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Black on Black
An interested party sent me this link to a Boston Globe column by Jeff Jacoby, titled, Destruction in black America is self-inflicted. Click the above underlined, boldfaced link to access the column.
In the column Jacoby sites some interesting stats:
In a new study, the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics confirms once again that almost half the people murdered in the United States each year are black, and 93 percent of black homicide victims are killed by someone of their own race. (For white homicide victims, the figure is 85 percent.) In other words, of the estimated 8,000 African-Americans murdered in 2005, more than 7,400 were cut down by other African-Americans. Though blacks account for just one-eighth of the US population, the BJS reports, they are six times more likely than whites to be victimized by homicide - and seven times more likely to commit homicide.
Jacoby visits the belief among African Americans that they have much to fear from racist whites:
But the data aren't in dispute. Though outrage over "racism" is ever fashionable, African-Americans have long had far less to fear from the violence of racist whites than from the mayhem of the black underclass."Do you realize that the leading killer of young black males is young black males?" asked Secretary of Health and Human Services Louis Sullivan 16 years ago. "As a black man and a father of three, this really shakes me to the core of my being."
Jacoby provides us with an interesting quote from Rev. Jessie Jackson:
"There is nothing more painful to me at this stage in my life," Jesse Jackson said in 1993, "than to walk down the street and hear footsteps . . . then turn around and see somebody white and feel relieved."
And Jacoby echoes the sentiments of Daniel Patrick Moynihan 40 years ago that have proved prescient:
Such huge disproportions don't just happen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously warned 40 years ago that the collapse of black family life would mean rising chaos and crime in the black community. Today, as many as 70 percent of black children are raised in fatherless households. And as reams of research confirm, children raised without married parents and intact, stable families are more likely to engage in antisocial behavior.
Jacoby expounds on the topic in his column with the two following paragraphs:
If there is racial bias in the system, it clearly isn't in favor of whites.But if you choose to focus on the race of victims, I added, remember that nearly all black homicide is intraracial - more than nine out of 10 black murder victims in the United States are killed by black murderers. So applying the death penalty in more cases where the victim is black would mean sending more black men to death row.
What is going on in Mt. Hope?
In light of what is going on in Mt. Hope today, with black on black violence erupting regularly on Pleasant Street, with African American drug dealers selling their evil poison to their own kind, with African American kids not knowing any better than to throw garbage on the streets of their own community isn't it time for a Black on Black dialog about the self-destructive problems the African American community is experiencing in Mt. Hope?
The Mt. Hope Neighborhood Association
The MHNA has traditionally represented the African American community in Mt. Hope. The MHNA has never offered any pretense of representing the entire community, only in their representing the interests of the African American community in Mt. Hope. Why doesn't the MHNA step up and address the pressing problems the African American community of Mt. Hope is experiencing.
Gentrification Workshop
The MHNA offered a Gentrification Workshop in conjunction with D.A.R.E. as if Gentrification is the biggest problem facing the African American community in Mt. Hope. No wonder so many people were outraged and treated it like a bad joke.
Letters to the MHNA
Why is no one writing letters to the MHNA, at 199 Camp Street, Providence, RI 02906, suggesting that they hold workshops on Drug Dealing in Mt. Hope: How do we stop it?,
Or this workshop: On Black on Black Violence: How do we stop young black men in Providence from shooting each other over an old feud?
Or this workshop: Why does the African American community in Mt. Hope perceive white people as the problem in Mt. Hope, when it is clear that the problems of crime and filth originate with the African American community in Mt. Hope?
Or this workshop: Why does the African American community in Mt. Hope blame everyone else for their problems instead of taking responsibility for their own self determination?
My guess as to the reason why nobody asks these questions of the MHNA is that no white person wants to risk being portrayed as racist for asking these questions, and no black person wants to be portrayed as an Uncle Tom for asking the same questions.
Again, have I mentioned cowardice on this blog? Is that too strong a word. Ok, how about timidity. Is that more palatable? It's all semantics. People are too cowed to say what they really believe because of fear. Call it whatever you want to call it: it does have a name. Where does the word "cowed" come from?
Read Jacoby's column below.
Destruction in black America is self-inflicted
By Jeff Jacoby, Globe Columnist | September 5, 2007
DEBATING capital punishment at an Ivy League university a few years ago, I was confronted with the claim that since death sentences are more often meted out in cases where the victim is white, the death penalty must be racially biased. It's a spurious argument, I replied. Whites commit fewer than half of all murders in the United States, yet more whites than blacks are sentenced to death and more whites than blacks are executed each year.
If there is racial bias in the system, it clearly isn't in favor of whites.
But if you choose to focus on the race of victims, I added, remember that nearly all black homicide is intraracial - more than nine out of 10 black murder victims in the United States are killed by black murderers. So applying the death penalty in more cases where the victim is black would mean sending more black men to death row.
After the debate, a young black woman accosted me indignantly. Ninety-plus percent of black blood is shed by black hands? What about all the victims of white supremacists? Hadn't I heard of lynching? Hadn't I heard of James Byrd, who died so horribly in Jasper, Texas? When I assured her that Byrd's murder by whites was utterly untypical of most black homicide, she was dubious.
