> poor people in bad neighborhoods (of all races) tend to do more drugs

This is not true. This matter has been thoroughly studied - have you a source to back up this claim?

Even though the drugs that are often consumed in poor neighborhoods are more likely to be criminalized, they are still used at comparable (and sometimes higher) rates in affluent neighborhoods (along with many other drugs in configurations that aren't prohibited).

I don't understand what you are asking me to source - you are the one making the claim.

Here's an easy read that lays this stuff out plainly (I already linked it from my other comment, below):

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kim-farbota/black-crime-rates-...

Correlations with race are highly suspect as well as self-reinforcing. I believe they should be abandoned because the damage they cause (by perpetuating a problem) may be greater than any possible benefit they provide.

Correlations with race are _facts_. Impartially collected data collated with robust statistical methods results in race falling out of the mix as an important correlate with all sorts of things; we then publish these correlations. Which part should we abandon? Impartial data collection? Robust statistics? Publication of the results? Are you suggesting that certain facts are too dangerous to know?

Correlations are never facts: they are interpretations of statistical measurements.

Correlations with eye color may also be _facts_, but this does not mean that they are important. And (hopefully by definition, since these are all just physical attributes), such correlations (as ridiculous as it sounds) should be no more, or less, important than racial, gender, age or other correlations. They're all just tools to oppress minorities and treat people as groups rather than individuals, which is good for a single brain trying to make sense of the world but bad for the individuals in the group.

Are you aware of the blue eyes/brown eyes experiment by teacher Jane Elliott? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Elliott

In any event, the problem, if any, is cultural and economic, NOT racial. I lived with a white Irish guy who grew up in an entirely black neighborhood, and if you closed your eyes you would have zero doubt he was black. One of the coolest (and most mind-blowing) guys I've ever met.

Have you read "Night" by Elie Wiesel? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_(book) The Nazis had plenty of correlations (I'm sorry, _FACTS_) to being Jewish, put it that way... and we all know how that ended up.

The only racial correlative that makes any sense to track, to me, is sickle-cell anemia, because it is helpful.

The problem is your brain (and my brain, and everyone's brain). As soon as you learn of an unfortunate correlation with race (or sex... did you know almost all rapists are men? Did you know most people interested in math and science are male? Etc.), you tend to lean on it too much to make judgments across ALL of the correlate, and therein lies the serious problem, because the outliers get _the_shaft_. The well-meaning black man experiences bias on a daily basis and gets worse jobs, the science-interested woman gets scoffed at and thus discouraged by male teachers, and the good gentleman never gets the girl because she crosses the street before actually meeting him out of fear.

So, fucking quit it, man. It's not helpful, in any way, shape, or form. It is disingenuous to all humans, to restrict a handful of them based on a correlation with a physical attribute. It's giving in to the laziness of your brain trying to oversimplify a complex world. It's actively evil, in fact, the equivalent of grouping all Koreans together and calling them "gooks" because the idea that you're shooting actual humans is just too distasteful a thought.

Don't you see? It's ENTIRELY easier for you to not hire an entirely qualified black man, if you're spouting this bullshit.