Ben Crump, MSNBC Contributor Suggests Re-Defining Crime To Accommodate ‘Black Culture’

This seems like a pretty ballsy thing to say, but I guess we're in a period of history in which this is treated as wisdom rather than derision.

Ben Crump, MSNBC Contributor Suggests Re-Defining Crime To Accommodate ‘Black Culture’

“They come up with things to profile us for,” Crump jumped in. “And so whatever laws were made — I believe this … We can get rid of all the crime in America overnight, just like that, and people ask ‘How, Attorney Crump?'”

“Change the definition of ‘crime,'” Crump continued. “If you get to define what conduct is gonna be made criminal, you can predict who the criminals are gonna be … They made the laws to criminalize our culture, black culture.

Crump then cited the deaths of Eric Garner and George Floyd, noting Garner was selling loose cigarettes and arguing Floyd was killed because he tried to buy cigarettes.


Well...it's a take, but I've seen innumerable threads on this forum say it's wrong to blame black culture, the real problem is white racism, but now Crump seems to be saying the real problem is that white's have criminalized black culture.

I think I want to watch this documentary.

 

Systemic, institutional racist policies have often been embraced by “progressives”. Some progressives are at least trying to change course.
Bit late.

“JDH: What's the predominant view among social scientists now when it comes to how black communities are doing?

PNC: The predominant view now is that there is a specific condition of inner-city concentrated poverty especially in black communities, because of racial segregation and racism, and the structural conditions are very damaging to family life, family relationships. People lose jobs and housing because of incarceration, job discrimination, etc., which create real obstacles to family stability, which in turn is a challenging condition for children's development.

We have a pretty good consensus that family instability is a hurdle for children's development, but there is not a consensus that this stems from the bad decisions of people not to get married.”
VOX, • POVERTY POLITICS, The real reason research blaming black poverty on black culture has fallen out of favor
By Jenée Desmond-Harrisjenee.desmondharris@voxmedia.com Mar 26, 2015, 10:10am EDT.
https://www.vox.com/2015/3/26/8253495/moynihan-report-liberal-backlash

 

I believe it is blacks who have criminalized their culture the white's had nothing to do with it.

 

The black family, community and culture was undermined while white DP progressive governments ran our cities. IMO, this was not accidental, and began during and immediately after Reconstruction. The RP, exhausted by the Civil War and resistance to Reconstruction, let them get away with it.

“How the planters, having lost the war for slavery, sought to begin again where they left off in 1860, merely substituting for the individual ownership of slaves, a new state serfdom of black folk."
BLACK RECONSTRUCTION IN AMERICA 1860- 1880, W.E.B. Dubois, introduction by David Levering Lewis, the Free Press new York 1998. p. 128.

"General Fisk received a letter from a rich planter living in DeSoto County, Mississippi. "He had on his plantation a little girl, and wrote me a long letter in relation to it, which closed up by saying: 'As to recognizing the rights of freedmen to their children, I will say there is not one man or woman in all the South who believes they are free, but we consider them as stolen property-stolen by the bayonets of the damnable United States government. Yours truly, T. Yancey.'

"There is one thing that must be taken into account, and that is there will exist a very strong disposition among the masters to control these people and keep them as a subordinate and subjected class. Undoubtedly they intend to do that. I think the tendency to establish a system of serfdom is the great danger to be guarded against. I talked with a planter in the La Fourche district, near Tebadouville; he said he was not in favor of secession; he avowed his hope and expectation that slavery would be restored there in some form. I said: 'If we went away and left these people now, do you suppose you could reduce them to slavery ? ' He laughed to scorn the idea that they could not. 'What! ' said I. 'These men who have had arms in their hands?' 'Yes,' he said; 'we should take the arms away from them, of course.'" BLACK RECONSTRUCTION IN AMERICA 1860- 1880, W.E.B. Dubois, introduction by David Levering Lewis, the Free Press new York 1998. p.141.

 

I wonder if, instead of racism, that robbing stores blind, constant murders and randomly burning the city down might have something to do with it.

 

That happened after government programs effectively broke down the black American family, culture and community. It took a long time.

The active suppression of black Americans was an especially high priority for white Democrats who had good reason to fear black American Republicans.

