Poverty and lack of opportunity are, I think what should be discussed. Where I live there is a blue collar city that like so many American cities has lost the good paying jobs that once existed. School funding is inadequate as well as social services. Drug and alcohol abuse is high as are teen pregnancy, crime, and violence. And there are very few jobs, particularly for those without higher education. The timber/lumber industry has been largely automated and there is no substitute in sight.
The thing is that our population is majority white by far. And stereotypes aside the young person who has just spent a couple of years in prison is in fact a not very desirable employ prospect.
Now if we (our politicians) decided to invest in infrastructure as we should we would have a huge opportunity to hire and train millions of young men in the trades. add to that affordable two year collage we could make some real progress
But no, what we will continue to do is let public education be eroded, let the prison lobby control state legislature, and leave our justice system to a bunch of law and order idiots who can't see beyond sending our youth to criminal collage otherwise known as prison.
Of course this is a very limited prescription, there are a multitude of things we should and could be doing but between tea party know nothings and spineless Democrats it looks like we are stuck with the status quo until and unless citizens begin to participate in their government.
The thing is that our population is majority white by far. And stereotypes aside the young person who has just spent a couple of years in prison is in fact a not very desirable employ prospect.
Now if we (our politicians) decided to invest in infrastructure as we should we would have a huge opportunity to hire and train millions of young men in the trades. add to that affordable two year collage we could make some real progress
But no, what we will continue to do is let public education be eroded, let the prison lobby control state legislature, and leave our justice system to a bunch of law and order idiots who can't see beyond sending our youth to criminal collage otherwise known as prison.
Of course this is a very limited prescription, there are a multitude of things we should and could be doing but between tea party know nothings and spineless Democrats it looks like we are stuck with the status quo until and unless citizens begin to participate in their government.
31
The problem of "missing" black men is part of a broader American malaise. Who benefits from their "forcing out"? How is the criminalization of black skin functional in America today? Why have we become the incarceration epicenter of the planet? The crisis has not simply "befallen" black men. Rampant neo-liberalism and the "death of the liberal class" has savaged the middle and working classes. We see it everyday right before our eyes, yet we remain paralyzed and desensitized as the one percent remorselessly exploits the planet to exhaustion. Who is next to be "forced" out?
27
The deindustrialization in the U.S. reduced job opportunities for black youths. A decent paying job will provide the wherewithal for setting and achieving career goals. I grew up in Detroit, MI where prospects for black youths were not good unless you obtained a job working in one of the many automotive factories. At 18 years old and fresh out of high school, I started work in a General Motors (GM) factory. The work was hard but with good pay and benefits. With the wages and educational benefits provided by GM, I earned a degree, retired, and began a new career. Today, that factory (Chevrolet Gear & Axel) and thousands of jobs are gone because of deindustrialization. Many black youths in Detroit, MI and other Rust Belt cities have no opportunities to better themselves against all odds.
22
I work with four black people (out of fifteen) who are nothing at all like the black people that show up in these bedraggled stories in the NYT editorials all the time. They are intelligent family people. I think these constant stories are a form of racism themselves. Not allowing the decent law abiding majority of black people to get on with their lives but always tarred with this same brush day after day.
49
The article mentions that often, the "nonworking class" lives in segregated neighborhoods, far from jobs.
.
I would suspect it's actually a lot more complex than it would seem. There is diversity in those neighborhoods. People who have cars and people who rely on transit live there. People who hold jobs and people who don't are there. Students who need cheap housing are there. Maybe a few middle or upper middle class urban pioneers are there: artsy types that want a funky, gritty neighborhood.
.
My point is, I think we should question the extent to which these neighborhoods really are isolated. At what point is it less a neighborhood issue, and more about lingering racism in the workplace, and personal responsibility?
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I would suspect it's actually a lot more complex than it would seem. There is diversity in those neighborhoods. People who have cars and people who rely on transit live there. People who hold jobs and people who don't are there. Students who need cheap housing are there. Maybe a few middle or upper middle class urban pioneers are there: artsy types that want a funky, gritty neighborhood.
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My point is, I think we should question the extent to which these neighborhoods really are isolated. At what point is it less a neighborhood issue, and more about lingering racism in the workplace, and personal responsibility?
10
THE DREAM As children of the 60s, my wife and I taught in the inner city in Philly between 1969 and 2015. We were full of hope that we could share our love of education with the communities where we taught. We were also full of delusion. Nothing prepared us for the struggles and hardship that our students survived. Still, even when I worked with adjudicated adolescent males in a residential alternative justice setting, I found most of the kids I worked with to be reachable. And teachable. What I saw them as needing was skills in problem solving so that they could resolve their problems using words rather than physical aggression. But often they were told by adults that what was expected was submission and silence. Such rigid attitudes prevent children from learning to think freely and taking responsibility for themselves from an early age. Dialog is viewed as disrespect. There is a belief that submission is a survival strategy. It is no. It is corrosive and undermines the human dignity of those whose thoughts, feelings and dreams are forced into silence by overwhelming adult force. Martin Luther King's dream will only be realized when children can be raised to be free to pursue life, liberty and happiness. Angry silence is not the way. Speaking in clear, strong, thoughtful voices is the way. Let us resolve to realize King's dream and help all children develop the contents of their characters. Then all people can realize true equality through peace and love.
24
Let’s leave aside the criminal justice system, as the simple solution to “mass incarceration” is not to commit a crime.
Let’s talk, instead, about the lack of work.
Curiously, illegal immigrants (and unskilled legals) seem to suffer from absolutely no difficulty finding work. Couple the huge competition for low skilled labor with the highest corporate taxes in the world – which provide huge incentives for outsourcing and offshoring – and things start to look grim for native-born unskilled. Add to that draconian eco-extremist regulations, which make it virtually impossible to build anything anywhere, or to use power, and you have the perfect storm for killing off unskilled jobs.
If, as you imply, unskilled Americans (many Black) can’t find work, but want to, a simple solution suggests itself: send illegals home. Stop admitting 1M unskilled legals every year. Repeal the corporate tax. Relax eco-extremist regulations. And, if you’re still obsessed with “climate change”, employ lots of people building nukes and damming rivers.
Do these things and create the opportunity for Americans to succeed. Do them not, and you’ll be writing the same editorial twenty years hence.
Let’s talk, instead, about the lack of work.
Curiously, illegal immigrants (and unskilled legals) seem to suffer from absolutely no difficulty finding work. Couple the huge competition for low skilled labor with the highest corporate taxes in the world – which provide huge incentives for outsourcing and offshoring – and things start to look grim for native-born unskilled. Add to that draconian eco-extremist regulations, which make it virtually impossible to build anything anywhere, or to use power, and you have the perfect storm for killing off unskilled jobs.
If, as you imply, unskilled Americans (many Black) can’t find work, but want to, a simple solution suggests itself: send illegals home. Stop admitting 1M unskilled legals every year. Repeal the corporate tax. Relax eco-extremist regulations. And, if you’re still obsessed with “climate change”, employ lots of people building nukes and damming rivers.
Do these things and create the opportunity for Americans to succeed. Do them not, and you’ll be writing the same editorial twenty years hence.
16
In response to so many who say that African Americans disproportionately commit crimes. May I suggest that convictions for same come after a justice process that seems more and more unjust and a just plain broken down mess. Let's find out how pervasive nasty systems like that in Ferguson are before we assume our justice system doesn't need a massive overhaul.
47% of all exonerees are African American. These are the long, sordid tales of individuals sentenced to life imprisonment or worse death for crimes they did not commit. How does a half way decent justice system produce such outcomes?
Also, please recall that 30% of all murders go unsolved. Hmm, so perhaps we just don't really know what the actual rates of violent crime are because no one has been arrested or convicted.
47% of all exonerees are African American. These are the long, sordid tales of individuals sentenced to life imprisonment or worse death for crimes they did not commit. How does a half way decent justice system produce such outcomes?
Also, please recall that 30% of all murders go unsolved. Hmm, so perhaps we just don't really know what the actual rates of violent crime are because no one has been arrested or convicted.
8
It's about time it was articulated why we have arrived at this place at this time as a Nation.
The "chickens have come home to roost" is the appropriate response. Remove the support structure of towns and communities and then watch them slowly implode, a perverse version of the "trickle down theory".
America has been a Corporate "experiment" since the 60's and we are just starting to feel the full measure of a culture that has no God but for MONEY.
I agree with the suggestion our politicians should wear racing suits with the sponsors name
When as a culture you have no values, how do you expect to establish the need for such values.
Rome anyone?
The "chickens have come home to roost" is the appropriate response. Remove the support structure of towns and communities and then watch them slowly implode, a perverse version of the "trickle down theory".
America has been a Corporate "experiment" since the 60's and we are just starting to feel the full measure of a culture that has no God but for MONEY.
I agree with the suggestion our politicians should wear racing suits with the sponsors name
When as a culture you have no values, how do you expect to establish the need for such values.
Rome anyone?
13
Readers, make sure you hold fast to the NYT doctrine: our society's racism is to blame for all the woes of black men. If there are disparities in school punishment, criminal justice, crime in general, it must be because of racism. Never be tempted to consider natural group differences as a possible explanation for the disparities. Anyone who believes in human evolution is an evil racist.
19
The day that having children outside of marriage became socially acceptable is the day that millions of black children became disadvantaged. Why the New York Times refuses to address this issue is beyond comprehension. The family is the basic social and economic unit of society.
Every child deserves the safety and security of an intact family, and failing that, a father who is deeply involved with his children and supports them financially.
Whatever the incentives are for 70% of black mothers and 40% of white mothers to have children outside of marriage must be stopped. Because of their lack of personal discipline, they are hurting their children.
