Black on Black Violence / Murder: Why Is it Taboo to Discuss? How Do We Fix it?

[John Hearne]

As I understand it, broader U.S. culture has recognized some groups as outside of their concern. The argument was that the people themselves are incapable of conducting themselves along mainstream norms associated with "decent society." The two obvious examples of this are Italian-Americans and Irish-Americans. At one point, the neighborhoods dominated by this ancestral background had much higher rates of crime, less stable families, poor educational outcomes, and "bad mores" such as excessive drinking. These communities were intentionally under policed and the crime and self-destructive decisions were encouraged as an ugly form of population control. This lack of policing lead to neighbors settling disputes among themselves, like an honor culture, as they had no faith in the justice system. These were areas where the rule of law was weaker and less prevalent.

At some point, it was decided that these groups should be brought into the mainstream of society. The primary mechanism used to accomplish this was aggressive policing. At some point, it was decided that these areas would no longer be under policed. We don't have the numbers, but I suspect that the neighborhoods experienced "over policing" for an extended period of time. If I had to guess, within it two generations (40-50 years), the reliance on an honor system style of existence was gone. Contrary to popular opinion, poverty doesn't cause crime, rather crime causes poverty. By eliminating crime, upward economic mobility was made possible and the whole area prospered.

Proactive policing is not a scalpel capable of great precision. If you increase the number of officers in an area and tell them to eliminate criminals from the area, some folks who were "doing nothing" are going to get stopped and questioned. When real criminals are encountered, there will be uses of force and remember no use of force, no matter how legal, moral, and within policy is pretty. If the goal for your neighborhood is to not be "hassled by the police" or to have none of its violent felons shot, there is nothing that the police can do for you. You are choosing to sit in your generational slop and nobody is going to to care about your lamentations about the natural consequences of your decision.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

There is another nuance to John's post. The Italians, Irish and Eastern Europeans were not considered 'white' for some time as race was not seen in older times as it is today. Here's a good article on the issue: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...an-racism.html . It references some of the scholarly works. Eventually, these groups were seen as 'white' and overt discrimination diminished. The election of JFK was seen as a turning point against over discrimination against Catholics.

However, African-Americans never reached and have not reached that tipping point of inclusion that the folks above did. Labor contracts explicitly kept them from moving up job ladders in industries, housing was explicitly segregated (and still is in some areas with subtle methods). The loss of good jobs in cities led to the destruction of family structures as well employed males became not so well employed, influencing family structures. The rate of single mother households increased dramatically. That is seen in other countries when good jobs disappear, independent of race.