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The End Of Black on Black Crime

by rmrd0000 4/10/2012 - 9:49 pm

The reign of Black-On-Black crime is over, but first an update:

NEWSFLASH

It seems that George Zimmerman's lawyers have quit because they cannot contact their client. Simultaneously, Zimmerman has set up a website requesting contributions  for his legal defense. Zimmerman defied his lawyer's advice and personally called the Special Attorney. The ex-lawyers believed that Zimmerman spoke to Sean Hannity of Fox News. Hannity confirmed the conversation with Zimmerman on his radio show. Hannity, at least, for now, refuses to state what he was told by Zimmerman. Reuters is reporting that the State's Attorney is holding a press conference within 72 hours.

Wonder who gets the money from the website? Wonder if the money will used to support a lifestyle in exile?

Now to the discussion at hand

Zimmerman's defenders have used the diversion of black-on-black crime in an attempt to stem criticism of the admitted murderer. The question goes up how can blacks focus on Zimmerman when Trayvon Martins are killed across the county everyday by blacks. Black on Black crime negates any murder of a black youth by anyone from another ethnic group.

The bogeyman of black on black crime as been used as a meme for so long that it has become as accepted a gravity. In an excellent article on "The Root" website, Edward Wyckoff Williams, lays the lie to the meme black as predators against other blacks.

Bill O'Reilley used an op-ed written in the NYT by Shelby Steele, an African-American Conservative as reinforcement of the fact the black on black crime is where the focus should be rather than on Trayvon Martin. Tucker Carlson said that Blacks who questioned why an arrest had not been made were "race-baiters". George Will echoed the same sentiment on ABC's "This Week". Van Jones was on the panel, but offered no rebuttal. Like the rest of us the ability of Jones to counter an accepted truth like black-on-black crime is difficult.

According to the DOJ, 93% of Black homicides were committed by Blacks. 84% of White homicides were committed by Whites. Most homicides are intra-racial homicides. We should call Black-on-Black homicide a homicide, just as we do will Whites. The Guardian in the UK has established a rule that Black-on-Black homicides are called "homicides". The rationale being that the racial labeling demonizes Blacks despite the fact that Whites also kill Whites at high percentages. Homicides are homicides. Males kill other males for the most part. Instead of focusing on race, focus on educational deficits and socioeconomic issues. The race label does more harm then good.

Black-on-Black allows blacks to be considered as threats. Rather than focusing on the loss of manufacturing jobs as a source of poverty leading to crime, we just focus on black-on-black. Instead of focusing on high drop-out rates.we focus on black on black.

Black-on-black makes law-abiding blacks threats to police departments and allows them to be treated as second class citizens by law enforcement. It is time to bury the term.

(Edited to add a link to the Williams article at "The Root")

 

 

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Zimmerman's jumped the shark - my guess is he's listening to some right-wing media manipulators - the flag on his page is a tipoff.

Nevertheless, if you're going to start putting percentages up, there are some important ones you neglect in the effort at relativism - while most homicide is intra-racial, the black per capita rate is 7 times higher for both intra- and inter-racial homicide. (With African-American population only 12.5%, a 1-to-1 comparison of raw numbers is misleading)

*According to the latest report from the Violence Policy Center, the homicide rate for Blacks in America stands at 20.86 persons per 100,000 – nearly seven times the rate for whites which stands at 3.11 per 100,000 persons.

The numbers are based on an analysis of unpublished FBI data from 2007 – the latest year for which complete figures are available.

This marks the fourth year that the Violence Policy Center, has issued the study Black Homicide Victimization in the United States.

It shows that the most dangerous state for African Americans is Pennsylvania with a murder rate of 36.36 per 100,000 Blacks. The keystone state is followed by Missouri (34.82), Indiana (30.89) and Nevada and Wisconsin tied with a homicide rate of 29.83 per 100,000.

As indicated by other studies, Blacks are most likely to be killed by other Blacks. Indeed, 72 percent of Black homicide victims were killed by someone they knew. The weapon of choice is a gun.

Specifically, 82 percent of the Blacks killed in 2007 fell victim to a gun – usually a handgun.

None of this excuses Zimmerman if he acted stupidly with a gun or put himself in a situation likely to escalate.

And there's a big difference between East St. Louis and Compton, vs. a cozy Orlando community for threat of gun and gang violence.

But glossing over the high black murder rate and ignoring the high rate of black concealed gun carry to focus on one white (Hispanic) does miss forest for trees.

