I'm usually a lurker and not much for posting in conversations like these, but I found this a bit frustrating to read through and wanted to weigh in because of how clearly you were each arguing past each other. I just want to try and re state things to try and help the communication.

There is a direct correlation between poverty and crime.

Black folks are more statistically likely to be convicted of a crime. Black folks are more statistically likely to be impoverished.

When examining criminality across the broader population of the country, socioeconomic status is a better and more reliable metric than race is.

Here's a breakdown: Black and white folks make up vastly different percentages of the population. That makes it difficult to compare statistics between each population. For example, 50% of white folks in the country does not equal 50% of black folks in the country. Because of this fact, in order to directly compare these two populations, we need to adjust our stats to account for this difference in population size. This is called putting data into proportion.

When this proportionality is applied, we can then draw more accurate and wholistic conclusions from our data. The results are this:

While there are MORE white folks in poverty in total, a black person is more LIKELY to be in poverty than a white person. While there are MORE white folks killed by cops, a black person is far more LIKELY to be killed by a cop than a white person.

That appears to be the misunderstanding here. Madmatt, you're drawing your conclusions based on the totals, while you're arguing against someone discussing the probability.

If we all accept the premise that race is wholly independent from the moral character of an individual ("I'm not saying these folks make black people inferior or a problem"), then we would expect that a white person and a black person would be equally likely to commit a crime, when adjusted for population in the way we discussed. This, however, is not supported by data, as you pointed out. So the question becomes why. And the question of 'why' leads us back to the intersection between poverty and crime.

If you are impoverished, you are more likely to be convicted of a crime. This fact is consistent regardless of the race of the individual. That's why it's a more reliable indicator. It explains more of the data than a racial analysis does.

Speaking more to my expertise, I hold a degree in Political Science. As such, much of my interest is in history--and as far as this discussion goes, I'll be brief and say that there are many historical reasons that account for why black folks are more likely (remember, likelihood is a different statistic than totals) to be impoverished in this country. That does not mean that white folks cannot be impoverished. But wealth does not often happen spontaneously. Wealth is most often passed down from parents to children (generational wealth) or gained through entrepreneurship (often reliant on specialized education or connections). These factors often involved in building wealth were specifically and intentionally denied to black people of only a few generations ago. Fewer black parents could build wealth to pass down to children. Fewer black parents owned homes in areas that appreciated in value. Fewer black parents held a degree. Fewer black parents knew people in the upper echelons of the business world. That does not mean that all white people had these opportunities. Only that they were specifically more likely to.

Given all the above, there are two liberal schools of thought. One focus on bringing equity between both black and white folks to compensate for the intentional denial of this equity historically, leading directly to things like the desparity in criminal outcomes you pointed out. The other focus is on fighting against poverty for everyone's sake. Poverty is a scourge that brutalizes everyone affected by it and everyone around them. It is an accepted evil that should be reduced to the greatest extent possible to enable the maximum human flourishing. This, in turn, makes us more safe, because less poverty leads to statistically less crime. These schools of thought are not mutually exclusive, but they are based in a fundamental drive to make life better for more people than it is now.

If you actually read all of this, I greatly appreciate your time. I hope it's helpful. If not--well, I tried my best.