St.Paul: Gang Terrorizes Downtown Area

The fundamental disagreement here is centered around why those bad neighborhoods are bad in the first place.

 

Well, only sort of.

I'm actually open to the idea that there is some share of the cause that correlates to race without regard to things like poverty, education, etc. There is no such thing as one overarching "black culture", anymore than there is some overarching "white culture." But there are identifiable subcultures that could contribute to some of the social ills that disproportionately afflict blacks.

For instance, there's the subculture that looks on things like doing well in school as "acting white". Clearly, not a group that will encourage academic performance.

My argument with you is on a different level:

1. You only see "black" and blame everything on that. You outright dismiss the idea that at least some of the difference is accounted for by other demographic factors.
2. You see "black" as some monolithic group. You probably think there IS some overarching "black culture" to which all or most blacks subscribe.

The fact of the matter is that poverty and education levels correlate with many of the ills that afflict black communities. And, lo and behold, many of those communities are poorer and less educated.

You try to negate that by saying "you don't see higher crime rates among poor whites and poor Hispanics."

But you do. Poor white neighborhoods have higher crime rates than wealthy white neighborhoods, for instance.

The fact that a poor white neighborhood will, on average, have less crime than a comparable poor black neighborhood does not suggest that income and education levels don't matter; it suggests that there are additional factors at play in the black communities.

So we know that part of the problem is simply that blacks are more likely to be poor and less-educated. What other issues may there be?

Unequal enforcement is emerging as a probable issue. Why do we know blacks have a higher crime rate? Because blacks are arrested more often for crimes. But what if the enforcement (and thus the arrest rate) is not equal? That would give the appearance of more crime in black communities, when really what's happening is that law enforcement is concentrated on black communities.

We know from Ferguson, for example, that enforcement was heavily skewed by racial bias: black drivers were more than twice as likely to be stopped than white drivers, even though they were 25% less likely to have contraband. That results in a higher crime rate for blacks, even if blacks aren't, in fact, breaking the law more often.

Hundreds of communities across the country have arrest rates even more skewed than Ferguson:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/11/18/ferguson-black-arrest-rates/19043207/

That's not definitive (it's theoretically possible that blacks are just THAT lawless), but it's troubling, and something that needs to be taken into account in any analysis of black crime rates.

It doesn't even have to be a result of bias. Consider two neighborhoods, A and B, that are completely identical.

For whatever reason, the police decided to put 2/3 of their officers in A and 1/3 in B.

Because there are more officers in A, police will catch more of the crime that occurs in A. Meanwhile, over in B, they will catch less of the crime because there are fewer officers.

So even though A and B are identical, it will look like A has a higher crime rate. When in fact police are just catching a higher proportion of the crimes committed.

Let's see, what else do blacks deal with that other races don't?
-- Blacks tend to draw heavier prison sentences for similar crimes. Or you get travesties like drug sentencing, where possession of crack cocaine carries a stiffer sentence than possession of powdered cocaine. The result? More blacks in prison, or with felony convictions. Which means fewer employment opportunities, fewer kids growing up in intact two-parent homes, fewer role models of good behavior. That's why, in depressingly many poor neighborhoods, you see the SMART kids become the drug runners -- because that's where the money is, and the alternatives don't exist.

-- A history and continued trend of racial discrimination, for one. Hispanics don't face anywhere near as much discrimination as blacks did, and still do. Blacks are about 15% of the population, and that number has been stable for a long time. They are, and always will be, a distinct minority. Hispanics, on the other hand, are rapidly growing and will eventually be the majority here. Poor whites, of course, don't face any racial discrimation at all.

-- Due in part to the previous two factors, blacks are more likely to be concentrated in areas of poverty. Most poor whites are rural, not urban. And both poor whites and poor Hispanics are part of larger ethnic groups that are spread widely. Blacks, by contrast, tend to be concentrated in urban areas, and also tend to be concentrated in the poorest parts of those urban areas. These have sometimes been referred to as "economic deserts", because everyone in them is poor. Then you get a downward spiral: No money means crappy schools, few businesses, no role models, crumbling infrastructure, which leads to even more poverty, which leads to worse schools, etc.

So then you have to ask: if some subculture of "black culture" is partly to blame, how much of that culture is a feedback loop driven by factors like the above?

It's just not as simple as "black culture" or "blacks are criminals" or any other such surface assessment.

 

False, as already stated.

False, again. Some of the factors you list do contribute to the problem. I just don't agree that they are the primary causes of what we are seeing.

Most? Yes. I would say that most blacks will identify with a shared culture. Their nearly monolithic voting patterns support this idea.

I don't negate those factors, I downplay them, since progressives will use them as their primary argument in attempting to explain black criminality. They simply can't be, because we would see the same rates from Hispanics if that were the case, and we don't see that. Not even close. While true that you will find more overall crime in a very poor white area compared to a rich white area, you still won't find a very high murder rate, at least compared to a poor black area. It's even more true with Asians. No matter their level of wealth, they commit a very, very small percentage of the country's violent crime.

It's simply a cultural thing.

Which makes sense. Law enforcement goes where the crime is. Since there is more crime in the black community than elsewhere, it would make sense that there would be more of a law enforcement presence in these areas.

Why does that automatically result in a higher crime rate? If a black person was stopped and committed no crime, he wouldn't be arrested.

That may be true for certain crimes, but we're talking about violent crime, here. A murder is going to be investigated whether or not it's in a city with a large police force or a smaller one. They're not going to ignore a murder in the white part of town. I don't see this is a major factor in the discrepancies that we are seeing.

The "travesty" that you are referring to was supported by black leaders at the time it was passed, because they wanted to do something about the crack problem that was occurring within their communities. It wasn't until later on that it became a commonly used talking point in explaining this issue.

But I agree that the "intact two-parent homes" is a major reason, if not the biggest reason, for why crime is so much more prevalent in the black community. That's why I blame progressives for this. Their policies have destabilized families and incentivized the establishment of single parent households. Black boys, in particular, need a strong male figure in the household, and that is the character that is usually MIA. Black mothers have a hard time controlling black boys, and this lack of discipline and control eventually manifests itself in the kinds of things we are discussing.

Blacks faced a lot more racism 50+ years ago than they do now, but they weren't committing the same levels of violent crime, then. I don't see this as a major reason for what we are seeing.

Except for the systemic racial discrimination they face in college admissions and job applications, where advantages are given to others based on their race, but not them.



And poor whites will be discriminated against should they wander into the wrong area. A lot of raped and murdered whites would attest that they were targeted because of their race.

Why didn't this same cycle exist back when more whites were living in an urban environment?

I never said it was. The excuses that you put forth do not adequately explain the phenomenon of black criminality. Like I have said, there is something unique in the black community, and within black culture, that has bred a perfect storm of factors that lead them to commit more crime than (sometimes) everybody else combined. It's just too bad they are such a sacred cow of a voting bloc, because shining a spotlight on them might cause them to change their behavior.

 

While I'm glad that the hoods have been stopped (for now), it would be advisable for cops to be more of a presence in the vicinity at night.

I used to work in that area and saw plenty of cops during the day and it was always safe. A few visible patrol cars at night would help.

 

Kids these days are generally entitled little punks that are susceptible to radical ideas.

If you tell a bunch of black kids (or any kid - even white kids) that white people are the devil and it's ok to punch them in the head and rob them because they have it coming to them, how you think they're going to react?

Same reason why young men (and believe it or not woman) around the world are joining ISIS - they've been indoctrinated.