anything disparaging by the remark.
Well, one of the cops who had been quiet to that point took offence.
“And what would you mean by <i>”very Scotish?” </i> he said in a super thick Scots accent.
I looked over at him and wouldn’t you know that that cop’s skin was dark brown.
Epilogue:
They caught the guys because I noticed that one of them had a tatoo on his hand.
“Probably best to let Hube work out his issues on his own.”
Sorry, Jason, but to me that came across as a cheap shot.
That’s how I intended it.
That’s OK, Steve. Y’see, even though someone like Nancy Willing totally agrees with me that this WNJ policy is absolutely crazy, and even though I’ve blasted the paper for their PC antics for all races, Idiot Jason — instead of delving into the issue, debating the issue, discussing the issue — takes the side of the Journal and more than clearly implies I am racist for pointing out the paper’s crazy policy. The ‘ol cliché, “The last refuge of the scoundrel …” is more than appropriate, of course.
I thought liberals cared about people. They do — up ’till the point to where their [usual] politically correct sensibilities are offended. Public safety doesn’t matter if someone might be offended at a “stereotype.”
It sure is a good thing Steve is around the DE blogosphere now. It’s the best blog going these days, where intelligent thought comes through in each and every post. Then there’s this piece of swill, which Tom Noyes and Liberal Geek ought to be EMBARRASSED to be associated with.
Meanwhile, I’m sure the grammar school education-level crowd awaits with baited breath the next time Jason will make a gratuitous appearance for someone to sign his body.
BTW, how friggin’ stupid is it to describe the guy as you did — “very Scottish” … while IN fucking Scotland??
Break to Jason in Wilmington, DE:
“What did the guy look like?”
“Very American.”
“Gee thanks, moron.”
If you had any sense you’d have described the guy using the features you thought represented “Scottish.”
Can your Neanderthal brow GET any thicker?
Hube, I had just been robbed.
Why didn’t you reply to the cop, “Like Sean Connery, only shorter and a lot uglier.”
I like the idea proposed proposed on Colossus to use a color wheel to denote the person’s skin color regardless of race.
But then that opens this possibility.
“I looked over at him and wouldn’t you know that that cop’s skin was dark brown.”
“Well would you describe his dark brown color as more like a Starbuck’s French Roasted or would it be lighter, sort of like a Dunkin Donut’s Breakfast Blend……”
Or one even better:
Four perpetrators; one the color of Cadbury chocolate, one the color of sand, one the color of the Carvel building, and one the color of burnt wood, broke down a door and assaulted…………
hube is not a racist, he has black friends
someone like Nancy Willing
*
puhlease.
you crap on me whenever it is convenient, the latest shamelss showing is over on FSP.
don’t bother hanging your hat on this one.
Nance: Oh, I get it.The fact that I point out your unfair treatment of others (or “crapping on others,” to use your term) somehow nullifies your position on what the WNJ does?? Do you now deny you believe the WNJ’s policy is a travesty?
dimwitty: Yes, that’s an accurate statement. I also am married to a Latina whose grandfather is black and whose father is 1/2 black. But even though all this is irrelevant, … aw, what the hell am I doing? Trying to actually talk sense to you?
*Bangs head on desk*
There, my reason is back.
OK. I have read most of the post over there at Hube-ville and I see Hube’s point in theory. It is just an honest description of the accused perpetrator to mention skin color. However, is the NJ printing these items as news and information or do they expect us to be “on the look-out”? My guess is the former.
They do not give other details either. Sometimes details about height, weight and specific clothes are omitted. Which way did they run? Did they have a get-away vehicle? Information like this isn’t provided not because it isn’t germane but because the blotter is intended as information (I assume). I doubt they expect us all to canvas the neighborhood.
When you get this hung up on the race thing it does look quite suspicious, the ethnic background of your in-laws not withstanding.
“When you get this hung up on the race thing it does look quite suspicious, the ethnic background of your in-laws not withstanding.”