Expecting Van Jones to counter an obvious fact of black-on-blac murder is an expectation too far.

by PeraclesPlease 4/11/2012 - 3:25 am

Poverty leads to a higher murder rate. The Black-On-Black label makes it easier for police to ignore a crime. The supposed focus is non-existent. The label makes all Blacks criminals. The police Commissioner in NYC credits stop and frisk of Black and Hispanic youths as deterring crime. The crime rate in NYC has decreased, but so has the murder rate in  cities without stop and frisk. The label has created even more animosity between Black and Latino youth and police in NYC it is a worthless term.

Black-on Black crime labeling has done nothing to address a high dropout rate that leads to crime. Black-on-Black has done nothing to address loss of job opportunities in poor neighborhoods. Black-on-black makes a Black person driving a nice car a suspect. 

Call it poverty on poverty crime. Call it drug deals gone bad. Get rid of the racist term. Black-on-black slanders law-abiding Blacks.

by rmrd0000 4/11/2012 - 8:29 am (re: PeraclesPlease)

Bangladesh, Nigeria and Bulgaria are poorer, with less murder, even with Nigeria being a world drug smuggling center.

Black-on-black murder in Tanzania is even much lower than the US (total murder rate just higher than ours)

Need a new excuse.

 

by PeraclesPlease 4/11/2012 - 9:06 am (re: rmrd0000)

Wow. I'm not certain how accurate crime reporting would be in those countries. How about focusing on the Unites States? If the argument is that Black-On-Black is appropriate so that we focus on the high murder rates., what is being done to address root causes of crime? Law enforcement is obviously important, but shouldn't  we also get at socioeconomic factors?

90% of Black homicides are Black-On-Black. 85% of White homicides are White-On-White. The homicide rate in the United States was at it's lowest level since 1964 according to 2009 data. Let's stop pretending that there has been an escalation in deaths by using Black-On-Black. The term only serves to demonize Black citizens. 

Homicide rates are down. Black-on-black was a construct created for the crack wars of the 1980's it is no longer useful, if it ever was. Stand Your Ground might have made more since in the 1960's.

by rmrd0000 4/11/2012 - 9:42 am (re: PeraclesPlease)

The response was simply to counter "poverty = high murder rate"

The reason for using "black-on-black" is that black-on-black homicide PER CAPITA is 7 times white-on-white PER CAPITA. If we're going to focus on socioeconomic factors, focusing on white people's will help 1/7th as focusing on black people's. Murder rate in 2009 was half that in 1992 - a great improvement but not low.

The economy in the 90's helped, as did greater hiring attitude towards blacks and easier mortgages (later turned into a bad thing under Bush).

Welfare reform in the 90's didn't actually seem to hurt, but Bush's changes of welfare reform around 2002 made it much worse.

"3 strikes" helped in the sense that it dragnetted a lot of people, some who might have been murderers, but hardly an ideal solution.

The end of much of the crack use/gang war attitudes are tied in with the above, although some will say it had to do with lead paint from 20 years before.

Stand Your Ground seems a retro law inspired by Bernhard Goetz in 1984, played on TV by someone like Bruce Willis - yippie kay-yay.

It should be remembered that when Gabrielle Giffords was shot in Arizona, a gun-toting observer almost shot the guy who wrestled the gun out of the killer's hands. There seem to be very few private citizen shootings that go well or stop crime - most seem to be criminal or stupid acts, though I don't have the figures to prove it.

 

by PeraclesPlease 4/11/2012 - 10:36 am (re: rmrd0000)

In a 2007 survey, Bangladesh had 0.5 firearms per 100 people; Tanzania had 1.4 per 100; Nigeria had 1.5 per 100; Bulgaria had 6.2 per 100; while the US had 88.8 firearms per 100 people. Yemen was second at 54.8, Switzerland and Finland each had about 45.

by Donal 4/11/2012 - 9:48 am (re: PeraclesPlease)

The comment was "poverty leads to a high murder rate".

Poverty + guns is a worse combination for murder than poverty + no guns.

Guns + drinking is a worse combination than guns + no drinking.

Etc.

Yemen had 2/3 the murder rate to the US despite having 1/20th our GDP, and their murder rate didn't change as their GDP went up heavily the last 10 years.

by PeraclesPlease 4/11/2012 - 10:42 am (re: Donal)

Poverty does lead to a high murder rate—in the US, where there are available guns and a racially heterogenous population and so many other differences that your comparison was specious at best. Yemen is in a civil war; we're not there just yet.

by Donal 4/11/2012 - 10:57 am (re: PeraclesPlease)

I think it's as much (if not more) about income inequality than about poverty per se. In Yemen, it's "mainstream" to be poor, but that's not true here. Thus, there's far more anger about it. At the risk of comparing people to animals, an analogy might be made to a dog with learned helplessness versus a dog who is randomly abused.

by Verified Atheist 4/11/2012 - 11:09 am (re: Donal)

Somehow I think this is just finger in the wind, or Calvinball.