President Obama was abandoned by his father. He is well equip-ped to talk about how it feels to be fatherless and the difficulty of raising children alone. I do not care who in his base that he offends, it is time for him to speak up.
Every child deserves the safety and security of an intact family, and failing that, a father who is deeply involved with his children and supports them financially.
Whatever the incentives are for 70% of black mothers and 40% of white mothers to have children outside of marriage must be stopped. Because of their lack of personal discipline, they are hurting their children.
President Obama was abandoned by his father. He is well equip-ped to talk about how it feels to be fatherless and the difficulty of raising children alone. I do not care who in his base that he offends, it is time for him to speak up.
36
The 1.5 million "missing" men probably are high school drop-outs. I do not know what can be done about that.
14
From William Julius Wilson, "The Ghetto Underclass":
The effect of male employment on marriage is equally strong among white, black, Mexican, and Puerto Rican inner city men ... both short-term economic realities and long-term prospects shape the marriage decisions of inner-city couples.
The effect of male employment on marriage is equally strong among white, black, Mexican, and Puerto Rican inner city men ... both short-term economic realities and long-term prospects shape the marriage decisions of inner-city couples.
2
Many black men don't want to work in traditional jobs. They don't want to fit in our capitalist society. To take an entry level job requires being subservient. Black men aren't allowed by their culture to be subservient. Meanwhile the career choice of many poor women is to have children, get free housing, food stamps, a cell phone and cash delivered monthly. Why fight the system? Signed a former Democrat.
32
After the success of the Civil Rights movement and the elimination of segregation, we created new laws to keep Blacks from progressing. Whereas before the incarceration rate was 80% white and less than 20% black, after the Blacks finally won their rights to full citizenship and access, we re-structured the laws so that now the majority of those in prison are Black and Brown people. We have structured the policies and discourses to criminalize them therefore justifying their murders by our law enforcements and act surprised when the population is showing videos of murders we have been comfortable with and denying when most black people are well aware that they take place everyday. We have continued the lyching is different forms. We no longer have slavery by another name: http://www.slaverybyanothername.com/. Now we have lynching by another name and genocide by another name... We, as a nation continue to remain silence in the face of bigotry and institutionalized racism... The Republicans are right to treat us like fools and cowards.
7
4
See the documentary "The House I Live In" for more information.
1
The big problem is that while the vast majority of Americans agree 100% completely that black people have suffered gross & horrendous discrimination for 400 years, we still don't want to get mugged by a young black guy.
Those of us older folks who lived through the crime epidemic in the 70's & 80's in NYC never want to go back to those horrible days. And we know that there were many billions of $$ spent back then on job training programs, community action projects, etc. that helped some people but didn't nearly come close to addressing the critical "soft" cultural issues of the black underclass: E.g., that school is not cool, that having kids when you're still a kid yourself is okay, that smoking pot starting at age 13 is normal, etc. I'm in favor of creating new job programs but I think it needs to be paired with a clear-eyed assessment & acknowledgement of the problems besetting the black underclass and then a massive Black-led "public relations campaign" to categorically state that these cultural norms are not okay. To that end, I suggest the members of the NYT editorial board each go out and spend a few weeks shadowing teachers in poor neighborhoods. The first step towards solving problems is correctly identifying what they are. Even though I know that these cultural problems are the legacy of our racist society, I also know that, on a practical basis, the black victims of racism cannot be saved without addressing them.
Those of us older folks who lived through the crime epidemic in the 70's & 80's in NYC never want to go back to those horrible days. And we know that there were many billions of $$ spent back then on job training programs, community action projects, etc. that helped some people but didn't nearly come close to addressing the critical "soft" cultural issues of the black underclass: E.g., that school is not cool, that having kids when you're still a kid yourself is okay, that smoking pot starting at age 13 is normal, etc. I'm in favor of creating new job programs but I think it needs to be paired with a clear-eyed assessment & acknowledgement of the problems besetting the black underclass and then a massive Black-led "public relations campaign" to categorically state that these cultural norms are not okay. To that end, I suggest the members of the NYT editorial board each go out and spend a few weeks shadowing teachers in poor neighborhoods. The first step towards solving problems is correctly identifying what they are. Even though I know that these cultural problems are the legacy of our racist society, I also know that, on a practical basis, the black victims of racism cannot be saved without addressing them.
37
This editorial leaves out another source of stigmatization among blacks: affirmative action. Due to colleges' widespread practice of admitting blacks with lower academic qualifications than whites or Asians, there is now an entrenched perception among employers (and society generally) that black college graduates are less capable than white or Asian graduates. It's another example of the unintended consequences of "liberal" policies intended to "help," but which actually can do more harm than good in the long run. An additional harm, not often mentioned, is the anguish and loss of self-esteem of the unprepared black student who is placed in a college environment above his ability, while the white applicant of similarly lesser credentials is properly placed at a lesser college, and spared this anguish. And then, to top it off, those political advocates who want to undo this troubled system are called “racists,” while those who support it wallow in their “virtue.”
25
Private security guard companies reject all applicants who have a felony conviction.
6
All my life (since age 7) I have been a human rights activist on behalf of blacks, women, the mentally ill, and homosexuals. I grew up both South and North. I know many black men who have been excellent husbands and fathers and have worked very hard to support their families. But I have no patience with black males (for anyone of any color/gender, for that matter) who choose drug and gang culture and fail to nurture and support their progeny, refuse to do honest work, wear pants-on-the-ground, grab crotches, rob people. America is more the land of opportunity than it has ever been, including for black males. Black mothers, stop enabling your sons. Black women require the fathers of your children to pay child support. The upside is that blacks do not have to follow the sexist model of whites; they have an opportunity for both fathers and mothers to earn a living and share domestic responsibilities. Do it. Do it.
32
Undocumented foreign workers may not be the cause of the "missing black males" but they do not help lower the number missing in employment statistics either. Does anyone else see a contradiction in your editorials deploring the disproportion in young black male incarceration while advocating amnesty for 10 million undocumented foreign job seekers here, prescribing also a drastic raise in the national federal minimal wage, while you agonize over the high unemployment rate among the 18-34 year old blue collar black male population (nearly 1 in 8 or 1 in 5, depending on the researcher, with a criminal record that reduces their employability choices)? Ex-cons, for instance, often cannot even earn a living as cab drivers in many cities; and the drivers you usually meet in cities like New York are working with no immigration job visas but they have no criminal records. The Times needs to reconsider prescriptions that are contradictory self-defeating policies, like advocating mass foreign worker amnesty while proscribing laws that incarcerate poor black youth for misdemeanors but leave in place lifetime collateral punishments denying them jobs, military service (such as offered to illegal aliens wanting a fast track to citizenship) and that deny them full Constitutional rights.
19
The leading cause of death for young black men is OTHER young black men not police officers - period - end of story - you want to address the terrible state of young black men being murdered or incarcerated - look at the culture - look at black male ethos.
~ As my sufferings mounted I soon realized that there were two ways in which I could respond to my situation -- either to react with bitterness or seek to transform the suffering into a creative force. I decided to follow the latter course. Martin Luther King Jr.
~ As my sufferings mounted I soon realized that there were two ways in which I could respond to my situation -- either to react with bitterness or seek to transform the suffering into a creative force. I decided to follow the latter course. Martin Luther King Jr.
28
Yet, no mention of the fact that we have a 53 year old African American male as President...twice elected no less. How is this even a possibility given the data and opinion of this editorial give that black males between 25 and 54 have no chance of success in our society? Why do West African and Caribbean black males seem to be doing much better in the US? Even though I am a bleeding heart Liberal on race as well, I cannot help but believe that there is much more here than just skin color and gender at work? Unfortunately, this editorial gives little clue or evidence.
40
The sins of the fathers visited on the children... And here I don't mean the sins of Black fathers and children, but the rank strain of Calvinism that infested America, particularly in the South.
Calvinism is still alive and "well" in many Americans, and genuinely or opportunistically, embraced by some candidates for high office. In a society dedicated to the idea that all are created equal, there is no place for this categorization of people by religious dogma. Remember what that dogma says: some are elected by God for salvation, the rest are assigned to Satan, and by inference, may be treated accordingly.
Calvinism is still alive and "well" in many Americans, and genuinely or opportunistically, embraced by some candidates for high office. In a society dedicated to the idea that all are created equal, there is no place for this categorization of people by religious dogma. Remember what that dogma says: some are elected by God for salvation, the rest are assigned to Satan, and by inference, may be treated accordingly.
5
What we can do that is positive is begin a mass call for a new federal Works Progress Administration, one that will not be allowed -- by statute -- to discriminate against applicants with a record of being imprisoned for nonviolent offenses. We desperately need new roads, bridges and schools; Americans are desperate for jobs. Isn't this why we have a federal government paid for by taxpayers?
As for the racists. Our history shows us that the only weapon we have against racism is the federal government stepping in to squash it. Racists won't change their hearts, but they will change their public behavior with the threat of fines, imprisonment and public shunning. Let's step up enforcement of anti-racism laws and get people -- all people -- back to work.
As for the racists. Our history shows us that the only weapon we have against racism is the federal government stepping in to squash it. Racists won't change their hearts, but they will change their public behavior with the threat of fines, imprisonment and public shunning. Let's step up enforcement of anti-racism laws and get people -- all people -- back to work.
8
"When Blacks vote, their votes are largely for Democrats. Therefore Blacks are bad." This sums up many of the repeat comments on this topic. Good luck in changing that mentality.