“The Negroes themselves made strong statements. In November, 1863, the free men of color held a meeting in New Orleans and drew up an appeal to Governor Shepley "asking to be allowed to register and vote.'' They reviewed their services under Jackson, who called them "my fellow citizens" just after the battle of New Orleans, and they declared their present loyalty to the Union. "For forty-nine years," the petition ran, "they have never ceased to be peaceable citizens, paying their taxes on assessments of more than nine million dollars." But, however strongly this petition appealed to Shepley, it was manifestly impossible to grant it at this time. The decisive reason was that if Negroes had been allowed to vote in this election they would have formed the majority of the voting population of Union Louisiana!”
BLACK RECONSTRUCTION IN AMERICA 1860- 1880, W.E.B. Dubois, introduction by David Levering Lewis, the Free Press new York 1998. pp. 153,154.

 

It has nothing to do with slavery or whites. It is internal to their own culture and communities.

 

It has everything to do with the white DP political class desire to reduce the freedmen to a state of disenfranchised involuntary servitude after Reconstruction. Black American Republicans comprised a large majority of eligible voters in all of the DP/CSA states immediately after the war. The DP could not have survived so while black Republicans were allowed to vote.

“The whole South was in a blaze of excitement in the 1868 election. Tremendous and frequent meetings were held in every city and parish in Louisiana. Every Confederate sympathizer was encouraged, and had hopes of what would happen to the South as a result of the election. The Republican Party in Louisiana was paralyzed. Secret semi-military organizations were set up, and riots broke up Republican meetings. Clubrooms were raided and destroyed. It was believed that if Seymour and Blair were elected, Reconstruction would be overthrown.

A civil war of secret assassination and open intimidation and murder began and did not end until 1876, and not entirely then. …

Secret Democratic organizations were formed, and all well armed: the Knights of the White Camellia, the Ku Klux Klan, and an Italian organization called "The Innocents." They all paraded nightly. In the election, Seymour and Blair received 88,225 votes, while Grant and Colfax received 34,859. Out of 21,000 Republican voters in New Orleans, only 276 Republican votes were cast. There were in 1870, 726,915 persons in the state. A map of the state showing where violence and intimidation occurred leaves less than a third of the state in peace. 57”
BLACK RECONSTRUCTION IN AMERICA 1860- 1880, W.E.B. Dubois, introduction by David Levering Lewis, the Free Press new York 1998. (emphasis mine)

 

Lmao… this is one the most idiotic things I have ever read. I have said from the beginning of BLM that they want to make crime legal for blacks and now they’re actually coming out and saying just that.

They want race based laws which is racist in and of itself. Blacks are the racists in this country and I think we should give all willing to renounce their citizenship a million dollars and a one way ticket to Africa. The dumb ones will go and the smart ones will stay. We’ll likely cut our murder rate in half and smash and grabs will be reduced drastically. I would support it full heartedly.

 

All this is crazy. What Crump is saying that some things have been criminalized that blacks participate in while similar things have not been as criminalized for whites. Crack and cocaine are examples of what Crump is talking about. And Joe, you don't know. MLK said it best and its a statement most of you missed.

“It would neither be true or honest to say that the Negros problem is what it is because he is innately inferior or because he is basically lazy and listless or because he has not lifted himself by his own bootstraps. To find the origins of the Negro problem we must turn to the white man’s problem.”
-Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

Whites have murdered millions since this country started and so how about you guys look inward at white culture.

 

Republicans authored an amendment to officially make slavery a constitutionally protected activity. The Republican Party is the party of The Corwin Amendment that would have cemented slavery as a constitutional right.

A Republican president, with the support of the Republican Party, ended reconstruction. The Republican Party is the party of the 1877 Compromise that ended reconstruction and paved the way for Jim Crow.

Once blacks got a foothold in the Republican party and gained some semblance of political equality, white Republicans took steps to purge blacks from leadership positions. The Republican Party is the party of the Lily White movement, a group of Republicans who worked to purge blacks from the party.

Let's understand that the Republican record with blacks was just as bad.

 

Which has nothing to co with blacks today and the condition of the black community it is blacks who have criminalized their culture the white's had nothing to do with it.

 

You are wrong. White culture has been problematic for non-white cultures from day one of this country.