Is there high income inequality in Congo or Sierra Leone?

Was Cambodia's income inequality worse than America's?

Why has the murder rate in South Africa come down drastically since 1994 as income inequality has gotten much worse?

by PeraclesPlease 4/11/2012 - 12:22 pm (re: Verified Atheist)

Oh, it's definitely ad hoc, but so is the black-on-black "explanation". Plus, it has the advantage of not assuming racial inferiority.

by Verified Atheist 4/11/2012 - 12:31 pm (re: PeraclesPlease)

Aaarggh, more Calvinball.

What's ad hoc about black-on-black violence, which "explanation" are you referring to and why is that "ad hoc", and who assumed "racial inferiority" in what way?

If girl scouts killed other girl scouts by 7x the national average, would you say it's "ad hoc"?

Homicide is the #4 killer of black males. It's not in the top 10 causes of death for white males. It's not in the top 10 causes of death for females of any persuasuion.  More "ad hoc"?

Strokes hit women the same, but almost twice as many black women die of diabetes as white women do. Is that "ad hoc"?

Are we allowed to look at statistics and probability?

by PeraclesPlease 4/11/2012 - 2:09 pm (re: Verified Atheist)

What's ad hoc about black-on-black violence? The same thing that's ad hoc about separating by income level, except that it uses a racial explanation. Why divide by color and not income level? Answer me that.

Are we allowed to look at statistics and probability?

Yes, but let's look at all of the statistics and probabilities and not just the easy ones that lack explanatory power, OK?

You're the one that accused me of being ad hoc first, so how is suggesting that income level is more predictive than race (within the United States, which is where the race statistics are also being used) a problem with you?

You just don't realize how hypocritical your ad hoc assertion is, do you?

by Verified Atheist 4/11/2012 - 2:25 pm (re: PeraclesPlease)

There's nothing ad hoc about income level (assuming it's not $26k vs. $25K) - it just doesn't explain that much. You switch from black ethnicity to Hispanic, with the same income level, and the homicide rate goes down.

So what are you going to do? Ipso facto, handwaving Q.E.D., let's forget about it and go have a beer?

by PeraclesPlease 4/11/2012 - 2:29 pm (re: Verified Atheist)

In South Africa, it was likely Mandela's election and less burning tires around people's necks.  Let's stay in the US in discussing the decreasing homicide here.

The fact remains that the term Black-On-Black is serving no useful function

by rmrd0000 4/11/2012 - 12:33 pm (re: PeraclesPlease)

I can't believe that adults speak and think this way in public.  The logic of this argument is insane.

"I just shot a black man."

"Don't worry about it, black people shoot each other all of the time."

What?

by Michael Maiello 4/11/2012 - 10:06 am

Thanks, you clarified what I was attempting to point out. All homicide is ad. Black-On Black has outlived it's usefulness and become a diversion. The term diverted attention from socioeconomic causes for crime rather than making us focus on prevention.

Criminals of all colors need to be prosecuted. Socioeconomic issues should be dealt with to divert possible future offenders who see no other option apart from crime.

by rmrd0000 4/11/2012 - 10:41 am (re: destor23)

I think the bottom line is that Black-On-Black has become a. Term that serves no purpose. Homicide statistics will continue to show an unacceptable level of homicides in the Black community. If we ask the education level and socioeconomic class , we are forced to focus on associated variables. The folks on Fox harping about Black-On-Black as an excuse to ignore a murder like the one in Sanford, Fla make us realize that we have lost focus. 

Whites in poverty who experience high crime rates are also I'll-served by the term. By ignoring poverty and lack of education, we ignore them as well. All Black-On-Black has done is make any Black youth a criminal.

We need to abandon the term. We need to address root causes of  homicides. In the US,, poverty will be a major factor.

by rmrd0000 4/11/2012 - 11:28 am

Wishing it don't make it so.

If there are studies showing similar homicide rates in poor white, Irish, Italian, Indian, Vietnamese, Ethiopian or Hispanic ethnicities, please show them.