3
The numbers are astounding and by themselves explain the ills facing the African-American society. But all we end up doing asking the same questions - why, what, how could this have happened. This is just a feel good reaction. The answer is obvious but we turn a blind eye when a solution is what is necessary. But that would be rocking one's own boat and one is loathe to change the status quo. Right off the bat there are a few solutions - decrease incarcerations for first time and small time drug offenders, improve schools in poor neighborhoods, change in policing practices in communities,being more representative of communities, eradicate profiling and generalizations, allow rehabilitation without ending up in a vicious cycle of crime, jail time, joblessness and reverting back to rime, reduce the inequality in numbers of the sexes and above all have the same yardstick for every citizen, irrespective of race. None of this is happening because we are stuck in the questioning stage. Meanwhile, we keep blaming the victim.
4
I thought it commendable that the article seemed to go beyond the old paradigm of Daniel Patrick Moynihan's depiction of "the problem" of black men in his 1965 report on the black family that seemed to underlie white attitudes (my own included) and government programs (designed by whites, presumably) for decades. I think the article accomplished this by trying to take a fresh look and to ask why the missing men?
However I was disappointed that so many of the comments show that the authors have not moved beyond the mindset of that 1965 report and many look to black men and not themselves for answers. The majority of commenters here are white and so the majority of comments, in discussing black people, black men, talk about "them." (a problem) Where are the black voices here? And I don't mean missing black readers responding here (though that is also true). This article is about "us," not "them."
The white people here could somehow find a way, methinks, to get closer to black people, to find a way to identify with the experience of our fellow citizens, our president and his family, for example. Maybe then your talk won't sound like guessing, so hypothetical, so abstract, so much about "them." Maybe then you could speak up to change our miserable, two-tiered justice system and the mentality of the crazed cops.
I recommend reading about the Moynihan Report. Wikipedia offers a good synopsis of the black assessment of the patronizing quality of the report.
However I was disappointed that so many of the comments show that the authors have not moved beyond the mindset of that 1965 report and many look to black men and not themselves for answers. The majority of commenters here are white and so the majority of comments, in discussing black people, black men, talk about "them." (a problem) Where are the black voices here? And I don't mean missing black readers responding here (though that is also true). This article is about "us," not "them."
The white people here could somehow find a way, methinks, to get closer to black people, to find a way to identify with the experience of our fellow citizens, our president and his family, for example. Maybe then your talk won't sound like guessing, so hypothetical, so abstract, so much about "them." Maybe then you could speak up to change our miserable, two-tiered justice system and the mentality of the crazed cops.
I recommend reading about the Moynihan Report. Wikipedia offers a good synopsis of the black assessment of the patronizing quality of the report.
5
Many try to pinpoint the cause of the problem, and in so doing confuse the symptoms with the cause. Example: Those who argue it is the behavior of black men. The behavior is a symptom, not a cause. The causes are twofold: Pervasive racism (even among those of us who emphatically deny that we are racist) and runaway capitalism that has strengthened the 1% at the extraordinary expense of those at the bottom. It is not just the social safety net that has been shredded, but the power of labor unions and education at every level. Our failure to pay a living wage to those at the bottom (or pay them any wage at all) has forced them either to work incredibly hard to just put food on the table, or into despair, which leads to the aforementioned behavior.
5
The one element in this editorial that seems beyond debate is the effect de-industrialization and the collapse of economic opportunity has had on urban black neighborhoods and African-Americans in general. It has had a devastating effect on the nation as a whole but due to numerous factors, including lower education levels and fewer family connections to employers, the shrinking pie has left the black population more hungry than the rest of us.
5
Significant omission! Why is Orlando Patterson (with others) new book never part of the discussion? See Feb 15 New Yorker for a fine introduction.
Only-Never InSweden.blogspot.com
Only-Never InSweden.blogspot.com
Slavery ended with the 13th Ammd and post Civil War black men had the same rights, including the right to vote as a whites. When reconstruction ended the age of the KKK, Jim Crow laws, strict segregation and separate and very unequal began. As America industrialized many blacks moved to northern cities and forced into black ghettos.
I remember a time when it was commonplace and acceptable to fear black people. They lived in different worlds. How do we protect our from blacks (using the “N” word) whites asked seeing how blacks were shown in the movies and cartoons. There were the good blacks like Aunt Jamima, the happy servant but then there was the imagined boogyman with a straight razor in his pocket. Black males were suspect. Racist speech and jokes common.
With the Civil Rights laws and the VRL and the appearnace of an educated of an educated black middle class some people, not liberals who fought for
blacks, decided that the best way to keep down young black males was to get them as early as possible into the criminal justice stystem by prosecuting them for things whites would not, charging felonies where whites would be charged with misdemeanors, jail time where whites get suspended sentences, much longer sentences than whites and when they got out they are felons forever and can never vote. This is no accident it’s calculated and is a denial of equal protection under the law, which is really the object, because mostly blacks do not vote Republican.
I remember a time when it was commonplace and acceptable to fear black people. They lived in different worlds. How do we protect our from blacks (using the “N” word) whites asked seeing how blacks were shown in the movies and cartoons. There were the good blacks like Aunt Jamima, the happy servant but then there was the imagined boogyman with a straight razor in his pocket. Black males were suspect. Racist speech and jokes common.
With the Civil Rights laws and the VRL and the appearnace of an educated of an educated black middle class some people, not liberals who fought for
blacks, decided that the best way to keep down young black males was to get them as early as possible into the criminal justice stystem by prosecuting them for things whites would not, charging felonies where whites would be charged with misdemeanors, jail time where whites get suspended sentences, much longer sentences than whites and when they got out they are felons forever and can never vote. This is no accident it’s calculated and is a denial of equal protection under the law, which is really the object, because mostly blacks do not vote Republican.
26
Daniel Patrick Moynihan rang the bell on this problem 50 years ago before most of the causes presented in this editorial happened. The war on drugs did not happen in a vacuum. in 1965 there were 836 murders in New York, in 1990 the number had risen to 2,600. Every other category of crime rose likewise. The war on drugs and other heavy sentencing laws drove these numbers back down. Today crime rates are lower than 1965 excepting one glaring category, black on black crime. The reports are here for everyone to read.
http://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/html/analysis_and_planning/crime_and_enforc...
I completely agree with the editorial that jobs and education are the solution but until the community breaks its own cycle of violence jobs and education cannot take hold.
http://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/html/analysis_and_planning/crime_and_enforc...
I completely agree with the editorial that jobs and education are the solution but until the community breaks its own cycle of violence jobs and education cannot take hold.
14
"The stigmatization of blackness presents an enormous obstacle."
I was hanging out with two friends who are much younger than me and black the day that Loretta Lynch was confirmed as AG. First remark from one of them was "why do they have to mention that she's black?" The utter annoyance in his voice was very clear and he knows there's no good answer to that.
I was hanging out with two friends who are much younger than me and black the day that Loretta Lynch was confirmed as AG. First remark from one of them was "why do they have to mention that she's black?" The utter annoyance in his voice was very clear and he knows there's no good answer to that.
7
If you want to understand the situation and find a solution, you have to put yourself in the shoes of the police. 80% of the crime in North America is driven by black men. So if I was a police person, I would unconsciously be wary of black men. Every night a police person goes out and if he or she sees a white man, he goes I have a 1 in 5 chance that this person is going to attack me or do something nefarious. But if the person is black, my guard goes up four times as fast. Let us suppose that we do the impossible and we change this very understandable unconscious reaction from the police, then we still have the issue that 80% of the crime is perpetrated by black men. So what has to change: the attitude of black men. How can we do this? Ensure that they have meaningful jobs like the auto jobs that were available to them in Detroit. Otherwise there will be no solution to this issue and more black men will be in jail. And the idea that the police will change their ways is lunacy. They are scared of black men and their reaction is guttural. They are in survival mode. Shoot first and ask questions later. Black men must be empowered. Unless this happens then we are committing genocide on black men. And this is being done in the name of self-defense. In Toronto, we have the same issue: 80% of crime is black men crime. Meaningful jobs is the answer.
12
There are lots of jobs in America for untrained, unskilled workers. Many of these jobs were filled by African- American men and women. But now they are filled more often by others who have arrived more recently in the country. These jobs include cleaning, landscaping maintenance work, child and elder care, meat-packing etc., etc. I know in many cases the immigrants are illegal and are accepting very low wages where African-American citizens could require minimum wage if not higher if limited supply of workers permitted. I suspect the employment of illegal migrants at very, very low wages has had enormous effect on loss of jobs by African-American. Why is this not discussed? African-Americans can get unemployment or take advantage of other programs for the poor. Is this a reason why they have not been hostile towards those who have taken jobs from them.
15
As a direct consequence of their "Southern Strategy", to write off all non-white voters and pander exclusively to the racism of white voters, the Dixiepublican Party has become the spokesperson for all sorts of racial stereotypes (Reagan's Welfare Queens" and Bush's Willie Horton) that continually marginalize African Americans in society. Fortunately, white will soon be the minority, and hopefully the Dixiepublican Party will fade into the minority, too. Let's hope it doesn't do too much damage in the meantime, although William F. Buckley's essay "Why The South Must Prevail" spells out the white supremacist underbelly of the Dixiepublican Party's agenda.
4
I'm sorry, dear Editorial Board, this nation has spent trillions of dollars over the past trying to nurture the black community, and most particularly the black males to help lift them out of the failed social structures in which they have been living.
It is time for the black community to actually do some of the lifting.
Without their active and sustained cooperation, this "problem" as you portray it will continue for another 50 years, if not more.
The liberal...er...progressive mantra of more money that has captivated to ruling classes in our cities has led us to this failure.
It is time for the black community to actually do some of the lifting.
Without their active and sustained cooperation, this "problem" as you portray it will continue for another 50 years, if not more.
The liberal...er...progressive mantra of more money that has captivated to ruling classes in our cities has led us to this failure.
