Racism statistics may measure the collectors, not the facts
Evidence
In some instances, there are no fundamental theoretical or methodological obstacles to the comparison; for example, there is no doubt that the extreme right is more powerfully constituted in France than in the United Kingdom. On the other hand, there are instances in which the comparison is more difficult. Thus, we observe considerable differences between France and the United Kingdom when the question concerns the statistics for racial violence, as we saw above, or again when the issue is one of discrimination in employment or in housing - Michael Banton (quoted by Bataille, 1997) notes that 2,324 complaints for racial discrimination in employment were dealt with by the British courts as compared with only a few in France, only two of which resulted in sentences, over the same period. But does that mean that there is more violence or discrimination in the United Kingdom than in France, or is there a considerable political and administrative effort in the former to counter these scourges; in other words, do the statistics inform us about the facts or do they tell us something about those who collect the statistics or who demand them? — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 3138
Categorization
- XREF: Connects to the broader epistemic point that the instrument of measurement constructs the phenomenon measured, echoing themes in the reader’s note on figure/ground and signal/noise in The Soundscape. — connects to: Surveying ‘fair treatment’ cannot cleanly measure racial attitudes because whites can deem segregation fair. — Ilyana Kuziemko and Ebonya Washington, Why Did the Democrats Lose the South?…, 1337; Victim accounts are valid data because racism is covert and routinely denied — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1500
- corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 3138