Year 2007 homicide rate per 100,000:

Whites 4, African American 41, Native American 12, Asian 3.5, Hispanic 12.5

Were Hispanics so much wealthier than blacks? How about barrios with a lot of poor illegals? Native Americans?

Poverty is almost certainly a factor in some way, but I'm pretty annoyed with an assumption that poverty is an excuse for murder. "Give us money or otherwise we don't know not to kill - we can't help it"?

by PeraclesPlease 4/11/2012 - 2:26 pm (re: rmrd0000)

Don't conflate excuse with explanation. How about "I'm gonna kill someone because I'm black." Is that any better?

by Verified Atheist 4/11/2012 - 2:28 pm (re: PeraclesPlease)

We throw money at the problem with incarceration. Incarceration may be more expensive than a college education. Is that where we should place our efforts?  Shouldn't we look to other solutions.?

An argument could be made that because we racialize crime, it gets less attention. How many in-depth stories do we see that humanizes the victims of "Black on Black" crime? Virtually zero. Black-on-black labeling has changed nothing. We are still pretending that nothing is happening, except hassling law-abiding Blacks.

If you spend the money on school to prison, you are going to remain annoyed about how money is being spent. There are dynamics in schools that lead to Black students receiving suspensions for incidents that others get lesser forms of punishment. Stop and Frisk creates more animosity than criminal captures.

The money is going to be spent either way. Incarcerated criminals create a new generation of incarcerated criminals.

What benefits have come from Black-on-Black crime labeling?

by rmrd0000 4/11/2012 - 2:52 pm (re: Verified Atheist)

Somehow I don't think you're going to have your wish until there are fewer segregated poor neighborhoods in this country Because the theory/science of police work and crime reporting is on a trajectory of neighborhood (or regional) focus for the foreseeable future, and the stats are going to be there, and people are going to find them and point it out. And one can counter with white on white crime, looking at poor rural whites, or stats about safe black neighborhoods, or similar, but you won't stop people making the generalizations about neighborhoods.

One way to avoid that is if the Census Bureau stopped recording race, then people would probably talk more "poor on poor crime," like they did in the 19th and early 20th century, when blacks got other bad attributes assigned to them instead.

by artappraiser 4/11/2012 - 2:22 pm

Yeah, let's just stop recording it, and then it doesn't exist.

Problem solved.

by PeraclesPlease 4/11/2012 - 2:25 pm (re: artappraiser)

Can you break down crime based on income level? If not, why not?

What is more likely to be predictive (in the United States), income level or race? Which statistic is analyzed? Which one isn't?

by Verified Atheist 4/11/2012 - 2:27 pm (re: PeraclesPlease)

Give me a break - poverty level is analyzed, effect of poverty on crime rates is analyzed, studies are done.

Enough, this has gotten juvenile.

by PeraclesPlease 4/11/2012 - 2:38 pm (re: Verified Atheist)

I didn't mean to imply that could happen at this point in our history, silly, I meant to imply that that's what it would really require, unless you're going to make crime stats into state secrets. Or, as I said, fewer poor neighborhoods stay racially segregated (I think that might have a more realistic chance of happening sooner than people think, as real estate and jobs situation change, but not like tomorrow.)

It is going to happen eventually, though, as mixed race citizens become more and more common. There's only so many categories you can make until it defeats the purpose. (What is the purpose anyways? Ta-dah, Dijamo suggests some of them in comment downthread.) 

Unless we all end up having bar codes with our DNA inscribed, that is.

by artappraiser 4/11/2012 - 5:47 pm (re: PeraclesPlease)

One reason for dropping the term is that it gives an easy diversionary term to people like O'Reilly to explain why we shouldn't focus on a black death not caused by another Black. Absent the term, he would gave to say out loud words to the effect that Trayvon's death is an unimportant anomaly since he didn't die at the hands of a Black male.

I realize that this is just a thought experiment rather than anything that will really take legs. However, many Blacks are fed up with the disrespect that comes from some in law enforcement.

by rmrd0000 4/11/2012 - 4:44 pm (re: artappraiser)

I found a few links to studies that try to put the differential in murder rates in context:

Homicide in Black and White PDF

We argue here that this extraordinary concentration of homicides in the black community cannot be fully understood without recognizing that murder is a crime for which there is a powerful preemptive motive: people sometimes kill simply to avoid being killed. This is the case in war, and is also the case in some urban war zones. Ordinary people in ordinary circumstances have little or nothing to gain from killing other people, and high murder rates can generally be sustained only if some people kill for self-protection.

