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

[blues]

First off, let me say that this is a serious subject and one I'd like to read serious responses to. Otherwise it'll either be romper roomed or closed.

This is like one of those "dirty little secret" topics that is clearly not a secret, and is a source of much pain to the Black community and the nation as a whole.

What I want to understand, since I have to assume it's not being claimed as indigenous to the culture, is why no amount of money, policing, school programs, opportunity zones, (whatever they are), are sufficient to make effective inroads toward ending this particular blight?

I heard a gentleman say the other day on the news, following the tragic murder of a young relative, words to the effect of "How can we tell others that Black lives matter when we don't value Black lives ourselves?"

Clearly this is a complex issue that involves many layers including income, employment and economic opportunity, family structure, education, gang and criminal activity within the community, and a host of other variables.

I'm interested in hearing thoughts on how this situation ever gets put right in the face of all that's come before and which has clearly failed. Root causes and solutions.

For America to go forward I think this matter needs to be addressed and not swept under the rug as it appears to be on a regular basis. It tends to get two seconds of lip service on the news before the story is changed to something more politically (and racially) charged.

Thanks in advance for sharing your thoughts.

[Greg]

I think it’s fairly evident that LBJ’s Great Society facilitated the destruction of intact black families. Especially in urban environments.

Feminists and other wackos will say male children don’t need a father at home or at least present in their lives.

50 years of evidence says otherwise.

[Seven_Sicks_Two]

Clearly this is a complex issue that involves many layers including income, employment and economic opportunity, family structure, education, gang and criminal activity within the community, and a host of other variables.

I'm interested in hearing thoughts on how this situation ever gets put right in the face of all that's come before and which has clearly failed. Root causes and solutions.

I don't have an answer, just an observation: some problems can't be fixed just by throwing money at them.

(not that spending money is the solution you're suggesting, just that it is often one put forward by politicians)

[AKDoug]

I honestly don't know the answer. I am very good friends with two Alaskan Native families. Both families come from villages that saw rampant sexual abuse, violence towards women, and murders; mostly brought on by drug and alcohol abuse. Both of these families left that life behind, moved away from the villages, and became very successful middle class families. At one point in our relationship I tried to discuss what they could do to help solve the problems of their relatives in the villages, I was met with anger and a complete unwillingness to discuss it. I pushed further, probably too far, that they themselves were shining examples of what the kids in those villages could become. They shut down even more. It's not a topic we discuss anymore. Our friendship is still strong, but it still disappoints me that they continue to be apologists for what happens in the villages, and for one of the wives, the blame she throws at white conservatives. (added on edit* - I love them dearly. We all have our hangups and I'm sure they have several criticisms of me as well)

When I reflect on my friend's attitudes, I find myself thinking that all under privileged communities of all colors have the same issues. When we look at crime rates there is an obvious correlation between income and rate of crime. There are several localities of predominantly white residents that are poor and have very high crime rates. When we look at blacks that move into middle income brackets, we see a precipitous fall in crime. It's pretty obvious that economic condition is a primary factor.

The cultural side of things is the other side of the coin. Because I am not well immersed in the culture of being poor white, black or Native American; I have a difficult time coming up with any good ideas. I'm your basic blue collar, dirty hands, middle class guy. I like to think the answer is "get to work", but I'm smart enough to know that really is just one small part of it.

I actually have to get to work, so I'll come back to this discussion later tonight.

[peterb]

I just finished this: https://www.amazon.com/Dont-Shoot-Fe.../dp/1608194140 which described some programs that worked, and some that failed.

The author claims that relatively few gang/group members actually *like* the life -- seeing friends get killed, getting arrested, etc. -- but they feel trapped. It's all they know, and they no local role models for any other life.

If you honestly believe that you'll never get ahead, and that you'll be dead or in prison by the time you're 30, planning ahead and staying out of trouble doesn't have much attraction.

If you don't trust the police, you take "justice" into your own hands.

If showing weakness makes you vulnerable, insults become a killing offense.

Economic opportunity, educational opportunity, racial bias, culture, poverty, loss of factory jobs, drug markets, the prison pipeline/revolving door, middle-class flight.......all factors. No easy answers.

[Bio]

I'm pretty sure it's discussed in the black community quite a bit. I drive through an urban black neighborhood to and from work. For every "Black Lives Matter" sign I see, there's two or three "We Must Stop Killing Each Other" signs (that's the literal sign text).