 

Whites don't dictate black culture stop making excuses.

 

Since whites made laws and policies that do impact black culture, you might want to go back and study public policy instead of repeating things that make you look foolish when facts are examined.

 

Half truth is not the truth.

This is the Inconvenient Truth:

“Both of them have sold us out, both parties have sold us out. Both parties are racist, and the Democratic Party is more racist than the Republican Party.” Malcom X, By Any Means Necessary, Malcom X, Betty Shabazz and Pathfinder Press, 1992, P 46.

 

The ruling political class in the US has always been dominated by white men, and institutional racism has always been embedded in many if not all of our critical systems of governance. It is true that the Founders, including the slave holders" recognized that slavery was evil and should be abolished. But they could not end slavery and defeat the British and avoid an economic collapse. The legacy of European colonialism is very entrenched in our system.

Racial theory was introduced to resist abolition after the revolution. Calhoun's arguments were embraced throughout the South, and early Southern criticism of slavery was forgotten until Lincoln resurrected that history for his famous Cooper's Union speech that transformed him into a credible candidate for the anti-slavery North.

The failure of Reconstruction allowed the South to impose black codes, disenfranchise the freedmen and recreate a system that was in many ways similar to slavery. The Republicans led by Grant and its other post Civil War leaders used troops to protect free and fair elections in the South. This allowed RP majorities in most Southern states to elect abolitionist leaders, many of them freedmen. Terrorism; guerrilla warfare against the freedmen and Republicans which could only be contained with armed force prevailed when the troops were withdrawn.

White RP leaders did not have the stomach for another armed conflict and effectively surrendered the South to former Confederates. Black veterans were disarmed while the RP controlled the USG. This shameful feckless weakness has crippled the USA.

There is really no excuse for RP weakness during and after Reconstruction, unless ignorance and indifference to human suffering and tyranny mitigate guilt.

OTOH, The DP has always been the party of systemic institutional racism in the US, and some things never change.

“The worst enemy that the Negro have [sic] is this white man that runs around here drooling at the mouth professing to love Negros and calling himself a liberal, and it is following these white liberals that has perpetuated problems that Negros have. If the Negro wasn’t taken, tricked or deceived by the white liberal, then Negros would get together and solve our own problems. I only cite these things to show you that in America, the history of the white liberal has been nothing but a series of trickery designed to make Negros think that the Dixiecrat white liberal was going to solve our problems. Our problems will never be solved by the white man.[1]”
Deus Ex Machina, Malcolm X on White Guilt and the Exploitation of Black Lives, Black Theology, Ethics, By Bobby Grow, JUNE 2, 2020.
https://deusxma.wordpress.com/2020/...te-guilt-and-the-exploitation-of-black-lives/

 

We all know the history and it has NOTHING to do with how blacks CHOOSE to live their lives especially their embracing of the criminal culture and lawlessness.

 

What public policy created by whites created this criminal culture and lawlessness that runs rampant in black communities? Blacks CHOOSE to live the culture they do whites do not force it upon them. Stop making excuses for them.

 

The Corwin Amendment was to stop A WAR due to the Democrats in Southern States pushing their states to seceed and only stated the federal government could not force a state to abolish slavery it did not prevent it from support a state to do so or prevent a state from doing so. "Reconstruction" as it was labeled was a corrupt and unconstitutional plan imposed on those states and could not have been ended too soon better yet started at all.

It was the Democrat party through history that supported slavery and then segregation and Jim Crow while the Republican party was the only party that fought against both for almost 100 years until the Democrats finally say they had lost the battle and devised the plan to use liberal policies to keep blacks under their thumbs and dependent on them.

 

He didn't go into much detail as to which crimes he wants to 'redefine'... he just cites Floyd and Garner. Well there's certainly an argument to be made in the case of Garner, who was selling cigarettes. Unless he was selling to kids (was he?), I don't see how that needs to be a crime. Floyd was arrested for using counterfeit money. I don't think legalizing counterfeit money is a good idea...

We do need less laws ('regulations') in this country, and its not unreasonable to suggest black communities are more negatively impacted by what we might call 'victimless' or 'unecessary' laws. But also not all the things that more negatively impact black communities are victimless or things we should legalize.

This needs more clarification before its actionable.