30
I have to agree with many of these comments: this editorial oversimplfies a very complex problem. Racism, drug policy, de industrialization, local school funding, inner city culture and many other factors intermingle to sustain the failure of so many black men (and women).
It seems to me the most pressing issues stem from de facto segregation and the existence of black ghettos where all of these factors are inescapable. It is almost impossible to escape the ghetto if you have been raised in a community where no one works, there are no jobs, schools are poor, marriage and fatherhood are non-existent, violence and drugs are endemic.
I work with small children from the Trenton ghetto. When the 3 and 4 year olds play cops and robber the police are the bad guys, they take the role of their uncle (never their father) the drug dealer. Their play reflects the horrific violence they have already witnessed: the "police" throw the other boy to the ground and stomp on him. How on earth do we expect that these children can succeed if they "just behave"?
Somehow we have to move these families to a community were work is available, schools are decent, the streets are safe and they have positive role models. Princeton is only 10 miles from Trenton, but for these kids it might as well be on the moon.
It seems to me the most pressing issues stem from de facto segregation and the existence of black ghettos where all of these factors are inescapable. It is almost impossible to escape the ghetto if you have been raised in a community where no one works, there are no jobs, schools are poor, marriage and fatherhood are non-existent, violence and drugs are endemic.
I work with small children from the Trenton ghetto. When the 3 and 4 year olds play cops and robber the police are the bad guys, they take the role of their uncle (never their father) the drug dealer. Their play reflects the horrific violence they have already witnessed: the "police" throw the other boy to the ground and stomp on him. How on earth do we expect that these children can succeed if they "just behave"?
Somehow we have to move these families to a community were work is available, schools are decent, the streets are safe and they have positive role models. Princeton is only 10 miles from Trenton, but for these kids it might as well be on the moon.
12
In Re: “(M)ore than one in every six black men in the 24-to-54 age group has disappeared from civic life, mainly because they died young or are locked away in prison.”
Our President is a black man.
Our President can hardly say grace at dinner without being picked apart - maybe his breathing was “offensive” - by the Right-Wing-Media. Barely a word challenging Fox News, O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, et al, has been heard.
Even the Republican Party has not been as vitriolic as it has been the years of his administration.
Let me say the unspeakable: Maybe most of us want black men forced out of our society.
Our President is a black man.
Our President can hardly say grace at dinner without being picked apart - maybe his breathing was “offensive” - by the Right-Wing-Media. Barely a word challenging Fox News, O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, et al, has been heard.
Even the Republican Party has not been as vitriolic as it has been the years of his administration.
Let me say the unspeakable: Maybe most of us want black men forced out of our society.
6
You have to feel badly for the black women that still wish to date within their race. Pretty tough odds in finding someone of equal academic achievement and earning power with that sort of gender imbalance.
Of course, they could "date out" as black men do, but it seems most of them are still within the social construct of dating within their racial group. Most people of all races are right there with them, of course, but for the millions of accomplished black women, the decision to stay within their racial group in terms of dating and marriage really reduces their options.
Of course, they could "date out" as black men do, but it seems most of them are still within the social construct of dating within their racial group. Most people of all races are right there with them, of course, but for the millions of accomplished black women, the decision to stay within their racial group in terms of dating and marriage really reduces their options.
7
This column has made it possible for the most egregious comments to be made blaming Black men, Black families, and Black criminals for the problem. It is a mistake unless it is a sociological/psychological study with a goal toward unearthing prejudice. I hope that it is a study/survey because if it is not it has succeeded in giving racists and dummies a platform from which to rant. I look forward to re-examining the comments later today when the word goes out to the Glen Beck/Limbaugh/Hannity/O'Reilly echo chamber.
5
The notion that the Prison Industrial Complex solves problems, rather than digs the hole ever deeper, is entrenched. As long as the fires of fear are stoked we'll continue to see expensive and destructive warehousing.
Our routine experience in the work-a-day world is that privilege provides separation from the mainstream. Our large cars, giant houses and immersive portable media devices facilitate the effect. Good luck to us humans. The boundaries of the tribe are ever more difficult to determine.
Our routine experience in the work-a-day world is that privilege provides separation from the mainstream. Our large cars, giant houses and immersive portable media devices facilitate the effect. Good luck to us humans. The boundaries of the tribe are ever more difficult to determine.
2
Unfortunately, these comments--most of them--exposes the racism that still exists in our society. A racism that doesn't see what the role of poverty, police occupied communities, schools that are more like prisons plays in the lives of Black and Brown people in this country. Crime is the result of racism, poverty, unemployment and imprisonment. This is how our society is set up. The poorest communities have the poorest schools, the worse housing, the worse stores and the worse food on the shelves in those stores. Kids are not even being taught how to read at an adult level or to write cursive. If you're white, making good money enough to afford to live in a city like San Francisco you can't possibly understand the hardship and demoralization that sets in in communities of poverty. I've seen the Black population in San Francisco disappear. The traditional Black communities have been and still are being "gentrified," i.e., urban renewal is Black removal--to suburbs on the outskirts of the city that have no jobs, inadequate mass transportation, and broken-down, moldy and insect-infested housing not to mention being forced to hold two or more part-time jobs that pay next to nothing if you're lucky enough to have a job. We need to spend money on housing and education not war and prisons!
6
Readers, make sure you hold fast to the NYT doctrine: our society's racism is to blame for all the woes of black men. If there are disparities in school punishment, criminal justice, crime in general, it must be because of racism. Never be tempted to consider natural group differences as a possible explanation for the disparities.
19
Black men (and poor men in general) are often "forced out of society" by being born into a life where all that matters about them are the benefits they provide their mother and a father who can remain completely off the hook for any interaction or responsibility. No one has ever really cared about them, so how can they learn to care about anyone else?
11
Whole lot of nasty, mean, unhappy white folk out there.
7
The lack of low-skilled jobs available to black males is exacerbated by the tremendous influx of undocumented workers. The government has been complicit in allowing and even encouraging (by means of drivers licenses, in-state tuition breaks, etc.) illegals all to the detriment of a generation of black males. This is precisely why many Americans want effective border security and some deportation. Jobs for American citizens first will go a long way to assist these deserving men.
17
One can only hope, with scant historical evidence to support it, that the publication of editorials like this would overwhelm the hollow blather about our "exceptionalism" to focus attention on some uncomfortable domestic realities. Only when we become mature and patriotic enough to do so will we be able to confront the task of creating "a more perfect union."
2
I think that the great takeaway from all this is that it pays to obey the law, be you black or white, and do not behave in such a way that it leads to your having a criminal record.
14
The USA is THE most capitalist country on earth. Other "free market" national economies have sufficient checks and balances in place to make Americans think of them as "Socialist", although of course they are not-they are just more humane. As THE most capitalist economy in the world we are doomed to suffer some unique semblances of "Americana". We are alone in the civilized world as a place that not only still executes people, but continues to attempt to find new and exotic ways to do it. We have the only non-national, non-universal-"for profit" health care delivery system, and justify it by ignoring what the World Health Organization claims is our less than stellar record. We have destroyed our unions, and along with them the collective bargaining that created the middle class, and without which, the middle class is vanishing. And, of course, we have reintroduced racial slavery by combining it with enslavement of the poor (white or black) by utilizing real estate zoning, local school districts, out sourcing of industrial work by rewarding corporations who do it with tax breaks, cutting public educating funding, and finding creative ways to use tax dollars to support private education, sometimes ever more increasingly religious in nature. There is no phenomenon going on here. There is a carefully planned result that is not going to be limited to African Americans, but will soon include all poor Americans-a group that grows larger every day.
4
None of this is new. Yesterday I read Daniel Patrick Moynihan's "The Negro Family: A Case for National Action." It was written in 1965, but everything he describes sounds like it could have been written this year, including the missing black men. It was denounced for being racist and blaming the victim, but nevertheless, it was a damning indictment of the failure of American society to support black men.
8
The NYT "Editorial Board" is just noticing this? A little behind the times are we? Most people who keep current with their reading knew this over a decade ago.
By the way, true criminals, whatever their skin color, are not "forced" out of society. They put themselves out of society, and that's the POINT of incarceration.
Sheesh.
By the way, true criminals, whatever their skin color, are not "forced" out of society. They put themselves out of society, and that's the POINT of incarceration.
Sheesh.
20
The commenters are correct. Gene and Alex. Because the root cause is more complex than either of them state. I was fortunate to touch down hard on our history with involvement in yesterday's anniversary of the Lincoln Funeral Train. And the effects of slavery still linger in America's black population. What we now see with the shootings is the bigotry that exists in our country. Perhaps we will now start to face it. Each of us. Looking in our respective mirrors. And then individuals will have to make choices not to fall back but to fall forward. Isn't it much harder when you don't have enough resources to be responsible. I'm not saying that black men shouldn't man up--they must. What's holding them back? Poverty is a demon. A few people do get out. They are the strongest. And the rest don't have the confidence and self respect to work at becoming more. So what we can give future generations--we don't give enough--is moral education, amazing schooling, confidence and respect. We're not doing enough to compensate for what we did before 1865. Period.
3
Poverty is often used to excuse criminality among African Americans, but while African Americans are disproportionately poor, there are nearly three times as many poor whites than poor blacks. The most recent Census Bureau poverty report shows that in 2013 there were 29.9 million white Americans living below poverty level and 11 million black Americans living below poverty level. (Source: Table 3: People in Poverty by Selected Characteristics: 2012 and 2013, Income and Poverty in the United States: 2013.) Blacks make up about 27 percent of Americans living below poverty levels, but commit far more than 27 percent of crimes in virtually every category. For example, in 2013, blacks committed 2,204 murders while white (including Hispanics) committed 1,834 murders. Blacks make up about 27 percent of improvised Americans, but commit 55 percent of murders. In virtually every crime category, the racial disparity in crime is greater than one would expect from poverty statistics.