I thought of that young woman when I read recently about James Ford Seale, the former Mississippi Klansman sentenced last month to three life terms in prison for his role in murdering two black teenagers 43 years ago. The killing of Charles Moore and Henry Dee in 1964 was one of several unsolved civil-rights-era crimes that prosecutors in the South have reopened in recent years. Seale's trial was a vivid reminder of the days when racial contempt was a deadly fact of life in much of the country. His sentence proclaims even more vividly the transformation of America since then. White racism, once such a murderous force, is now associated mostly with feeble has-beens.
Yet many Americans, like the woman at my debate, still seem to view racial questions through an antediluvian haze. To them, white bigotry remains a clear and present danger, and the reason so many black Americans die before their time.
But the data aren't in dispute. Though outrage over "racism" is ever fashionable, African-Americans have long had far less to fear from the violence of racist whites than from the mayhem of the black underclass.
"Do you realize that the leading killer of young black males is young black males?" asked Secretary of Health and Human Services Louis Sullivan 16 years ago. "As a black man and a father of three, this really shakes me to the core of my being."
From Georgia Congressman John Lewis, a veteran of the civil rights movement, came a similar cry of anguish. "Nothing in the long history of blacks in America," he lamented in 1994, "suggests the terrible destruction blacks are visiting upon each other today."
Happily, crime rates have declined from their 1990s peak. But it remains that the worst destruction in black America is self-inflicted.
In a new study, the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics confirms once again that almost half the people murdered in the United States each year are black, and 93 percent of black homicide victims are killed by someone of their own race. (For white homicide victims, the figure is 85 percent.) In other words, of the estimated 8,000 African-Americans murdered in 2005, more than 7,400 were cut down by other African-Americans. Though blacks account for just one-eighth of the US population, the BJS reports, they are six times more likely than whites to be victimized by homicide - and seven times more likely to commit homicide.
Such huge disproportions don't just happen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously warned 40 years ago that the collapse of black family life would mean rising chaos and crime in the black community. Today, as many as 70 percent of black children are raised in fatherless households. And as reams of research confirm, children raised without married parents and intact, stable families are more likely to engage in antisocial behavior.
High rates of black violent crime are a national tragedy, but it is the law-abiding black majority that suffers from them most. "There is nothing more painful to me at this stage in my life," Jesse Jackson said in 1993, "than to walk down the street and hear footsteps . . . then turn around and see somebody white and feel relieved."
It isn't an insoluble problem. Americans overcame white racism; they can overcome black crime. But the first step, as always, is to face the facts.
Jeff Jacoby's e-mail address is jacoby@globe.com.
© Copyright 2007 2007 The New York Times Company
Posted at September 7, 2007 8:05 PM
***This is in response to blogs dated 8/07 til current.***
I hate to be the one to say it...but by adding color to a color-blind part of society (Crime), you in one way or another are saying "I'm racist." This is not to say you truly are, rather it highlights our social insecurities living in a multicultural environment.
When I walk the East Side I don't see African American/Black kids...I see KIDS. When I look out the window I don't see my White neighbors...I see my neighbors. Since when did it become ESSENTIAL to our train of thought to highlight color or race when battling Global and Local Crime. (Oh yeah, politics. Of course!)
Now before you call me dumb, idiot or anything else...Think about the impact on the community things might have if the dialogue didn't evolve around race.
The problem we have in Mt. Hope with littering is directly attributed to kids being kids...young minded, misguided and too free spirited at times. To label it anything more than that highlights ones racial bias and subsequent possibility of being racist. To blast someone with the term "Uppity White folks" merely because the person likes to having their yard and sidewalks clean, also highlights ones racial bias and possibility of being racist. How and why one became closed minded to that degree is another issue. Today the issue is "What can WE do?" WE....meaning all of those on this blog, in the community, at community meetings, police and politicians need to realize that, particularly in Mt. Hope, centralizing a remedy for crime in our neighborhoods on race is a recipe for disaster. Think Jena 6, Rodney King & Selma. In other words we could make things MUCH worse than they already are.
So how do you get around it? Well for starters, as a Mt. Hope resident/home owner, think about the ONLY time identifying someone's race is essential? When you've been a victim of a crime!!....and maybe your own when filling out a job application. (Damn, do you think the Mt. Hope Community Center has programs that encourage employment at local business? Or how about creating a Resume?)
My point is all this talk in this blog for the most part is helpful and influential. ...That is until you start time lining events noting race....Classifying kids in need by race...and the worst of all, ONLY commenting on one race. I'm truly disturbed that I might live amongst "In the Closet Racists"
Thugs come in all shapes and sizes...and nationalities. So do millionaires. Don't steal some of communities potential and influence future citizens by categorically addressing problems in the area AND exclamating it with race. Take the color out of these issues and you'll see things in a different light....who knows you might even get positive participation from the people you'd least expect.
Posted by: A.Non at September 20, 2007 3:00 PM
Alyssa,
I AM with you. When I walk or see my neighbors I do NOT see black or white!
I see my neighbors, or kids.
Posted by: d.c. at February 28, 2010 8:01 PM