The Floyd Effect: Refuting a Clown

 

 

I have had 100s of debates with right-wingers, whether it be normal conservatives or hard-righters online. Although I disagree with them, I have been able to have a number of fruitful discussions with may of them. I respect any one who is good faith and sincerely believes what they advocate for. There are white nationalists who I  have respect at the very least for their honesty. However there is a group of people I can't stand - Propagandists. The person who I am addressing today is a propagandist. A propagandist in my view is someone who willingly disseminates misinformation for a political agenda. Steve Sailer fits that bill. He's a guy who discusses many topics which I find myself debating very often like the relationships between race, IQ and crime for example. I am not going to list everything I feel he says which I believe is inaccurate but I will address a point which he rehashes over and over again on his twitter page.

The "Floyd Effect"

In the summer of 2020, peaceful (mostly) protests erupted in the wake of the brutal killing of George Floyd  by police Officer Derek Chauvin. People protested in what they saw as yet another unjust killing of a black man by a racist police officer. After these protests, a peculiar correlation emerged:

           figure 1

Black homicide absolutely skyrocketed! From about 22 murders per 100,000 persons in December 2019 to about 38 per 100,000 persons in June 2020. Not only that but as the figure below shows black car crash fatalities also skyrocketed during this period. What the fuck is going on?!

   figure 2

Sailer's Explanation:

If one follows Steve's tweets you would know that he ascribes these changes to changes in "black behaviour" as this tweet he temporarily got suspended for shows. This is a pretty funny way of putting things but as you'll see as you read further, Sailer is a pretty funny guy. 

But in reality were the Floyd protests driven by a change in "black behaviour?" The Floyd protests were a worldwide phenomena with protests in over 60 countries but Sailer's point is mainly relevant to the United states. However statistics paint a very different picture from Steve's point here: 

 

 

These 2 charts refute Steve's point here. The Floyd protests were majority white and more importantly, majority non-black. But that's a brief aside, besides the main point of the article.

In Steve's article The Floyd effect, he attempts to pin the observed increases in figure 1 and 2 on the George Floyd protests which mind you began in late May 2020. 

"The argument I find most persuasive for why black-on-black shootings erupted during the anti-cop mania of 2020 is that when our society’s leadership told police to not pull over blacks so often, they obeyed. With reduced fear of being stopped and searched, blacks then started carrying illegal handguns more and driving worse. Thus, the black car crash death rate also exploded in June 2020"

 That's it. No that's literally all. He provides NO evidence that police patrols reduced after the protests, NO evidence that police stopped Blacks less after the protests. Just pure speculation not backed with evidence. He at least tries to come up with this pathetic counterpoint:

"Perhaps the most plausible Covid-related theory is the least popular: that all the economic stimulus stimulated more Deaths of Exuberance, such as murders and car crashes."

Notice how he labels murders "deaths of Exuberance" as if most murders are due to some trigger happy idiots killing people for no reason. In reality it's difficult to find evidence on this, but the majority of data shows most murders in the US are gang-related. This study estimates that about 85% of firearm related homicides are gang related. About 8-in-10 murders in the U.S in 2020 involved a gun. So with this we can estimate about 70% of all U.S ,murders are due to gang murders. If you don't accept this websites' data, take this newspaper report from 1993 which shows that nearly 800 murders in LA county resulted from gang-related homicides. However the article states that only 38% of the murders in the county that year were gang related. However this is almost certainly an under-count. In the U.S about 40% of murders are unsolved annually, majority of these gang-related. This is because it's often difficult to get witnesses to cooperate in areas run by gangs due to fear of retribution, this is particularly bad with Hispanics whose murders are least likely to get solved. It's also quite difficult for the police to determine whether a murder is gang-related or not, with the police needing to determine both the victim and suspect and determine whether they're in gangs to confirm this so 70% is a very good estimate when you consider it doesn't even include non-firearm related homicides such as stabbings.

So why does Steve call it a crime of exuberance. Why is he being dishonest? Why is an old man using such colourful and immature language? Well some of you may have wondered why I decided to go with calling Steve Sailer a clown and not an "idiot" or a "retard". I didn't call him this to insult him, I genuinely think he's a funny guy. Take this excerpt from his article for instance.

"Blacks don’t drive as many miles as whites do, but per capita, blacks tended to die less than whites on the roads until the Ferguson Effect got rolling. Since then, bad driving seems to have become a black thing, whereas traditionally blacks tended to have a stereotype of being reasonably cool behind the wheel. (Picture 1970s pimps driving 12 miles per hour around their turf.)"

I genuinely laughed at this no joke (just click on"pimps"). And this is why I'm writing this. I want Steve to stick to his comedic strengths and stop getting involved in dishonest politics!