Marvin Wolfgang’s Subculture of Violence Theory

Dr. Marvin Wolfgang’s black subculture of violence theory has been the most cited explanation of violence among African-Americans in criminological literature. It has also been among the most controversial.

Black Males and Violence PDF

White, Black, and Latino Homicide Rates: Why the Difference. PDF
 

I scanned a lot of this and it looks more worthwhile than simply throwing out a statistic like it proves something.

by Donal 4/11/2012 - 3:08 pm

 

From the first link, a 2011 paper by two Columbia economists:
 
In rural areas, there is no racial disparity in murder. ...
 
Like murders, aggravated assaults are violent attacks; by definition, the assailants use weapons or the victims sustain serious injuries, or both. Like murders, they are primarily intraracial (U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2009, table 42). A subculture of violence theory would predict that the racial disparity in aggravated assault should resemble the racial disparity in murder. But it does not. In the 2004 National Criminal Victimization Survey blacks were only about 1.7 times as likely as whites to [be] aggravated assault victims. Nor is the racial disparity greatest among the demographic groups among whom aggravated assault is most prevalent. Indeed, among 20-24 year old men, whites were more likely than blacks to be aggravated assault victims in both 2003 and 2004 (table 10). Aggravated assault was over 65 times as common as murder in 2004. Blacks, especially young men, are not a lot more violent than whites.
by Donal 4/11/2012 - 5:52 pm (re: Donal)

When you actually look at the income gap between Latino and Black famines described as poor, A higher percentage of Black are poorer than poverty stricken Latinos. Poverty does remain a high correlate with crime. You just have to ask how poor are they?

 

by rmrd0000 4/11/2012 - 3:09 pm

Please - a link, a statistic, something? I guess you kinda did, but 53% poverty black to 44% poverty Hispanic isn't significant. However, only 18% of poor blacks in married households vs. over 50% in Hispanic homes is likely a big deal - which is why poor Hispanic households have 50% greater wealth than poor black households.

 

 

by PeraclesPlease 4/11/2012 - 4:53 pm (re: rmrd0000)

So poverty IS an issue?

by rmrd0000 4/11/2012 - 5:38 pm (re: PeraclesPlease)

 If we just ignore black on black violence the problem goes away.  Brilliant idea. let's  go back to the days when black on black violence was ignored by the community and the police.  *shrug*

Never mind about the importance of tracking black on black violence to see how resources are allocated by police departments, media attention.  Never mind about the importance of within the black community leaders pleading with people to improve their own communities (we have to do better, finding constructive activities that keep kids off the street and offer paths out of poverty).  

And what does black on black crime have to do with Trayvon Martin?  Zimmerman shot him because he feared Trayvon was going to shoot another black person? I just don't get this argument at all.

by Dijamo * (not verified) 4/11/2012 - 4:51 pm

Yeah, I'm having a tough time with this connection, too.  But, good to see you, Dijamo!  Didn't know you still read us!

by Michael Maiello 4/11/2012 - 5:09 pm (re: Dijamo *)

Hi DJ - I think the issue re: black-on-black crime started with Fox News, where "hey, blacks are killing blacks every day, what matter one pesky white-on-black incident?"

Which is bullshit, but doesn't require us to pretend black-on-black crime doesn't exist in droves, or that it ceased being relevant. Simply it's irrelevant to the current case.

If I'm in a war zone, lots of people die. That doesn't mean a soldier coming and deliberately shooting my child in the head isn't a horrific act worth screaming about, even though lots more killing happens from the typical bombs dropped / drones misfire scenarios. It's a heinous act separate from the backdrop.

Funny that Fox abhors moral relativism until it doesn't.

by PeraclesPlease 4/11/2012 - 5:15 pm (re: Dijamo *)

Hey Peracles :)

I am so tired of people ceding arguments to conservatives and Fox News by regardless of how patently false, ridiculous or poorly they are reasoned.  How about just calling BS?  When Fox News asks why black people don't care about black on black violence, point out their own failure to cover stories about violence.  Show evidence of protests and the fact that Fox news doesn't cover it.  The media ignores the problem of black on black crime until there's an appealing media friendly victim like Trayvon (and parents who are fighting for attention and justice).

by Dijamo * (not verified) 4/12/2012 - 12:26 pm (re: PeraclesPlease)

Dijamo!!!

by bslev 4/12/2012 - 1:15 pm (re: Dijamo *)

Hola Bruce!

by Dijamo * (not verified) 4/12/2012 - 2:40 pm (re: bslev)

Yeah, they'd spend more time on it if it were Afghani peasants, and even that they hate to cover. But those radicals urinating in parks, that's a problem.

