Race realism debate

Disclaimer: race realism obviously

A debate I witnessed earlier today:

P1: Black people commit the majority of crime, because despite making up 13 percent of the population they commit over 52 percent of the crime. Therefore they are inherently violent. 

P2: The statistic you are referring to mostly is affected by environmental factors and poverty, which other non biological factors.  I don't think that it serves as evidence that they are inherently violent.

P1:  Just because you're in poverty that doesn't make an excuse for you to steal. Are you saying that murder and stealing is ok if you're in poverty? If black people don't want to be treated badly than they shouldn't commit crimes. 

P2: I wasn't implying that it was ok......I was just saying that those factors that I mentioned increased your likely hood of committing crimes, and that invalidates your point that it was inherent.

P1: It still doesn't excuse it, just don't commit crimes, your conditions don't matter.

P2: You completely misunderstood my point....the morality of the situation is completely irrelevant. 

P1: So you're saying its ok to murder and steal if you're poor? 

Then this runs in a circle for about another hour. This would rather funny to witness, and I was wondering how many fallacies you guys could spot in this rather bad faith debate. 

Oooooh boy, another racism debate! Don't ya just love talking about it?

Black people commit the majority of crime, because despite making up 13 percent of the population they commit over 52 percent of the crime. Therefore they are inherently violent. 

The 13/50 factoid is is false!

Despite being a common talking point of far-right figures, especially on the internet, it has no basis in reality. The stat does not refer to all crime, and even if it did, the statement could still be misleading without taking into account the spread of the data (in the case of black people, as with most, a minority of people are committing the bulk of the crime).

Next, we have a non sequitur as the state of crime statistics tells us nothing about why these crimes occur (so you can't say black people are 'inherently' violent). Indeed, the inability to see motivations for behaviour is a key shortcoming of quantitative data. Also, this person uses a subtle red herring to misdirect the debate, by referring to 'black people committing crime' (as if it referred to 'all crime') before switching to talk about 'violence' (which would only be reflected in violent crime numbers, not 'all crime' numbers).

Just because you're in poverty that doesn't make an excuse for you to steal. Are you saying that murder and stealing is ok if you're in poverty? If black people don't want to be treated badly than they shouldn't commit crimes. 

We have confusing an explanation with an excuse. You are not defending criminality, you're explaining why it happens. Also, the last sentence makes no sense. 'Black people' in the U.S. refers to nearly ~40 million individuals, most of whom are not criminal, yet often face barriers based on race...so the idea that they're being treated poorly because they're committing crimes does not add up.

It still doesn't excuse it, just don't commit crimes, your conditions don't matter.

LOL! I definitely think you are being trolled at this point, OP. The guy either has no empathy or no interest in a serious conversation.

The rest of the points our racist friend over here makes are..too stupid to even be worth rebutting. 

I think people who aren't trolls (and have this mindset in real life) might be dealing with the just-world hypothesis, the idea that people 'get what is coming' to them (e.g. good people are rewarded, bad people are punished). When applied to an argument, it would be the moralistic fallacy (though in this thread it doesn't appear in any individual inference as much as it seems to be the framework of this person's argument). If blacks are suffering, it must be because they're 'inherently X' (so they were born that way and deserve it), or because 'their culture makes them do X' (so they choose to partake in that culture and deserve it). This is not only a callous ignorance of history and sociology, but also an example of causal reductionism.

Conversations about racism can only move forward if we examine the root assumptions of said conversation, and challenge them when they are false. Until then, we will spent untold amounts of time covering the same ground.

non sequitur, strawman fallacy, moving the goalposts, avoiding the issue ...

Here, in addition to fallacies, there is also an opinion.

First of all, the first P1 seems to be an argument all to itself:  Black people commit crimes; the proportion of crimes they commit is 4 times their proportion in the population; therefore, they are violent.  We seem to have a bit of a non sequitur happening here.  Hidden in the statement is the assumption that all crimes are violent or that all people who commit crimes are violent people.  Aside from the link between crime and violence, I also have to challenge a premise and ask if it's true that "black people ... commit over 52 percent of the crime" or if a more accurate statement would be "black people ... are convicted of over 52 percent of the crime".  

Keeping the non sequitur roll going, the second P1 moves deftly from "stealing" to "murder and stealing" and tries to mix poverty with being treated badly with committing crimes.  Perhaps there are connections; however, they're not obvious from the argument.

Then, taking full advantage of the non sequitur sale, P1 seems to hold the view that, not matter what, committing a crime is wrong and moves from a suggestion that societal influences (not race) might be why one would "commit a crime" to it's "OK to murder and steal".

P1's conclusion that blacks are inherently violent is a non sequitur. Also, P1 implying that P2 approves the committing of crimes if poor, seems to be a strawman.

P2 has made an unsupported claim regarding the contribution of poverty and environmental factors.

P1: Black people commit the majority of crime, because despite making up 13 percent of the population they commit over 52 percent of the crime. Therefore they are inherently violent. - Holmesian fallacy

P2: The statistic you are referring to mostly is affected by environmental factors and poverty, which other non biological factors.  I don't think that it serves as evidence that they are inherently violent.

P1:  Just because you're in poverty that doesn't make an excuse for you to steal. Are you saying that murder and stealing is ok if you're in poverty? If black people don't want to be treated badly than they shouldn't commit crimes. - Strawman

P2: I wasn't implying that it was ok......I was just saying that those factors that I mentioned increased your likely hood of committing crimes, and that invalidates your point that it was inherent.

P1: It still doesn't excuse it, just don't commit crimes, your conditions don't matter . - Opinion

P2: You completely misunderstood my point....the morality of the situation is completely irrelevant. 

P1: So you're saying its ok to murder and steal if you're poor? - strawman