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/nibrs/2013/table-pdfs/offenders-rac...
http://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2014/demo/...
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/nibrs/2013/table-pdfs/offenders-rac...
http://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2014/demo/...
19
Loose drug laws will do nothing to reduce drug use. The one thing anyone who is poor or working class can do to to improve their lot personally and collectively is have nothing to do with either drugs or alcohol. Both are sure to keep an underclass uneducated, unemployed and disfunctional.
12
The crisis of black male "failure to thrive" is a national concern. However, it would be deflating to let the issue overshadow the accomplishments made by blacks since the era of segregation. Starting from the lowest point, black men and women have made good progress in areas of education, occupation, political participation, family formation and cultural contribution. The Obama family story is not simply a fluke.
At the same time far too many blacks -- and young men in particular -- have yet to recover from the wreckage of slavery, segregation, and discrimination. In recent decades, conservative forces have used the laws to target young black men and leave them with criminal records. The law amplifies the impact with the denial of voting rights and employment opportunities. Conservatives also fight adequate funding for education and health, and worker demands for higher wages.
On the other hand, too many black and liberal leaders fail to hold young black men responsible for their own lives. Far too many young men show a lack of seriousness about the pursuit of disciplined conduct, upstanding character, continued education, family planning, job skill upgrading, sensible money management, and willingness to move to better job prospects. These things are within the control of individuals if properly advised. Caring leaders should promote this agenda as much as they call for the social reforms.
At the same time far too many blacks -- and young men in particular -- have yet to recover from the wreckage of slavery, segregation, and discrimination. In recent decades, conservative forces have used the laws to target young black men and leave them with criminal records. The law amplifies the impact with the denial of voting rights and employment opportunities. Conservatives also fight adequate funding for education and health, and worker demands for higher wages.
On the other hand, too many black and liberal leaders fail to hold young black men responsible for their own lives. Far too many young men show a lack of seriousness about the pursuit of disciplined conduct, upstanding character, continued education, family planning, job skill upgrading, sensible money management, and willingness to move to better job prospects. These things are within the control of individuals if properly advised. Caring leaders should promote this agenda as much as they call for the social reforms.
13
Japanese Americans "disappeared" after Pearl Harbor and were then thrown back into society having lost most of their material wealth. They thrived everywhere they reemerged, including in pockets of the rural west that were close to their relocation camps. Why? They weren't victims of ferocious racism in the 1940s and 50s? The problem today isn't racism. It's that the US rather brutally allocates outcomes based on international competitiveness of a person's human capital.
Keep misdiagnosing the problem if it makes you feel better. But the clock's ticking. The fastest growing racial groups in this country are not white, black, or Latino. Pakistanis, Filipinos, Koreans, Tamils, and the dozens of other communities that make up our increasingly diverse racial mosaic understand racism very well, but are impatient with coddling and race-based affirmative action. They know exactly where the disappeared males are and support the policies that locked them up.
Keep misdiagnosing the problem if it makes you feel better. But the clock's ticking. The fastest growing racial groups in this country are not white, black, or Latino. Pakistanis, Filipinos, Koreans, Tamils, and the dozens of other communities that make up our increasingly diverse racial mosaic understand racism very well, but are impatient with coddling and race-based affirmative action. They know exactly where the disappeared males are and support the policies that locked them up.
15
Does the NYT Board really want to blame higher rate of black suspensions from school on the racism of teachers? How far will you go to avoid confronting facts? Children from poor, under-supervised, single-parent and poor families are destined to have more behavioral problems than other children. The casualness with which you dish out these kinds of judgments is disgraceful and does nobody any good.
28
A lot of what people perceive as racism is more likely classism. I live in a higher end suburban neighborhood that is mostly white with a significant minority of Asians, Pakistanis, Indians and Middle Easterners. We have one black family in the neighborhood. Their home and yard are immaculate. Their kids are well behaved and high achievers. I would gladly trade some of my white neighbors for carbon copies of this black family and I know that many of my white neighbors feel the same way. Their conduct and values appear to be consistent with the conduct and values of their majority white neighbors - in many cases better. As a result, I am not aware of anybody who speaks poorly of them because of their blackness. In fact, people seem to fall over themselves to be their friend. If they were to move out and be replaced by a high income black family that let their home and property deteriorate and had troublesome kids - THAT black family would be shunned because of their behaviors. My point is that it's the behaviors (or expected behaviors) that people mostly react to, regardless of race. An outsider who only saw the lack of acceptance of the hypothetical second black family would likely attribute it to racism. And they would miss the underlying truth that behavior matters.
14
I know this is an editorial but it is also news. Treatment of blacks by the white majority has not improved since emancipation. Blatant mistreatment of blacks has not stopped. Unarmed black men being shot in the back is the ultimate abomination. There are countless abominations and they are hypocritical. One such hypocritical act was the case of a black sergeant in the US Army in the 1880's---I don't remember the exact year---who, the night before his last day of duty, got tipsy. He drank too much and staggered while he walked. He was not being abusive or vandalizing the barracks. He was merely a happy drunk until the alcohol wore off. Big deal!
Well, apparently it was a big deal, because a white officer observed the staggering black sergeant and reported him. The sergeant was dishonorably discharged and stripped of his pension, which he had earned during his 30 years of impeccable and dedicated service. A white sergeant would not have been treated like this.
There's a cycle to break. It's a cycle of behavior and attitude that all ethnic groups and all those in power need to break. The USA cannot call itself a civilized nation until the unbalanced treatment of Blacks is corrected. We are not even close to correcting it.
Well, apparently it was a big deal, because a white officer observed the staggering black sergeant and reported him. The sergeant was dishonorably discharged and stripped of his pension, which he had earned during his 30 years of impeccable and dedicated service. A white sergeant would not have been treated like this.
There's a cycle to break. It's a cycle of behavior and attitude that all ethnic groups and all those in power need to break. The USA cannot call itself a civilized nation until the unbalanced treatment of Blacks is corrected. We are not even close to correcting it.
2
Did the Great Society's devalue men in poor families, by replacing their pay checks with public assistance? It made it possible for women to support children materially without the need of a responsible man, and for a man's children to be supported without him providing. The characteristics that get you a good job; education, responsibility, following the rules, respect for authority, and a work ethic, all tend to bring you into main line society. When the necessity of having a job is reduced in the eyes of a person, so is the need for these qualities. A women need not stand behind a man if he is not essential, helping assure he has and keeps a job.
Education, a true solution, may seem of little value to all members of such families. The characteristics that give you success in school, hard work, punctuality, respect for authority, are also essentially for a good job.
Why should a child who is supported by social welfare, and whose mother was supported by social welfare be motivated to work hard and get a good education if they see their adult self as being supported by welfare? Why would the mother or father of such a child see a good education as being essential to the child?
The Great Society attacked the real problem of poverty. But did it do so in a way that damaged poor families by reducing the need for them to develop the qualities necessary to materially contribute to family and society?
John
Education, a true solution, may seem of little value to all members of such families. The characteristics that give you success in school, hard work, punctuality, respect for authority, are also essentially for a good job.
Why should a child who is supported by social welfare, and whose mother was supported by social welfare be motivated to work hard and get a good education if they see their adult self as being supported by welfare? Why would the mother or father of such a child see a good education as being essential to the child?
The Great Society attacked the real problem of poverty. But did it do so in a way that damaged poor families by reducing the need for them to develop the qualities necessary to materially contribute to family and society?
John
13
As someone who as a child was deeply impressed by black people's marches in the South and the violence those black ladies and gentlemen experienced -- the dogs, the water hoses, the Southern police -- I am more than dismayed when I hear black men greet one another with "Hey, ni---r." I have heard the reasons. To me, they don't cut it.
The blasting obscenely misogynistic, violent music and behavior of some black men -- the careless willful impregnating of silly women who have no idea how to rear a child, the scorn for education, the dealing of drugs, the absurd and vicious pride in their guns -- would have those early civil rights marchers rolling in their graves in shame.
Not all black men are missing. Many, many more black men go to work, love and support their wives and children, take their kids to violin lessons, and make something of their lives.
They do their forebears proud.
Not for them the perpetuating of the cycle of poverty and crime the minority indulge in. But after so many generations, abetted by welfare and disregard for birth control, that minority is growing.
The blasting obscenely misogynistic, violent music and behavior of some black men -- the careless willful impregnating of silly women who have no idea how to rear a child, the scorn for education, the dealing of drugs, the absurd and vicious pride in their guns -- would have those early civil rights marchers rolling in their graves in shame.
Not all black men are missing. Many, many more black men go to work, love and support their wives and children, take their kids to violin lessons, and make something of their lives.
They do their forebears proud.
Not for them the perpetuating of the cycle of poverty and crime the minority indulge in. But after so many generations, abetted by welfare and disregard for birth control, that minority is growing.
21
How about this? - let's legalize drugs - heroin, crack cocain, crystal meth, designer drugs, whatever - and pardon all those convicted for possessing or selling them. That'll empty out the prisons and return all those men to their communities where they can go back to doing and selling drugs. Just don't complain to me about what happens to the communities after that happens.
14
It's been shown time and time again that whites consume drugs at rates similar to blacks....they are just not shipped off to prison for the same offenses. An offense which gets a fine and a slap on the wrist in a white suburb gets a long prison sentence in the inner city. Where is the justice in that?
2
Doug, You are correct. The only way to significantly reduce the black male prison population is to legalize all drugs. Legalizing armed robbery and murder would also help.
2
Having a bunch of able-bodied men hanging around with nothing to do is not a good scenario for any country, city or community.