I have to disagree with your conclusion. Talk to local police–they will tell you that they are always hoping blotter reports will result in calls with information, and off the record they express damn-near unanimous disagreement with the NJ’s policy.
I guess my problem is why Hube’s reporting “does look quite suspicious”?
Suspicious of what, exactly?
Just because someone consistently expresses a difference of opinion with you over NJ criminal reporting or the TSA’s colorblind implementation of secondary screening protocols (which is clearly designed as much to avoid lawsuits as to protect the flying public), is not an excuse for an outright accusation of racism.
I realize that the style of DE Liberal is provocative, edgy, and in-your-face, and most of the time that’s entertaining while being informative.
In this particular case, however, it’s not in-your-face, it’s over-the-line.
Regardless of what the police hope for the News Journal isn’t the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted list. I never see a description of a getaway car. Did the perpetrators speak and if so what did they say? If they were in a group did they use each others names or nicknames?
It is ludicrous to posit that the newspaper should be used in this way, I think. It will never be able to provide enough description and this is what the NJ is combating by withholding skin color.
Consider this example: You may A.) describe someone as approximately 5’10’’ 195 pound male in a green hooded sweatshirt or B.) describe someone as approximately 5’10’’ 195 pound WHITE male in a green hooded sweatshirt.
Does either A or B offer the general public any reasonable chance of recognizing this person at the Wawa the next day. Nope. So why so hung up about adding skin color?
Again, I am hardly P.C. But noting a skin color is more than just a description. It’s a categorization. If you don’t admit that than who is being intellectually dishonest?
Pointing this out isn’t over-the-line.
Dorian has a good point about the Wawa the next day. But what about if you live near the crime scene and you DID see somebody that fits that description?
Dogless – Fair enough. If you remember seeing a 5’10 195lb man in a green sweatshirt walking around the neighborhood near the crime scene around the time of the crime speaking to friends or entering a home, etc., is the skin color necessary?
I don’t have a problem with this description: “5’10 195 lbs with brown hair and brown skin.” I think that in order to call it a categorization it has to be “A black man 5’10 195 lbs with brown hair.”
It is stupid to not include the skin tone in a description, if you are trying to catch someone. One of Hube’s previous posts had a man that had been attempting to abduct little girls. We were supposed to be on the look out for someone without knowing that they were dark-skinned, or hispanic, or an albino. That is inexcusable.
What’s over the line is not disagreeing with Hube–it’s characterizing his disagreement as “suspicious” or a “race problem.”
Whether it’s “skin tone” or an attempt to label ethnicity, the NJ is placing its ideological viewpoint above its mission to report the news.
It’s not like the NJ has to go investigate: the police blotter reports include that information as a matter of course. That’s how the local radio stations get it.
What the NJ does is decide to withhold consistently certain categories of information that the police believe is significant enough to release, based upon its perception that not offending somebody is a higher value than public safety.
You can disagree with me for that opinion, you can lampoon it, but it looks more like “gotcha” politics than rational policy debate when you choose the ad hominem route.
LG – Again, I don’t disagree necessarily with including skin color. But I contend that nobody’s on “the look-out” for anyone. OK, a scumbag is out trying to abduct girls. Are you going to tell your daughter to stay away from Hispanic strangers particularly?
It’s simply semantics to say using “black” is categorization but “mocha/chocolate” isn’t. That’s quite fine tuned position.
“OK, a scumbag is out trying to abduct girls. Are you going to tell your daughter to stay away from Hispanic strangers particularly?”
As a matter of fact, if it is germane to the description and to keeping her safe–damn right I will.
But then I’ve tried to raise my children to understand that descriptive terms need not be pejorative, and that they should always avoid characterizing people they meet by superficial aspects.
But if it comes to keeping them safe from abduction, rape, and possibly murder, I really don’t give a shit about your political sensibilities. I will equip them with all the information I can muster.
If that’s racist, then I guess you need to sign me up for the klan.
