Maybe. Nobody has enough grey matter to comprehend actual empirical reality even if they had it all laid out for them, and in practice most social maneuvering other people do is unobservable. There is a very strong layer of realpolitik in reality where actors must ensure that their in-group has power, facts be damned.
The real issue is when in-groups don't believe in the growing-the-pie mentality that benefits everyone. A belief that the resources we have are fixed and that only by taking from one group and giving it to another is the single biggest problem. We've seen that belief play out in horrific ways on the left, right, intellectual and populist spectrums and any other axis of thought you care to name. I see danger in the PC crowd, whoever they happen to be, if they believe that one persons wellbeing comes at the expense of another persons speech. That isn't tied to any particular issue; cultures have survived being wrong before.
That is: aren't some proportion, if not a preponderance of the people citing that operating from a narrative that people of that race are "bad" — ignoring the centuries of social and economic context around the statistic as if it has no bearing on why the statistic is what it is, little details like the disconnect between correlation and causation, &c — and that it's their operating from that narrative, and neither the citation nor the fact, itself, that's being down-modded?
Aren't those people just as — if not more — insulated from "actual reality" than the ones using the forum's moderation mechanisms to "punish" their holding that narrative?
Yes, it's still toxic to discourse, but do you really think discourse is very likely in the first place, when you're dealing with someone who's probably only citing the statistic because it confirms their biases?
EDIT: phrasing
I find it hard to believe that no one has mentioned the factors that make murder rate statistics misleading to you. At the very least, that it's being put out there with the implication that correlation is causation, and ignores other factors that have much more basis for a differing murder rate, like socioeconomic status.
It's probably the set of information that's put out there the most often in order to muddy the waters, often by people have racist motivations.
The author said "posting the data" is enough for backlash, they didn't say anything about judging the data, let alone that they'd judge the data like you say they would.
And even if they would draw "misleading" conclusions from the data, it is not helpful to rant at them and punish them, but rather assume their good faith (until proven otherwise) and explain to them why they were mislead by the data. Even if it's a bad white supremacist who'd never change their mind, you might still positively influence other people reading the same exchange instead of making other people root for the "underdog" (in that conversation) who was viciously and personally attacked just for posting data.
Most of the time people talk about “black on black crime” they’re not trying to make a sound statistical argument, they’re using it in service of some larger racist point. So yeah, when you start talking about “what about Chicago” or the shape of people’s heads, people tend to put you in the same bucket at everyone else who seems to be really interested in certain facts...
The problem with this approach is that if op was trolling then they could spit out a huge list of seemingly correct correlations that nobody would have time to debunk all of them. That would allow some of op's bad correlation to be left not debunked and appear that it is right.
In online forms you have to figure out if someone is trolling and then behave in one of two opposite ways based on it they are out aren't.
Absolutely socioeconomic and cultural factors affect the statistics. But they also affect statistics like representation in the tech industry.
If someone objects to bringing up one then the same person should object equally strenuously to bringing up the other. Which is not what happens in practice.
Lower cognitive ability is related with racism[0]. So it might not be malice, but simple that they cannot grasp the social underpinnings of such statistics.
[0] http://www.fraw.org.uk/library/anarchism/hodson_busseri_2012...
But I don't think it is as simple as an individual advancing a "reality" that a community is not able to accept.
I think it is easy for the individual to look at it that way, though.
But this is because there's a hidden syllogism lurking about. I could better describe this with a graph, but...
Let's look at the example of mass shootings. Someone could very well bring up historical murder rates (even leaving race out of it), and show that things really are better than they have been in the past, in terms of general trend.
Brought up to people that are alarmed about the prevalence of mass shootings, they'll probably get down-voted or ostracized or whatever.
The individual feels frustrated, because they feel they have disproved some syllogism the community has. The assumed syllogism being, this mass shooting happened, mass shootings mean more death, therefore death rates are increasing. Individual has pointed out that death rates aren't increasing.
But the actual syllogism is the concern about the qualitative nature of the death. That it is saying something about us culturally that is qualitatively different than it used to be. Or simply that someone should be able to go to school without having to worry about that sort of thing culturally.
And the counterpoint that death rates are decreasing over time does nothing to disprove those implied syllogisms. At best the individual's point comes across as irrelevant, at worst it comes across as insensitive, disrespectful, or even pointing towards a worse implied syllogism of the individual's - like that the victims deserved to be killed for not being able to defend themselves with firearms or whatever.
So, next time you post FBI murder rate statistics by race of perpetrator and victim, it's probably best to ask yourself if those stats actually are relevant to the argument that your counterpart is actually stating. It might not be material at all. And it's also good to be explicit about what your point's conclusion is, and what conclusion it disproves.
But it sounds like you already made your own answer.
You clearly imagine he/she gave that example in an effort to "rile people up", or are at least alluding to that as a strong possibility that others should consider. How you can come to that conclusion (out of an infinitude of hypotheticals) from the given information, I do not know.
But to me, it may be a sign that you're looking for things that aren't there. I urge you to consider how in touch with reality you are.
For example, try posting FBI murder rate statistics by race of perpetrator and victim to any forum where political correctness is highly active. Instant downvotes and censorship to maintain ideological hygiene. This is the constant positive pressure that is needed to alleviate the friction between reality and political correctness.
There is a belief that pretending that reality is a way that it is not will make it the way that it is pretended to be. We all experience a very small segment of actual reality, so this actually works for people who are insulated from certain realities that might be ideologically unhygienic.