 

My Explanation

Why did homicide rates increase in Blacks?

Sailer's argument is already disproved when one considers that homicide and car crashes already began to increase well before the Floyd protests which began proper in June 2020. Take a look at figure 1 and 2 and see when the spike began? So why did homicide spike so suddenly in Blacks? Sailer claims that Black crime increased 2 major times: during the "Floyd" and "Ferguson" effects. The Ferguson effect is a  theory which attempts to explain the spikes in crime after the Ferguson protests of 2014-2015 in Ferguson, MO after the shooting of Michael Brown. It says that crime increased due to de-policing and police being afraid of arresting criminals due fears of being called racist. Again Sailer has to wrestle with the fact that crime began to spike in 2014 before the Ferguson protests began in August. How does he reconcile this? By claiming a delayed Ferguson effect of one year from 2015-2016. A year after the protests.

"In contrast, you can clearly see the Ferguson Effect caused by the first time in 2015–16 that the Great and the Good hyped the misnomered Black Lives Matter movement. But the Ferguson Effect is subtle compared with our ongoing Floyd Effect."

In reality there is  no evidence for the Ferguson Effect.

"This study examined relationships between public antipathy toward the police, demoralization, and de-policing using pooled time-series cross sections of 18,413 surveys from law enforcement officers in 87 U.S. agencies both before and after Ferguson and contemporaneous demonstrations. The results do not provide strong support for Ferguson Effects. Post-Ferguson changes to job satisfaction, burnout, and cynicism (reciprocated distrust) were negligible. Although Post-Ferguson officers issued fewer citations and conducted less foot patrol, effect sizes were minimal in magnitude. Cynicism, which was widespread both before and after Ferguson, was associated with reduced officer activity."

 Honestly speaking one can be forgiven for believing in the Ferguson effect. It may not be backed by data but it at least sounds Plausible. However I would like to ask why a similar "King" effect wasn't observed after the L.A riots due to the police brutalizing Rodney King in 1992, if increases in crime are driven by protests? It's almost as if there are more complex factors at play. Crime fell during 1992 and did so for significant decades after as the graph below shows

figure 3

So why did black murder increase after the Ferguson protests? Is it just a coincidence.The best answer in my opinion is that the increase in homicides coincides with the flooding of Fentanyl into the drug market in 2014. This led to gang activity ramping up due to an expanding market for drugs.

figure 4

In fact most historical spikes in U.S homicide are caused by this exact factor. Rival gangs increasing violence to compete for new drug consumers.

Notice the spikes during criminalization of drugs or creation of new drugs (prohibition, 1919-1933) (nationwide criminalization of drugs,1960s) (Crack epidemic 1980s-1990s) etc.

 While the Ferguson effect sounds like a plausible theory, the Floyd effect is nonsense. The Floyd effect is simply disproved by looking at Sailer's graph. Black homicide already began to increase in early 2020  before the Floyd protests and coincide with COVID lockdowns. Not only that but black homicide actually falls from June-August during the height of the protests. The best explanation for these increases in crime is the other massive event that happened during this time period (conveniently ignored by Sailer): COVID-19

So why would COVID lead to increases in murder? Well the COVID-crisis led to historic surges in the consumption of drugs due to increases in anxiety and depression.  I hypothesize a better answer than Sailer's "Floyd effect". Gangs always increase violence in order to expand into new drug markets or increasing demand for illicit drugs as I demonstrated previously. This is what most likely happened during COVID.  And because Blacks were already overrepresented in drug crimes and homicides, this rise was most pronounced amongst Blacks. This theory is confirmed by the fact that homicides spike again during lock downs in early 2021.

So why did car crash fatalities increase?

There are barely any increases in car crash fatalities from August 2014-August 2015 (Ferguson protest timeframe) and the increases seem to be higher for whites than blacks. So Sailer's attempt to claim a Ferguson effect here fails. The increase in fatal car crashes for Blacks is most pronounced during the COVID-crisis. So what happened here as well? 

Well remember when Sailer described "crimes of Exuberance"? Well he was right about one of those crimes. Over 30% of car crash fatalities involve drunk drivers. And during COVID alcohol abuse significantly spiked during COVID. Also black drivers were overrepresented in essential jobs during the pandemic putting them on the roads for longer than other races and increasing the likelihood of a car crash. Even if one were to grant Sailer this ridiculous "Floyd effect", how much of these increases could it even result in.

While Black Americans make up 15% of the workforce, the research shows that Black Americans are significantly more likely to hold essential worker positions that include 30% of bus drivers, 23% of personal care aides, and 20% food service workers

One would need to provide substantial proof of dramatic reduction in police presence for this theory to even make sense. Meanwhile evidence suggests that increased police presence in major cities has little effect on shootings.