Think Germany before WWII. Think, Camden, NJ right now. Think about the some of the former manufacturing centers of the Midwest, now ravaged by meth addiction.
Men need to work. Most men want to work.
Think Germany before WWII. Think, Camden, NJ right now. Think about the some of the former manufacturing centers of the Midwest, now ravaged by meth addiction.
Men need to work. Most men want to work.
8
You typical racist remark will revolve around the idea that it's the black male himself is to blame. Black on black violence is the racist "go to" stat.
But it's likely that "stat" is a byproduct of the application of a repressive culture.
When whites flee a neighborhood as blacks migrate to it, the local economy fails, poverty is the result. When draconian drug policy is applied by racist police departments, blacks are incarcerated in disproportion.
Until the white culture in America accepts, admits, and makes amends for its racist approach, healing will remain in the future.
You would expect the first president that's at least 1/2 African American would do more to shake things up. Like just and equitable income redistribution, inner city infrastructure investments, and liberalized drug policies. Your move Mr President.
But it's likely that "stat" is a byproduct of the application of a repressive culture.
When whites flee a neighborhood as blacks migrate to it, the local economy fails, poverty is the result. When draconian drug policy is applied by racist police departments, blacks are incarcerated in disproportion.
Until the white culture in America accepts, admits, and makes amends for its racist approach, healing will remain in the future.
You would expect the first president that's at least 1/2 African American would do more to shake things up. Like just and equitable income redistribution, inner city infrastructure investments, and liberalized drug policies. Your move Mr President.
3
Maybe part of the reason that blacks don't get as many call backs after job interviews is because once they are hired, it is much more difficult to fire them if it doesn't work out. You can fire a white male on a whim if you want to, but try to fire a woman or any member of a so called "protected" class and you are in for problems.
17
Imprisoning criminals is essential to a civilized society. Crime rates have plummeted largely due to 'missing' miscreants especially in Black neighborhoods.
Mafia families have been broken up by imprisoning Italian American miscreants.
Anyone have a problem with that?
Mafia families have been broken up by imprisoning Italian American miscreants.
Anyone have a problem with that?
14
You are so wrong. Organized crime was, perversely, a pathway to the middle class for Italian immigrant families. Now, in our much more heavily policed society, minor offenders are sent up the river. There is no equivalence here.
Poverty dehumanizes people. As a group separate from other (black) Americans, African Americans seem to struggle most with a litany of circular problems. The creation of dependence on welfare fed into a reliance on a system which should have provided skills and training rather than short term relief. Short term relief has spiraled into different stages of unemployment because the skills and then the Will are not there: that leads to trouble in the family and then to crime and ....just keeps going. Along with the stigma of a black person being more dangerous or not as hard working, the basis from which they, as a demographic group come, gives a disproportionate sense of who's responsible for crime. The symptoms keep changing but the cause has not been addressed effectively.
1
Reading the comments is as instructive as reading the editorial. They range from victims relating stories of racism as an integral part of American life to the fairly transparent blame-game defense of the status quo. Whether subtle or not most most of the comments fall, as a disappointing shock to me, mostly in the latter category. Sadly - that is merely confirmation, of the another sort, of the allegations made in the editorial. Given the fact that the readership of the NYT tends to be above average in terms of social sensitivity I found the upwelling of racialism in the "Comments" section fairly disturbing. There are only two ways you can cut this. Either blacks are organically different from whites... or they are not. The former concept has its roots in the ideology that legitimized slavery. That ideology took a generation or two to take hold after the first African slaves appeared in the Virginia Colony. Initially black slaves were neither viewed nor treated all that much differently than white indentured servants. Both were sources of cheap labor. If you reject the slaveholder mindset that fixed on color as a convenient badge of social status you must conclude that blacks are no different than whites other than for a very unfortunate legacy that continues to render them repeat victims. You can't have it both ways. If people are going to be honest they need to be clear about where they stand. Same or not same? Are you a friend or an enemy? Make up your minds people.
2
The fundamental reason for the disparity in opportunity for black youth and young men is the lack of intact families in the black community. Whatever it is that encourages black women to have one or more children without the benefit of marriage must be stopped. I know a family with six children from different fathers, and when the boys become teenagers they are put out onto the street, because the mother can't handle them. Then they commit crimes to survive.
Beyond that, the fascist police state must be stopped, and the only way to do it is to jail police officers who commit crimes while making arrests. For instance, in Baltimore, the young black man who suffered a fatal spinal injury while in police custody may have been subjected to a "rough ride" in the police van. Ordinary citizens get tickets for failing to wear a seat belt, but it's OK for police officers to subject a person to a "rough ride." Not 0nly should they be tried for manslaughter, the family should sue the police department for everything they have. Sue them to the point that the City has to float municipal bonds to pay the fine. First and for most, fascists understand money.
Beyond that, the fascist police state must be stopped, and the only way to do it is to jail police officers who commit crimes while making arrests. For instance, in Baltimore, the young black man who suffered a fatal spinal injury while in police custody may have been subjected to a "rough ride" in the police van. Ordinary citizens get tickets for failing to wear a seat belt, but it's OK for police officers to subject a person to a "rough ride." Not 0nly should they be tried for manslaughter, the family should sue the police department for everything they have. Sue them to the point that the City has to float municipal bonds to pay the fine. First and for most, fascists understand money.
42
As a white male who grew up in the segregated South I have witnessed this slow slide downhill. This is our National Tragedy and yet you look at places like Kansas and you see a state government that is pouring more fuel on the fire by passing laws that those trapped in this dead-end of having nothing are prohibited from spending survival assistance on cruise ships. How can a man take a cruise when he can't even take public transportation to a job because the same short-sighted cretins cut the funds for "socialist follies", afraid to admit that "We don't want them catching the bus and coming out here to our suburbs. You have to understand that these people are lazy, have no initiative, and want to stay on government assistance because they actually enjoy being trapped in this situation. They don't need "Hope". All they need is a television set, a boom box, some marijuana and a baby-mama."
I know the thinking because I've had it "explained" to me many, many times over the years.
Like millions, I had hoped that somehow, someway, the election of President Obama was going to really, for once, finally start turning us around. Sadly, if anything, it seems to have only hastened our decline.
I know the thinking because I've had it "explained" to me many, many times over the years.
Like millions, I had hoped that somehow, someway, the election of President Obama was going to really, for once, finally start turning us around. Sadly, if anything, it seems to have only hastened our decline.
55
Some people claim that the millennials are open-minded, which is improving relations with gays and blacks. I think they're half right.
2
The pervasive criticism of the war on drugs is overstated. Drugs fuel violence and property crimes in many poor neighborhoods. The war on drugs was less about crack and more about safety for families. Granted, law enforcement may have gone too far. But the purpose wasn't to imprison addicts. It was to undermine gangs, which are the scourge of the slums.
6
These statistics are alarming. But on the other hand, why are we still stuck with this old white/black dichotomy? We are all people. You say there are only 83 black men to 100 black women, therefore marriage rates for black women are low. But we are no longer living in an age where black women can only marry black men! As egregious as it is that black men are still getting harsher prison sentences and suffering more from violence and early death, ours would be a better society if these differences could finally be erased-- not just because black men deserve equal treatment with other races but because the races ARE equal. We are all just people.
2
What nonsense and irresponsible editorializing by the NYT. People committing crimes are not forced to do so. Where is the discussion of personal responsibility applicable to every individual to be a law abiding citizen, not do drugs, not create a family they don't support and the freedom to act like a father? This nonsense that somebody is forcing black men out of society is just silly. Black men force themselves out of society by committing crimes and it is 100% their choice.
21
You are assuming that every eligible black man will, by default, marry a black woman of African descent. It is not uncommon for black men to date and marry white women because, I have heard, 'black women are bossy'.
Secondly, there is no reason why, even if there is a shortage of men to marry, black women should be willing to have out-of-wedlock children presumably with a black man. As some black men do, black women can certainly marry another black man of Caribbean or Nigerian or Ghanian descent who have shown themselves to be more upstanding than the descendants of slaves in this country.
The problems afflicting the black community are not because of our 'racist' society; you and blacks need to look inside the community for solutions to the problem.
Secondly, there is no reason why, even if there is a shortage of men to marry, black women should be willing to have out-of-wedlock children presumably with a black man. As some black men do, black women can certainly marry another black man of Caribbean or Nigerian or Ghanian descent who have shown themselves to be more upstanding than the descendants of slaves in this country.
The problems afflicting the black community are not because of our 'racist' society; you and blacks need to look inside the community for solutions to the problem.
7
Anyone who doubts how deeply-seated a problem this is need only read the comments here. The nation's shameful record of white supremacy is sad not only for the burden placed on the minority population but also for excusing the ignorance and justification of the superior majority who refuse to recognize the obvious.
2
Personal responsibility for an individual's behavior seems to have been forgotten in this tortured analysis. There are plenty of examples of individuals of all race and backgrounds lifting themselves up out of their life circumstances to succeed. Why the continual focus of making excuses for bad behavior and the bad choices that lead to bad outcomes.
14
there are also plenty of examples of supposed pillars of society using and abusing the same drugs that black men use and never having to worry about being jailed or even questioned about it. The war on drugs is a class war, and minorities are the main victims. If I am rich and live in a big house, I can have a cocaine party and never even think about getting busted. I can carry my weed or pills in my car and never worry about being searched, even in the unlikely event I get pulled over. I am a 50 year-old white male with a masters degree. I have been pulled over on numerous occasions. Never have I been searched or harassed or detained. Often I get off with a warning.
2
The biggest victims here are the children. You know why educational performance rates are so low in these neighborhoods? Because education is a partnership between the teachers and the parents and if one side of this partnership is absent, out dealing drugs, committing crimes, getting high, hustling and shuffling about, or in jail, the kids will suffer, as they do now. A lot of these people don't even know how to correctly speak the language. There is no good excuse for this. The best excuse that I can conceive is that white society at-large is terrified of being accused of racism is they point out these failures.
