Comparative advantages in violence

This post was occasioned by the viral video of a Houston high school student (Hispanic) being attacked by two others (black). It's not a nice video - while we don't know what happened immediately before it, the Hispanic student appears to be trying to ignore the other two students and eat his lunch; then the other two suddenly launch a frenzied attack, initiated by a hard sucker punch to the ear. Once he falls to the floor, they lay in with repeated kicks.

Fights happen in high schools all the time - though this one appears to be particularly vicious, and possibly caused by racial tensions in the school - but this one in particular made me ask: "what made them think that they could possibly get away with this?" No obvious provocation, clearly no aspect of self-defence, aggravating kicking-when-down factor; I can't imagine that they didn't know they were being filmed. Heck, they quite possibly warned the camera holder - why was he/she filming in the first place?

I won't bother to recycle the stats that black male youths include a disproportionate number of the most violent and dangerous youths in the USA. If you don't believe that's true... you should take a walk around Baltimore/Chicago/Oakland and see how that works out. But why is this true? Why do you find black youths initiating so much violence?

Like most things in life, it's perfectly rational with the right data. It's all about what's to gain vs what's to lose. If you're in a sink school, poor family, probably no father in the picture, no real job prospects, you really don't have anything to lose. The school expels you after repeated violent episodes - so what? You weren't going to graduate anyway. Your only plausible route to success is in the local gang scene, and if pummelling a random Hispanic student (on video) is your way to rise in status in that gang then, frankly, why wouldn't you?

The Hispanic students, though, are likely first or second generation immigrants. Their mommas - and papas, and abuelas, because they're generally in intact families - are busting their cojones about succeeding in school and getting a job. Maybe not always college, but doing well enough in high school and part-time work to get a decent job with pathway to financial security. They start getting seriously involved in violence, they have a lot more to lose.

Thus, the black students generally have the comparative advantage in applying violence - they're more likely to get a net benefit from it. So we shouldn't be surprised when they do disproportionately more of it.

There are always exceptions; one can contrast a Hispanic student whose father is in jail for a lengthy term for MS-13 crimes, with a black student from an intact family who realizes that his only real shot at success is to do the best study he can. And every school bully has the common sense to avoid that one weird kid whose family history is murky, but whose every action at school indicates that he has absolutely nothing to lose.

The problem, of course, is the medium term. Teenagers have highly short term thinking... if you're in doubt, talk to a teenager for more than two minutes. But if you look at the demographics in Houston, where Hispanics comfortably outnumber Blacks more than 2 to 1, you start to see the future problem. Should the Hispanic population finally decide that the Black populatation is too much of a threat, it's not going to be pretty, and it's only going to end one way.