http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025954334xchrom (107,668 posts)
5 Reasons People Are So Wrong About 'Black-on-Black Crime'
http://www.alternet.org/5-reasons-people-are-so-wrong-about-black-black-crime
1. The term is a racial canard. Of course, it could merely be descriptive, an adjective for a certain kind of crime, like “same-sex domestic-partner violence.†But it’s not. Same-sex domestic-partner violence is distinguished from opposite-sex domestic-partner violence. But “black-on-black crime†has no racial equivalent: nobody talks about white-on-white crime (see 2) or Asian-on-Asian crime. It’s a construct assigned solely to black people, and it interprets their transgression through a purely racial lens. It ranks alongside “the down-low,†a phrase used to refer to black gay men who lead straight lives, only to cheat on their wives with other men. When white men do it, it’s called “Brokeback Mountainâ€; when black men do it, it gets a special name. The phrase “black-on-black crime†makes sense only if you understand black people’s propensity to commit crimes against people of their own race as inherently different from the way other racial groups commit crimes.
2. In this regard, black criminals are not particularly different. America is very segregated, and its criminality conforms to that fact. So the victims of most crimes are the same race as those who commit them. Eighty-four percent of white people who are killed every year are killed by white people. White people who buy illegal drugs are most likely to buy them from white people. Far from being extraordinary, the fact that black criminals are most likely to commit crimes against black people makes them just like everybody else. A more honest term than “black-on-black crime†would be, simply, “crime.â€
3. It is not a taboo. Anyone who seriously thinks that black people are not talking about black people killing other black people just doesn’t know any black people. Black people talk about it a lot. They have a lot to talk about. But while black-on-black crime is a nonsense term, black crime is a serious issue. Black people may not be much more likely to kill members of their own racial group than whites, but they are still more likely to kill and be killed. It’s not as though the black community hasn’t noticed that. Most cities have several black-led organizations confronting this very thing. Nor do black people grieve according to some code of silence. Go to any inner-city church, youth club, park, concert, barbershop, beauty salon or high school basketball game and listen. Every now and then, like last year after Chicago high school student Hadiya Pendleton was shot, they even get a national platform to talk about it. And when they do, they seize it.
4. The police are a special category. That’s the point. Black people are not, by dint of their melanin content, instructed to protect and serve the public; the police, by dint of their employment, are. Black people do not have a monopoly on violence; the police do. So when the people entrusted with upholding the law kill someone, that raises very different issues than if a kid from down the block shoots somebody. When the people who are supposed to protect everybody show an undeniable propensity to kill one group of people more than others (black men aged 15 to 19 are twenty-one times more likely to be shot by police than their white counterparts), that inevitably raises the question of discrimination. Our taxes don’t pay to support black criminals in their pursuit of black victims; they are currently going to support police in the shooting of black people.
Statistics are wrong! False flag! Dog whistle!
Enthusiast (34,175 posts)
2. Kicked and recommended a whole bunch!
Great article!
Black-on-Black Crime is the new radical right, Fox "News", Limbaugh meme. It is especially effective on people predisposed to believe Black people are inherently violent and irresponsible. It is just more propaganda.
Read this article!
Okay, let's get one thing straight...the black people who are violent and irresponsible are raised to behave that way; the black people who are not violent and irresponsible are raised not to behave that way. There is nothing inherent about being violent and irresponsible, it's a learned behavior.
Android3.14 (1,668 posts)
3. Should we ignore the statistical data?
Shouldn't we be addressing this disparity in much the same manner that we should address other social disparities?
It seems that black-on-black crime is a misnomer, because it is more likely poor-on-poor crime.
(On edit)
I'm not referring to the roughly equivalent comparison of percentages between white-on-white and black-on-black. I'm referencing the black victimization rate (27.8 per 100,000) was six times higher than the white victimization rate (4.5 per 100,000). Black offending rate (34.4 per 100,000) was almost eight times higher than whites (4.5 per 100,000), according to the report.
Name removed Message auto-removed
Response to Name removed (Reply #4)Sat Dec 13, 2014, 07:49 AM
stillwaiting (1,471 posts)
5. Ordering a pizza on your first post? Thank you!
There's so much you clearly just don't get, and there's very little chance that you want to get it.
Response to stillwaiting (Reply #5)Sat Dec 13, 2014, 07:52 AM
KitSileya (2,590 posts)
7. I alerted, waiting for results.
This was such clear racism it isn't worth refuting, better he be tombstoned than be allowed to create a hostile environment on this site.
Response to KitSileya (Reply #7)Sat Dec 13, 2014, 08:00 AM
stillwaiting (1,471 posts)
9. Exactly. He asked that I "explain" things to him. If he's reading this thread still,
he needs to take a few sociology courses. The sociological perspective explains what's going on within the black community.
There are also LOTS and LOTS of books that tackle the subject. He clearly had it all figured out though and I wasn't about to waste my time.
Response to stillwaiting (Reply #9)Sat Dec 13, 2014, 08:05 AM
KitSileya (2,590 posts)
10. And the jury works!
6-1 to hide, and if the 1 had guts, they'd reveal themselves so that we could take the appropriate action.
I'm dying to know what the hidden post was. Probably something offensive, like facts.
Stu42 (2 posts)
15. Sociology is bullshit
For people who weren't smart enough to major in the hard sciences. I still had to take some compulsory sociology courses, and I found that their theories to explain the problems in the black community - "It's all whitey's fault" - didn't really hold up to scrutiny.
There's a reason sociology appeals to certain segments of our population, even though it's nonsense. It feeds into their sense of victimhood, tells them what they want to hear, and places the blame for their own failure on other people.
Response to Stu42 (Reply #15)Sat Dec 13, 2014, 08:27 AM
Star Member marym625 (3,099 posts)
17. That's a bit of victim blaming
How exactly is systematic racism the fault of those oppressed? You studied science? How about math? Statistics prove racism in this country.
Statistics can be spun to mean anything you want. and 87.5% of statistics are made up.
vankuria (528 posts)
13. The rioting
has to do with justice for the person killed. While their is plenty of crime to go around on all sides of the racial divide, you can be sure that those responsible (as in Chicago, I know of no criminals who got off easy) will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. When a black individual is killed in cold blood by law enforcement or anyone for that matter and no charges/punishment is meted out, justice is not served and that's when black communities and concerned citizens everywhere take to the streets to protest how unfair our criminal justice system is to minorities.
Response to vankuria (Reply #13)Sat Dec 13, 2014, 08:25 AM
Stu42 (2 posts)
16. If you're referring to Michael Brown
Then he wasn't killed in "cold blood", he was killed, rightfully so, after he attacked a police officer and went for his gun. If you mean Eric Garner, it was a tragic accident that wouldn't have occurred if he hadn't been committing a crime and resisting arrest in the first place.
Neither warranted charges or punishment. What blacks really mean when they talk about "justice" is revenge.
Stu42 is not long for DU. This mole needs to try harder.