What we need, in addition to pre-k, is something like pre-k for all of these loser parents. They can start by learning how to speak English correctly. No one is going to hire people to responsible, well-paying jobs if they cannot speak correctly.
What we need, in addition to pre-k, is something like pre-k for all of these loser parents. They can start by learning how to speak English correctly. No one is going to hire people to responsible, well-paying jobs if they cannot speak correctly.
11
When I worked for a F500 company, our human resources department counseled me against hiring African-Americans. They said they were a "protected class" and very difficult to fire, even if their job performance is terrible.
When will the idiots in Washington and elsewhere in this country understand the disservice that affirmative action and anti-discrimination laws does to blacks?
When will the idiots in Washington and elsewhere in this country understand the disservice that affirmative action and anti-discrimination laws does to blacks?
8
On a recent trip through a few major US cities, dining out, I observed that the majority of the menial restaurant jobs, bus boys, kitchen help, etc., were filled by Hispanic males, not back men.
Why?
Why?
12
I would fault this editorial on several counts. First of all, putting someone in jail does not mean that this person is excluded from civic life. If civic life is the sphere of free interactions among individuals, then there is plenty of civic life in jail with its own rules and laws. As someone who taught inmates in a maximum security prison, I can tell you inmates are smart and very much active in their community. If placing someone in jail is a form of exclusion, then, indeed, they are excluded. But they are not the only ones. Many, if not most, Americans are also excluded from public life. It is a well known fact that the percentage of Americans who do not vote is very high. They do not vote because they do not think, correctly in my view, that their vote matters. If this editorial is about practicing exclusion, then this country practices exclusion on a far greater scale than just the black prison population. And you cannot solve this problem by including a few representatives into the elite or, for that matter, even electing a black president.
4
It is mind boggling to read the comments on an article like this. Some of them, while trying to poke holes in the piece, actually reinforce the facts that were stated. The knee jerk reactions that some people have when racism is part of the conversation shows their true colors. Racism still exists and will continue to exist unless we fix our educational system, our justice system and figure out how to create jobs that pay a living wage. If we don't do these things we are destined to become an apartheid state.
3
I guess I'm a dummy with a one-track mind, but this all seemed to be a big bunch of words whining about the problem. Can someone tell me the solution, so that I can get to work on doing my part to solve it?
Oh, what's that? There isn't one? This was all just so much hot air from "The Editorial Board?"
Good chat.
Oh, what's that? There isn't one? This was all just so much hot air from "The Editorial Board?"
Good chat.
6
If black men had the same opportunities as whites to get ahead by legitimate means, they would make pretty much the same choices that white men do. How many blacks with offers to become investment bankers choose to become drug dealers instead? This problem is all about opportunity, or more accurately, the lack thereof.
Our collective senses have been numbed. It's just one of many sad outcomes delivered by our country's persistent racial friction. By stonewalling themselves behind "barriers", many Americans are becoming inured to the subtle suffering wrought by marginalization. We've become desensitized and along the way, we've lost our ability to form nuanced understandings through empirical evidence. We rely too much on "numbers" and not enough on "smell". After 2008, I became skeptical of numbers once we discovered that the books were cooked.
Very timely and informative article by the NYT. Although this is something known very widely in the African-American community, it it nonetheless important that Whites who continue to deny the existence of white privilege continue to be exposed to these truths. The "War on Black Males" has been going on far longer than the last few decades, going all the way back to slavery and beyond, when even free Blacks in Colonial times weren't allowed to fully and freely participate in the political and economic process of the developing nation. Quite frankly, this centuries long effort to make the black male the bogey man for all the nation's problems is mainly to make black men less desirable as husbands, fathers, and mates, especially for white women. This has been the underlying agenda to brand and stigmatize black men as criminals, perverts, and non-providers, even though the successes of millions of black men since emancipation proves otherwise.
2
1.5 million black men aren't "missing." They can be found in jail. Why? Because they chose to commit crimes that warrant a prison sentence, most often involving violence.
The primary solutions to the cycle of black crime, violence, unemployment, under-education, poor parenting and irresponsibility must come from within the black community itself.
You can create as many laws and regulations as you want to make society "fairer" for a single minority group, namely blacks, but their problems will continue to persist until they reach for and grasp solutions within themselves.
The primary solutions to the cycle of black crime, violence, unemployment, under-education, poor parenting and irresponsibility must come from within the black community itself.
You can create as many laws and regulations as you want to make society "fairer" for a single minority group, namely blacks, but their problems will continue to persist until they reach for and grasp solutions within themselves.
17
Again, many successful folks also choose to commit crimes, yet face zero consequences. If police could randomly search the houses in suburbia the way they do the people in Broken Windows and Stop and Frisk areas, they would find just as much "crime" and just as many "criminals." But they don't. Kids down the street from me sell heroin to other kids in broad daylight, in my small town, that has two cops. Adult neighbors across the way work professional by day and get high nearly every night on pills, booze, weed, and anything else that numbs them. The war on drugs is a war on a class of people, most of whom are minority. It's not he drugs at all.
1
This editorial is an example of liberal press creating excuses for black violence. This viewpoint that white society is to blame for all black problems is dangerous. Hate and violence against police and whites becomes justified. It becomes a narrative of blacks seeking revenge for outrageous wrongs committed against them by white society. In this narrative revenge justifies anything.
12
Go to the State of New Jersey. Ask the former Governors, Christie Whitman,
James McGreevey, Jon Corzine, and the current Governor, Chris Christie, where
the black males have gone. Ask Senators Booker and Melendez about this
problem.Ask the State Senators Norcross and Sweeeny what their thoughts
are. After all, these people saw the problems and had the resources to remedy
these problems.
James McGreevey, Jon Corzine, and the current Governor, Chris Christie, where
the black males have gone. Ask Senators Booker and Melendez about this
problem.Ask the State Senators Norcross and Sweeeny what their thoughts
are. After all, these people saw the problems and had the resources to remedy
these problems.
2
Society at large (read "white" if you like) should be held responsible for some of the root causes of this tragedy: 1) stupid marijuana laws; 2) well-intentioned but flawed welfare policies that split black families and created dependency and destroyed a work ethic; and, 3) lax immigration policy and enforcement that forces the native-born, predominantly black, underclass to compete with but lose to illegal immigrants for the bottom-of-the barrel jobs. But black society has to be held directly responsible for the fundamental immorality of generations of fatherless children, the decline of religion that once provided a cohesive bond for the community, and embracing criminality and victimhood. The lack of any black leader of the stature of Martin Luther King, Jr. is a real tragedy: he and his generation of black civil rights leaders forced the larger white society to look at its own morality and make the needed changes. There is no black leader today that has any positive influence with the larger society:buffoons like Al Sharpton simply confirms the worst expectations and excuse a racist response to his extortion and racist appeals.
28
Not sure what the correlation to religion is. I am not religious nor are my friends and we live middle class lives, no crime, etc.
You somehow bemoan the lack of black leadership as if it is a silver bullet. It is not. The fact that you are mentioning "black" leadership tells me that you too is infested by the stereotype of black males. We live in a predominantly "white" society. Where is the white leadership for solving not only white problems, but all Americans' problems? Maybe the problem is white leadership?
A descriptive article, devoid of insights into why this problem, albeit maddeningly complex, has emerged and and continues to ail a segment of America. But it does explain the chilling trend in the way we have responded as a society; remove black men from he scene. Ignore them, jail them for existing and going about their business, kill them for any reason at all, and force them into a parallel universe where the sun does not shine. And for so doing, it does seem that black men are colluding to produce this outcome. "I am different, you are afraid of me, I will drop out, father children I have no intention of raising, act like a gangster for no reasons . . . " and transform from the merely conspicuous, to the scape goats of our society's bete noire of racism."
That this occurs in the most advanced nation in the world is what defies logic.
Kalidan
That this occurs in the most advanced nation in the world is what defies logic.
Kalidan
5
Let's not create a mass hysteria about black men hunted down and killed for sport by the white establishment. The problem of race is a severe problem no doubt but captioning a historical problem with oversimplified emoticons will not help redress issues of social and economic injustice. Mass hysteria cripples our ability to do anything meaningful; it only makes heads roll and calls on instantly gratifying solutions like a profiteering band of screaming leadership who do nothing but blabber in quasi Martin King voices.
The race problem is tied up with a problem of immigration. I work in neighborhoods where a wedge has been driven between blacks and immigrants who do better in taking advantage of the "system" in place for the underprivileged. The latter do better in education and subsequently economically. Blacks resent the fact that while an entire native population of America-born are persecuted because of skin color, outsiders suck up all social benefits and programs. There needs to be a better understanding between all minorities across the color spectrum. The kind of mass hysteria that shows a picture of blacks killed off like flies damages everything. The NYT ought not to subscribe to such hysteria-pandering.
The race problem is tied up with a problem of immigration. I work in neighborhoods where a wedge has been driven between blacks and immigrants who do better in taking advantage of the "system" in place for the underprivileged. The latter do better in education and subsequently economically. Blacks resent the fact that while an entire native population of America-born are persecuted because of skin color, outsiders suck up all social benefits and programs. There needs to be a better understanding between all minorities across the color spectrum. The kind of mass hysteria that shows a picture of blacks killed off like flies damages everything. The NYT ought not to subscribe to such hysteria-pandering.