I don’t know the man. Really don’t have any interest. His online personality is not my cup of tea. But I’m sure he is bullets, for sure.
I am suspicious of his motives though especially if I think the explanations are disingenuous. And the fact the he responded to DV’s sarcasm about having “black friends” by enlightening us about the ethnicity of his wife and in-laws was rather odd, I think.
And he brought it up, I didn’t.
Strikes me as fear-mongering…
DG: Have you read all of the posts of mine on that topic where the suspects have been WHITE? Have you? There’s quite a few.
And I responded thusly to dimwitty’s sarcastic comment for two reasons: 1) to be equally sarcastic, and 2) I thought it was pretty common knowledge about my wife and in-laws. That being said, if someone is really a racist, would they actually marry outside his race — especially a two-‘fer (Hispanic AND black)?
You have odd definitions of “odd.” And “fear mongering.”
Oh, and will you now apply your little amorphisms to your colleague LiberalGeek … since he seems to agree with me? How ’bout [far-left] Nancy Willing?
Steve Newton has dissected your “case” better than I ever could. Thank you, Steve.
“Bullets”? Never heard that term.
DG, the article that Hube pointed out, indeed, people were to be on the lookout for this person and to provide any info that we might have about the crime.
I wonder at what point it is appropriate to state the skin tone of the offender? When there is a reasonable chance of identifying the guy? If you have 3 pieces of information about the guy and withhold one of them, aren’t you harming your chances of finding him at all?
I think it’s clear you’re not racist. (FYI – Nobody listens to Donviti anyway.) It is just strange that you think the addition of skin color would be greatly beneficial. My argument is that it probably wouldn’t.
I said odd because that defense (“I can’t be racist some of my best friends are black”) is cliché and fallacious as a justification. So I thought responding to it was “strange”, “odd”…
To insinuate that “the children” are safer if we added skin color is fear-mongering. I think it’s a specious, inflammatory argument.
Thanks LG. I’ll check that out.
Good conversation BTW. Thanks everybody.
Bullets is slang. Think like “aces”, as in “the dude is aces!”
Well, I appreciate that DG. Thanks.
But I still think it isn’t “inflammatory” nor “specious” that adding skin color to a [given] police report assists the public safety.
DG says, “To insinuate that “the children” are safer if we added skin color is fear-mongering. I think it’s a specious, inflammatory argument.”
Let’s try the reality: a serial child abductor is known to be operating in an area. Police have very little to go on, besides a description that includes: (a) male of average height and weight; (b) seen wearing a grey sweatshirt and an Eagles’ ball cap; and (c) Hispanic.
In general my children are cautioned to beware of strangers when they are alone in the first place. I know that’s both inflammatory and specious of me, but there it is.
However, if I know from police accounts that there is a particular stranger out there who happens to be Hispanic (the description could be Asian, White, or bovine), and knowing this will cause my children to be more circumspect until such time as that subject is apprehended, then once again your considered opinion that adding “skin color [to the description] is fear-mongering” just doesn’t resonate with me.
That’s on the personal level.
On the policy level, to suggest it is “a specious, inflammatory argument” to want as much descriptive information possible about the perpetrators of violent crime, even when we know that a certain percentage of that information will be wrong (it always is), is a ridiculous position.
The NJ State Police pulling over African-Americans for driving BMWs (“driving while black”) is one thing. Censoring police reports (and that’s what the NJ is doing) is quite another.
Here’s the point: if the NJ was serious rather than simply pandering it would do a story on our local police and point out that nationwide other police departments don’t issue such specious and inflammatory statements, and that excluding descriptive facts about suspects doesn’t have a negative impact on arrest rates.
But since such data doesn’t exist, I guess it would be a difficult story to write.
I don’t want to forget where this all started, because you will note I made the very first comment.
I don’t object to raising the issue of whether or not such material should be promoted. There’s room for debate there.