I remember the one Iranian girl who was killed in the protests, and that became a symbol of how terrible Ahmadinejad was (even though he hadn't ordered it). But when a bomb-induced panic hit an Iraqi bridge and 200 people were stomped to death or drowned, didn't make the papers.

Selective outrage always. It's often less what they show than what they don't show. And as you note, God forbid you get killed and you're not photogenic.

by PeraclesPlease 4/12/2012 - 1:29 pm (re: Dijamo *)

The label has not increased media attention. Note that the same folks on Fox who used the Black On Black diversion also wondered why Blacks did not protest murders in the Black community. Obviously protests did occur. This fact got by Juan Williams, Shelby Steele and many others. The label Black-On-Black  crime did not help educate. I don't think the Black community has ever shrugged it's shoulders about crime in their neighborhoods.

how many times has media focused on missing Black women in the era of Black-On-Black crime? How many detailed and sequential interviews has media done with victims of crime in the Black-On-Black crime era? I don't see solid evidence of a benefit. It is just a sound bite.

Since the term has not helped address the issue, does it create suspicion of law-abiding Black citizens? The guardian in the UK has abandoned use of the term and asks it's reporters to describe a crime in a Black  neighborhood just as they would in a White neighborhood.(see link to the Williams's article at the Root in the original post)

I agree, Black-On-Black crime should not be an issue in attempting to get justice for Trayvon Martin, but it has been used as a diversion tactic. 

by rmrd0000 4/11/2012 - 5:36 pm (re: Dijamo *)

So your response to Fox News misrepresenting this issue as having any relevance to black on black crime is not to criticize Fox for their stupidity and their own failure to cover crimes with black victims (whether black on black violence, kidnap victims etc.).  Your response is to cede the point by saying black on black violence is not important. Wow.  We could just ignore the fact of black on violence, (by how? prohibit any statistics that record race and crime rates, or victim rates), pretend black on black violence is not a problem, and that will eliminate all racial profiling immediately. Let's also eliminate the collection of rape statistics and/or domestic violence statistics while we're at it and that will immediately bring an end to violence against women.  Hooray!  Fudging with numbers to ignore reality is not just applicable for (mis)calculating the unemployment rate.

Or perhaps we could point out to them to instances that prove the black community cares about all victims and cares about violence in the community regardless of the race of the perpetrator.  

http://nationalactionnetwork.net/press/national-action-network-to-convene-an-emergency-anti-violence-summit-and-gun-buy-back-in-harlem-new-york-in-conjunction-with-the-nypd/

If Trayvon was a less compelling media friendly victim (with parents that were fierce tough advocates for justice), this case would not have gotten any attention.  His death would be no less of a tragedy if he was a 24 year old rather than a kid, but he wouldn't be on the front page of the NYT or have a national discussion about his case.  So maybe rather than pretending that ignoring black on black violence does not exist, we emphasize that every life matters to the police departments who fear becoming the next disgraced Sanford PD.  And that demand that police actually investigate black on black crimes rather than just treating them as less than important (one gangbanger killing another with minimal "investigation").  That might be more useful than pretending that black on black violence is not a problem.

by Dijamo * (not verified) 4/12/2012 - 12:14 pm (re: rmrd0000)

I think Black on Black is a misleading term, hearkening back to Wolfgang's 1967 paper, which I linked to above somewhere, claiming that there is a black subculture of violence. A better term might be Urban War violence, because it seems to exist in a situation where people in close proximity, in poverty and in competition over illegal activities adopt a kill-or-be-killed mentality—as if they were in a declared war. Yes, a lot of them are black, but it seems that black people not in that situation are no more inclined to murder than anyone else.

We could call war, young man-on-young man violence, or uniformed soldier-on-uniformed soldier violence, but that would miss the point that many are only fighting because of the situation.

by Donal 4/12/2012 - 12:50 pm (re: Dijamo *)

I hearby declare that when we say "black-on-black homicide" we're discussing blacks "in that situation".

Of course we could clarify and say "black-men-on-black-men-homicide" since it's some 90%+ a male thing. (maybe they just need to come out of the closet?)

And yes, it's urban, and often has to do with drinking and drugs.

It seems like we're spending a lot of time to say the obvious.

by PeraclesPlease 4/12/2012 - 1:10 pm (re: Donal)

Considering that a lot of people give credence to the black subculture of violence theory, I don't think it is obvious at all.

by Donal 4/12/2012 - 1:30 pm (re: PeraclesPlease)

The term is used to symbolize what many have been led to believe is a hopeless situation. Poverty begets poverty. Crime begets crime. Lack of education leads to poverty and crime.