[blues]

@AKDoug

It's a bit off topic but you brought up a point that reminded me of an experience in AK back in the mid 80's Two buddies and I flew up to Anchorage and rented a wreck to drive to the Wrangells for a couple of weeks of climbing and backpacking. On the way we stopped at a little cafe in the middle of pretty much nowhere to get something to eat and hopefully a beer.

Turned out to be a small Inuit business with one channel on the lone TV and only a couple of locals inside. We ordered a couple burgers and beers and sat down. A woman in the place, obviously in her cups, started flirting with me and sitting on my lap and putting her arms around me. I was pretty uncomfortable, and though I was armed, (concealed), the last thing I wanted was trouble where I sought none.

Long story short...she was the proprietor's wife and clearly had an issue with alcohol. He actually apologized to me for her behavior, but I thanked him for not taking umbrage. He was as friendly as friendly could be.

Turned out he was a University of Chicago grad who came back to AK following obtaining his degree or degrees. Two very opposite sides of the coin.

Simply a blip of a data point, but interesting to me at the time and something I've never forgotten.

[Casual Friday]

People are only interested in statistics if they reinforce their own beliefs. I learned after the Mike Brown/Fergadishu riots that talking about actual FBI crime statistics and the number of white people killed by the police vs black people killed every year in response to the "white man bad" narrative will get you uninvited to future social gatherings.

[0ddl0t]

What I want to understand, since I have to assume it's not being claimed as indigenous to the culture, is why no amount of money, policing, school programs, opportunity zones, (whatever they are), are sufficient to make effective inroads toward ending this particular blight?

Why do you make that assumption? Two minority races & cultures from the same neighborhood with the same socioeconomics will often have very different outcomes. Some of those cultural differences have been foisted on blacks in large part by whites.

For example, the fatherless households. Black slavery was not unique to America, warring African tribes had made slaves of each other for millennia, but in the west it was common to break up the household unit and sell adult men separately from women and children. LBJ's great society programs gave women the economic freedom to leave abusive men, and many did. Desegregating the south meant blacks no longer had to patronize black-owned businesses, and many did. But almost immediately afterward "law and order" Republicans began passing racially tinged laws that would lead to the mass incarceration of black men. 20 years later, the Democrats joined the party with the Clinton crime bill. The result is 1 in 3 American black men will be incarcerated in their lifetime - making it even more difficult to maintain the nuclear family.





On top of rampant single family households, you have huge economic disparities. Black lives are simply worth less economically because they tend to attain lower levels of education and make less even with the same degree:




That disparity means property worth $500 feels more like property worth $5000 so Blacks are probably more likely to engage in violence to keep or obtain smaller sums. Hispanics are no better off economically than Blacks, but their rates of criminality are lower. This I attribute to two-parent households and a culture that takes great pride in work & self sufficiency. If Blacks in Africa had similar values, they were stripped away by slavery. Hard work for your master gained you very little, so it makes sense that an enslaved culture would embrace laziness and trickery as a way to get ahead (see: Br'er Rabbit).

It also makes sense to me that a formerly enslaved culture would be more resistant to assimilation. Aside from the self-imposed, an elite student at a historically black university is not going to be able to build the same social network as that elite student at an ivy league or even 2nd tier school - a societal issue that isn't as severe for an Irish Catholic attending Notre Dame...

And let's not ignore the elephant in the room, IQ:


IQ is certainly not a perfect measure of intelligence, but it does a good job quantifying the ability to plan moves ahead - traits that correlate well with considering the consequences before actions & delaying gratification which ultimately correlate well with economic earnings and criminal predisposition:




In short, there is no magic bullet. There are a combination of generic, cultural, and societal issues at play.


Edit to add: I am in no way suggesting the overall genetic superiority of one race over another, but I do think there are differences between races -diversity- that can sometimes cause some races to be better suited to certain environments (e.g. Blacks are disproportionately absent from boardrooms of fortune 500 companies, but disproportionately present at the top levels of athletics and the music industry).

[HCountyGuy]

People are only interested in statistics if they reinforce their own beliefs. I learned after the Mike Brown/Fergadishu riots that talking about actual FBI crime statistics and the number of white people killed by the police vs black people killed every year in response to the "white man bad" narrative will get you uninvited to future social gatherings.

I’ve pushed the data about ethnicities of those killed by the police and had folks try to rebut it with how there’s a significant difference in population of blacks vs whites yet blacks still make up a significant portion of police shootings or general UOF incidents. So I reference the data available on crimes committed by race and how there’s a disproportionate amount committed by that same small populace and then it’s back to labeling me a racist.

ETA: I was told that pointing out how more whites were killed by police than other races was “a White Supremacist talking point”.