 

In my opinion.....
the Gilgul Cycle of Judaism and the Dr. Ian Stevenson give us a glimmer of hope that there may be a way out of this mess... .and perhaps humanity can come together across racial, ethnic, religious and political boundaries.

The fact that Dr. Martin Luther King had friends who were Jewish Rabbi's is a fact of history that gives us hope.......
......
I am convinced that a spiritual awakening that will be significantly "Christian" but perhaps more so "Christian Mystic" is going to decrease the level of crime in big cities over the coming five decades. Once the Gilgul Cycle of Judaism and the Dr. Ian Stevenson research is better understood.... we will have higher expectations of ourselves...... which will cause us to admit to our own unique problems that all of us tend to fall into.

I am a white guy who would probably tend to get into a different type of crime than is common in Black neighbourhoods..... even due to the fact that I am only about five foot seven..... and now I am sixty four..... so the types of trouble that I could get into is changing since I was thirty!

 

Most people are not familiar with the long history of persistent institutional racism in the US, and much of what is taught is at best half the truth.

Highlights This report describes the relationship between nonfatal violent victimization and household poverty level as measured by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Data are from the National Crime Victimization Survey. In 2008–12—
„ Persons in poor households at or below the Federal Poverty Level (FPL) (39.8 per 1,000) had more than double the rate of violent victimization as persons in high-income households (16.9 per 1,000).
„ Persons in poor households had a higher rate of violence involving a firearm (3.5 per 1,000) compared to persons above the FPL (0.8–2.5 per 1,000).
„ The overall pattern of poor persons having the highest rates of violent victimization was consistent for both whites and blacks. However, the rate of violent victimization for Hispanics did not vary across poverty levels.
„ Poor Hispanics (25.3 per 1,000) had lower rates of violence compared to poor whites (46.4 per 1,000) and poor blacks (43.4 per 1,000).
„ Poor persons living in urban areas (43.9 per 1,000) had violent victimization rates similar to poor persons living in rural areas (38.8 per 1,000).
„ Poor urban blacks (51.3 per 1,000) had rates of violence similar to poor urban whites (56.4 per 1,000).
„ Violence against persons in poor (51%) and low-income (50%) households was more likely to be reported to police than violence against persons in mid- (43%) and high income (45%) households.
Household Poverty and Nonfatal Violent Victimization, 2008–2012 (emphasis mine)
https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/hpnvv0812.pdf

White and black Americans trapped in the same urban hell holes are very prone to violent crime.
Race is not the problem. Bad government is almost always the problem.

 

Wherever the general public is effectively disarmed and rendered helpless the police alone have to keep the peace, and they usually can't do that, especially in poor neighborhoods.
There was clearly no urgent need for an on the spot arrest of either Floyd or Garner. IMO, there is far too much interaction between the public and armed uniformed police, this inevitably leads to unnecessary friction and places police officers in dangerous situations for no good reason.

Beyond that, the conditions that lead to a high crime in poor black American communities also impact everyone else trapped in the same hell holes.

Poor whites and blacks had higher rates of violent victimization than poor Hispanics
The overall pattern of persons in poor households having the highest rates of violent victimization was consistent for both non-Hispanic whites and non-Hispanic blacks (figure 4).
The rate of violent victimization was 46.4 per 1,000 for poor whites and 43.4 per 1,000 for poor blacks.
For both groups, persons in high-income households had the lowest rates of violence.
However, this pattern did not hold for Hispanics. In 2008–12, the rate of violent victimization for Hispanics did not vary significantly across poverty levels.
At each of the poverty levels measured, there was no statistically significant difference between whites and blacks in the rate of violent victimization.
Among persons in mid and high-income households, the rates of violence were similar for whites, blacks, and Hispanics. However, poor whites and blacks had higher rates of victimization than poor Hispanics (25.3 per 1,000).
Poor Hispanics had similar rates of violence as blacks living in high-income households (22.7 per 1,000).
Household Poverty and Nonfatal Violent Victimization, 2008–2012
https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/hpnvv0812.pdf

It's not race -- it's the government. As usual.

The data for Hispanics are especially interesting.

 

Why would black people be more at risk at victimless crimes than whites?

Should we legalize fentanyl and passing counterfeit bills? That's what George Floyd did.