There is also a more difficult issue here, if it's a Black problem, the rest of us don't have to get involved. We definitely don't have to pay to change it through taxes.

by rmrd0000 4/12/2012 - 1:44 pm (re: Donal)

The ironic thing is, my own memory is of the term being popularized and stories being published by liberal media to point the phenomenon out during the Reagan era, during times of high urban crime rates, a crack epidemic, and lots of attention to stories like wolf packs running wild, and a lot of fear among white people of being attacked by blacks. It was clear to me that the point was to say to the fearful whites: it's irrational to fear that, here's the numbers. I think that worked to some extent, no links, just my personal experience, though a change in policing methods did a lot more to change it.

As to this point

if it's a Black problem, the rest of us don't have to get involved. We definitely don't have to pay to change it through taxes

I think many of the people who think that also think the poor will always be with us and would mostly switch to that if you weren't talking about black on black. And they did do that back in the day, talking about the dangerous white trash "on the other side of the tracks," that trying to help "those people" is just wasted money.

Again, just  offering my opinion without back up because I really don't feel strongly enough to argue about it with footnotes attached. And, as I said, you can't stop people from talking about it if they can see it with their own eyes that a neighborhood is mostly all black and it's also the one where most of the crime in their city is occurring.

I do think Dijamo makes good points, basically that the main reason for the emphasis is to get attention and resources to the problem within poor black segregated communities, rather than just protect whiter neighborhoods from "those people" in "that neighborhood" and let "that neighborhood" just stew in its violence.

I think the fruitful way to counter the racism problem inherent here, and I am not minimizing it, is to cite the examples of success where the black population is high, i.e. Atlanta:

...Atlanta’s public safety improvement has occurred at more than twice the rate of the rest of the country. This relative improvement explains why Atlanta — after ranking in the top five highest crime cities for most of the previous three decades — now ranks 31st. Atlanta has lower crime than Salt Lake City, Orlando and Tacoma, Wash.

There is little doubt that the reforms in the Atlanta Police Department introduced by Mayor Shirley Franklin and former police Chief Richard Pennington had a significant impact. They hired an outside firm to recommend a new organization and policing plan, began to measure and track policing outcomes, and increased the size of the force by 20 percent.

While it is necessary to have a well-trained, equipped and motivated police force, other factors that drive down crime are even more important.

During the past decade, the Atlanta Housing Authority has replaced its crumbling public housing infrastructure with mixed-income communities. Economic development initiatives such as the Beltline and Atlantic Station have attracted private investment to blighted areas of the city. Perhaps most importantly, individual investors and homeowners have moved into neglected neighborhoods and transformed them into thriving communities.

As the urbanist Jane Jacobs pointed out almost 50 years ago, what makes a community safe is the community itself. The safest neighborhoods in Atlanta are not safe because they are swarming with police officers. They are safe because residents demand it. The job of government is to make sure that the city is designed in a way that encourages citizens to take ownership of their streets and those that use them....

The solution is not sweeping the problem under the rug by changing terminology, but focusing on the problem despite the unfortunate effect you will see of those who have a "the poor will always be with us, it's no use, let them kill each other" mentality.

I just think you're on a fruitless track with this idea, it's not possible to stop people looking at the evidence. The problems are two different ones with different solutions: 1) the racism that assigns behavior of some black neighborhoods to everyone with black skin; 2) the problem of high crime rates in poor racially segregated communities, which some will never want to allocate resources to because they think its useless to try.

by artappraiser 4/12/2012 - 2:52 pm (re: rmrd0000)

Well, if you've seen one project, you've seen them all, no?

Blame it all on poverty, all on income inequality, except I note places where poor people don't seem to want a gun to pop a cop, and places where income inequality goes up but violence goes down.

I think it's all a bunch of hand-wringing, and until people can accept that high crime means high crime and report it and deal with it, we'll just get more of the same.

Now waiting for Deej to come defend me as the long knives come out....

by PeraclesPlease 4/12/2012 - 1:52 pm (re: Donal)

Is the crime rate in the Black community increasing or decreasing in the age of Obama?  Hint.

by rmrd0000 4/12/2012 - 2:00 pm (re: PeraclesPlease)

Weird. " But even in this worst and most tragic situation, murder remained rare, less than two-tenths of 1 percent. It was far from being a behavior that characterized all black youth there — or anywhere else."

So over a course of 5 years, 1 out 100 black youth would be killed.
 