What I object to was the original assertion that Hube has “a race problem” for talking about it, the venal comment by dv about “black friends,” your unwarranted comment that his taking umbrage at the insult is somehow “suspicious” rather than human nature, and your willingness to characterize my wish to keep my children safe as “fear-mongering.”
If you can, DG, explain how any of these statements leads to a positive debate about a sensitive issue.
I’m no fan of the News Journal, for one thing. My issue is with the assertion that the race descriptor adds a great deal useful information. As in something someone is actually going to use. It’s not like we’re all out with our badges at the ready, preparing to make citizens’ arrests.
Perhaps, in the piece LG linked to, the full description made everyone negligibly safer, perhaps. But in reality, nobody is on the look out for anyone. The chances of every even seeing someone who fits any description is infinitesimally minuscule. So really it makes no one safer. It’s like taking your shoes off at the airport.
Maybe the NJ’s motives are laughable, maybe they’re weak. I think I probably agree with that. Let me be clear, I think it is perfectly fine to include race/skin color. But let’s please not make it sound like anyone is in danger of a violent death because they didn’t report that the stick-up guy at the liquor store was Asian (or a mellow yellow).
As far as Jason and DV comments, they can say whatever they want. I never said I agreed.
Dorian,
I listen to me! and that’s what’s important. Hube is a putz and a online condescending bully that takes potshots whenever he can if a person has a viewpoint he disagrees with.
what I find so Ironic about this hispanic loving black in law having guy is he is a school teacher and reads comic books.
at least I am an online personality that doesn’t take himself seriously. Hube on the other hand has some serious masculinity issues he tries to push forward by thumping his chest and name calling.
listen to that bitch!
dimwitty. If that above comment isn’t the epitome of calling the kettle black, I don’t know what can beat it. Complaints about name-calling and bullying — from the Delaware version of Atrios and Daily Kos?? Oh, but is your excuse that “you don’t take yourself seriously,” so we should what — just laugh and ignore everything you write and say? Is that it? (And by the way — even though I used “kettle black” that isn’t a racist statement. I just know you needed that explained.)
You’ve brought every bit of condescension and online “bullying” right on yourself, bro. As the cliché goes, “do unto others…”
Now, everyone try to dissect dimwitty’s logic of the “irony” of me being a teacher, having a Latina wife, a black father-in-law, and reading comicbooks! And oh — wait! Is that yet another liberal instance of being hypocritical? Is dimwitty inferring some sort of “gay” issue here (“some serious masculinity issues”)?? After a whole post is devoted to accusing me of being racist?
Hey Tom Noyes and Lib. Geek! Why do you wanna be linked to these clods? Seriously!!
Ah, Hube. I like Donviti. He is like that uncle that says inappropriate things at the Thanksgiving dinner table that causes a huge ruckus.
Sure some people leave unhappy, some leave bewildered and some actually learned something. But everyone remembers that Thanksgiving.
I bought Geek a beer to say that.
neaner, neaner hube is gay…
Math and Logic, no wonder this country and world are in trouble. The dumbing down of damn near everyone.
In a city like Wilmington, stating the color and race of a suspect, is 50%. That will make a significant affect on the identity of the suspect.
You should all review your probability.
Whatever is supplied as factual statements about the suspects, is significant. Race can eliminate 50% of the suspects. The NJ should publish all the facts.
============================
In Wilmington, I can think of some other options.
When it is black on black crime.
1) Whites can ignore the statistics for someone getting killed on the street. Ignore the circumstances. The problem is local to few neighborhoods.
BUT:
2) Someone does not want us to ignore the crime.
Truth is, many of these crimes are for certain reasons, and under certain situations, like drug sales. These crimes can be ignored by many other communities. Sure drugs are all over, but the problem is, the violence associated with drug sales are in a few local communities.
Reconsider that the real issue is not just drugs,
it is the BUSINESS.
In the inner city, the BUSINESS becomes violent.
In the suburbs, drug sales are rarely violent.
Usage may be the same, but the real threat is the violence that kills many inner city people.
…