> Crime rates also statistically correlate with demographics, but if I assume a specific person is a criminal based on that stat, I would (rightly) be called racist.

Who said anything about a specific person? They are talking about a neighborhood, in a urban area in a region known for the endemic poverty in black-majority areas due to the long shadow of slavery and Jim Crow.

As a wise character once said, "poverty is a condition, not a crime".

> > Expecting people to assume 'historically black' == 'poor' similarly feels racist.

There are a few historically black communities in the US that are middle-class and prosperous, and Black Americans have made huge advances, but to this day, concentrations of Black American community prosperity tend to be the exception rather than the rule.