Okay, it doesn't characterize all black youth in the way death characterized the battle for Stalingrad or the Marne - but uh, this is civilian landscape. 1 out of 100 killed? Combine that with the other crimes going on - no fun. What do you think if you're raising kids in such an environment? Every day could be a Trayvon Martin moment.
 
Excuse away - I'm unconvinced.
 
by PeraclesPlease 4/12/2012 - 2:19 pm (re: rmrd0000)

Of course it's bad. If you interpreted the author as suggesting anything else, then I think you're not giving the author enough credit. The author's point is that it's a very small minority, and demonizing all black males is counter-productive. Explanations are a starting point, not an ending point. Using "black" as an explanation doesn't get you much closer to finding a solution. Using poor, less-educated, or even urban gets you closer. We don't want an excuse, we want a solution, or at least a mitigation.

by Verified Atheist 4/12/2012 - 2:25 pm (re: PeraclesPlease)

I thought that you were giving kudos to cultures that had decreased crime during periods of economic strife. Doesn't the Black community deserve credit?

We will be spending money incarcerating future generations or we will be spending money trying to create alternatives to crime. Pay me now or pay me later.Do you have a better solution?

by rmrd0000 4/12/2012 - 2:26 pm (re: PeraclesPlease)

Black-On-Black labeling has criminalizes all Black males. Stand Your Ground is a legislative response in the setting of a lower homicide rate in the Black community.  There has been no humanizing of Black victims because of Black-On-Black. There has been no rush to address issues of dropouts, drug laws, racial differences in prosecution etc. because of Black-On-Black.

if the focus was on root issues like education, employment, legal disparities, etc. and Black-On-Black did not exist, what would you predict would happen to the homicide rate the in the Black community?

Fox is only representative of attitudes in law enforcement and the media. What benefit has occurred because of the term.

 

by rmrd0000 4/12/2012 - 1:29 pm (re: Dijamo *)

"Black on black" crime has nothing to do with white people fearing black people because all black people are criminals.  If you eliminate the phrase it will not eliminate white fear of black people.  It will lessen focus on actual problems in high violence areas which I guess you can shrug your shoulders about if you don't care about those communities.

Black on black crime means black folks are killing each other (which is of minimal concern to police and the media).   It indicates that most crime is intra-racial. It's a call for solidarity within the community to bring down violence because police forces don't take these types of crime as seriously.  Which is precisely why Trayvon has nothing to do with "black on black violence" unless Zimmerman was profiling him in a black neighborhood and shot him to prevent him from killing another black person.  

Positive benefits of using the term:

*More community policing (at least in my neck of the woods)

*Increased calls for neighborhood cooperation with police / civic leaders

*Police statistics being used to call out attention when crimes are not being adequately investigated (the street where I grew up never which was incredibly violent and improved dramatically in terms of violence had a two week period of numerous shootings with no arrests last year.  The statistics meant the community came together with the police to put pressure on the precinct to ramp up their presence in the area.

 

Negatives to using the term:

*Fox News is stupid and will use the phrase "black on black" violence to pretend that black people don't care about crime (rather than it's a rallying cry to get people to care about all victims).

*If we pretend to be race blind and ignore race altogether, we can ignore uncomfortable truths that have a racial basis (not racist basis).  Let's all put our heads in the sand.

by Dijamo * (not verified) 4/12/2012 - 2:40 pm (re: rmrd0000)

Actually the crime rate is going down in the Black community. The black community has not put it's head in the sand. Black-On-Black just adds to the myth of the dangerous Black youth. Despite economic strife and hardcore rap lyrics, Black youths have decreased the homicide rate.

The idea that the Black community will put it's head in the sand is unfounded. You cannot listen to any Black leader for any length of time and not hear the crime rate addressed. 

Pit cannot be denied that the NYC police commissioner uses Black-On-Black to stop and frisk. Or that Stand Your Ground was a response to Black-On-Black. It is a term to justify profiling.

Major benefit of not focusing on Black-On-Black, we get to focus on socioeconomics .Black criminals will still be incarcerated. Black will still protest lack of attention to crime in their community. If we bury the term, we can focus on the building blocks of crime.

Blacks already put pressure on police to pay more attention to crime in the community. See the link to Coates in the original post. Gather your stats and patrol accordingly.

by rmrd0000 4/12/2012 - 3:02 pm (re: Dijamo *)

Fox is not the major problem, as I noted above.

by rmrd0000 4/12/2012 - 3:11 pm (re: rmrd0000)

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