5
I know the Times and many of its readers do not like to face facts but the stigmatization of blackness begins with a daddy deficit. Unmarried motherhood is not only accepted in the black community but financially encouraged and supported by state and federal governments. Until this is addressed, the bleak situation described here will continue. Without daddy, the problems encountered are magnified, i.e., less discipline in the home, less supervision, fewer role models, etc. The victim industrial complex (VIC) has turned these criticisms into racist rants by the white community when, in fact, they are nothing of the kind.
16
Maybe the right should support Planned Parenthood?
When will the Times call for Black men to step up and take responsibility for themselves and their families? The Times answer seems to be more liberal paternalism and dependency. They are not "missing". We know where they are. Why does the Times not ask why a very dark man from India orb the Caribean with $25 in his pocket can come here and in a few years have a business and his children in college. It is time to stop making excuses. Black people are equal and responsible for their lives just like the rest of us. They should look to their proud ancestors who conquered real, horrible challenges and didn't make excuses but rather clawed and fought to be someone and to achieve real goals.
The real problem? What passes for Black "culture" is driven by a White liberal media industry. The cities Blaclks live in and the schools they attend have been controlled by liberal Democrats for generations. Ask yourselves what would happen to the Democrat Party if Black America made real progress and truly joined the rest of us in the 21st century. See a pattern?
The real problem? What passes for Black "culture" is driven by a White liberal media industry. The cities Blaclks live in and the schools they attend have been controlled by liberal Democrats for generations. Ask yourselves what would happen to the Democrat Party if Black America made real progress and truly joined the rest of us in the 21st century. See a pattern?
13
Truly your analysis is both shocking and disheartening.But you do not recognize that in more instances than not the culture of young black men often leads to risky,violent anti-social behavior. this is not a matter of blaming the victim but the consequences of oppression.economic stagnation and the failure of our educational system. But yes its a two way street
1
Those of you who have never worked in a factory with white and black workers will never understand how race can bias advancement, negatively for the darker-skinned worker.
2
In my travels as an engineer during my working life I have hardly ever met an African-American engineer.
It is not that companies are racist, it's that there aren't any or very few to hire. An engineer earns a decent middle class living. Where are all the Black engineers. Don't tell me that Blacks don't have the intellectual aptitude. It's that studying and doing homework, especially in the ghetto, is considered a "whitey" thing to be ridiculed. Woe to this Black young man if he is discovered by his peers to study and aspire to greater things!
It is not that companies are racist, it's that there aren't any or very few to hire. An engineer earns a decent middle class living. Where are all the Black engineers. Don't tell me that Blacks don't have the intellectual aptitude. It's that studying and doing homework, especially in the ghetto, is considered a "whitey" thing to be ridiculed. Woe to this Black young man if he is discovered by his peers to study and aspire to greater things!
6
Visit an urban black school and compare it to the white suburban schools and that may help explain the differences.
By the way, you don't see many poor rural white or poor hispanic engineers either.
But you do find them in jail. Check out the Aryan Brotherhood.
By the way, you don't see many poor rural white or poor hispanic engineers either.
But you do find them in jail. Check out the Aryan Brotherhood.
corrected***
While I wholly agree that this is a tragedy of enormous impact, as a public school teacher in an urban (code word) area, I believe the disproportionate suspensions are a result of the other factors and not an independent factor.
My colleagues, admittedly disproportionately white, have no interest in exacerbating the problems but instead are tasked with enforcing standards that are designed to benefit all. That an injured demographic is less able to meet those standards in a sad reality.
But what are we to do? Often we are victimized by the same misinformed public that will look anywhere but in a mirror when it comes to resolving the many intractable problems we (refuse to) face. Young black males are the unwilling canaries in our many coal mines.
While I wholly agree that this is a tragedy of enormous impact, as a public school teacher in an urban (code word) area, I believe the disproportionate suspensions are a result of the other factors and not an independent factor.
My colleagues, admittedly disproportionately white, have no interest in exacerbating the problems but instead are tasked with enforcing standards that are designed to benefit all. That an injured demographic is less able to meet those standards in a sad reality.
But what are we to do? Often we are victimized by the same misinformed public that will look anywhere but in a mirror when it comes to resolving the many intractable problems we (refuse to) face. Young black males are the unwilling canaries in our many coal mines.
4
The disproportionate imprisonment of blacks is a national trend, but it is considerably worse in the North than the South. In Massachusetts and New York, the percentage of blacks in prison is way higher than their percentage among the population. In Mississippi and Alabama, incarceration rates for blacks are much closer to their percentage among the population. Those who preach racial justice aren't very good at practicing it.
3
Remember the old saying that in the South they hate the race but love the man, but in the North they hate the man but love the race.
This has been true since the beginnings of our nation.
This has been true since the beginnings of our nation.
While I wholly agree that this is a tragedy of enormous impact, as a public school teacher in an urban (code word) area, I believe the disproportionate suspensions are a result of the other factors and not an independent factor.
My colleagues, admittedly disproportionately white, have no interest in exacerbating the problems but instead are tasked with enforcing standards that are designed to benefit all. That is injured demographic is less able to meet those standards in a sad reality.
But what are we to do? Often we are victimized by the same misinformed public that will look anywhere but in a mirror when it comes to resolving the many intractable problems we (refuse to) face. Young black males are the unwilling canaries in our many coal mines.
My colleagues, admittedly disproportionately white, have no interest in exacerbating the problems but instead are tasked with enforcing standards that are designed to benefit all. That is injured demographic is less able to meet those standards in a sad reality.
But what are we to do? Often we are victimized by the same misinformed public that will look anywhere but in a mirror when it comes to resolving the many intractable problems we (refuse to) face. Young black males are the unwilling canaries in our many coal mines.
3
Bout time somebody at the Times read William Julius Wilson's book The Truly Disadvantaged. The public needs to be reminded constantly of the social failures created by the switch from effective government intervention in the economy to police repression. Then maybe will come up with some economic policies that can deal with these problems. In the meanwhile, Republicans can just continue wrecking the country.
4
So-called "effective government intervention" led to the huge damage to the black family and traditional mores, which ultimately necessitated police "repression." Americans decided they preferred order to wanton crime (which is the choice they were given by so-called government interventionists).
"The stigmatization of blackness" is fueled by Opinions such as this which highlight the "Missing Black Men" who have committed crimes requiring imprisonment.
Couple this, with lauding "protests" against several police incidents, which include rioting and criminal acts, and the harmful stereotyping is further strengthened.
The recent so-called "racial conversations" have served to separate Black Americans as a group from other Americans when the opposite is needed.
Couple this, with lauding "protests" against several police incidents, which include rioting and criminal acts, and the harmful stereotyping is further strengthened.
The recent so-called "racial conversations" have served to separate Black Americans as a group from other Americans when the opposite is needed.
46
The fact of black men without prison records receiving fewer job callbacks than white men released from prison in the experiment speaks volumes. Even when black teens accomplish something extraordinary, the resultant racism is shocking. Consider the black teens accepted to 8 (or 7) Ivy league colleges: Harold Ekak, Daria Rose and Kwasi Enin of NY, Munira Khalif of MN and Nik Bostrom of NJ.. The Crouch quadruplets of CT were all accepted to and attend Yale. Then you read the comments attached to their news articles and find considerable racism aimed at them and their success. Although Enin is the son of two working nurses, plays three instruments in orchestra and had a high GPA there were claims of affirmative action and welfare paying the application fees to multiple colleges. Then look at the treatment of our President. If the brightest and most industrious of black people are subjected to hate and contempt there's little hope for those at the lower rungs of society.
11
Those jobs lost to illegal immigration.. do they really pay a living wage? My heart goes out to all those black men who have never had anything to do with criminal activity but, just the same, suffer the same consequences as if they were criminal. Truth is, society as a group, does not care as long as it is them (locked up in their neighbourhoods) and not us. But it says more about our society than we want to know. The term 'dirty laundry' comes to mind.
1
our national psyche continues to suffer from repression and denial concerning race...healing and its therapeutic value will not come until we face the two major crimes that burden our national conscience, the destruction of original tribes (as genocidal as any other prevalent example) and the enslavement of of africans...leaving both races disadvantaged and, confined, essentially on reservations...the cost of restoring agency and dignity to the latter day victims of slaughter, slavery and social disadvantage might be high in dollars but cannot be overestimated in value.
38
Lets see, what can we most likely expect from the usual power groups in response to this ongoing national tragedy?
Leftists, for one example, might recommend early parole for the most hardened criminals who happen to be black men. Payback.
More centrist liberals will likely recommend more government programs. More minority early childhood care, feeding, and education bureaucracy. More legal aid. A big increase in post-arrest rehabilitation, including jobs programs, like back in the LBJ days. More relaxation of some drug laws. More stringent legislation regarding other drug laws. More taxes.
M-O-R voters of all ethnic and economic classes will wring their hands. Tisk. risk, what a shame. My taxes are too high already. How can we lower my taxes without increasing crime?
Conservatives will say, the system is working. Camera phones will get the bad cops off the streets. We shouldn't take one step backwards from zero tolerance policies. In the end this is all about reinventing class warfare.
What do you want society to do, hire poorly qualified young blacks to be police officers?
Right wingers will laugh derisively, because liberals can't expect a white woman to be elected President, and then expect male black felons, no matter how the system was stacked against them, to get any kind of legitimate break over the next four years. So, you want your daughter to start keeping company with an ex-con? Well, maybe if they are LGBT activists. Cue more right wing derision.
Leftists, for one example, might recommend early parole for the most hardened criminals who happen to be black men. Payback.
More centrist liberals will likely recommend more government programs. More minority early childhood care, feeding, and education bureaucracy. More legal aid. A big increase in post-arrest rehabilitation, including jobs programs, like back in the LBJ days. More relaxation of some drug laws. More stringent legislation regarding other drug laws. More taxes.
M-O-R voters of all ethnic and economic classes will wring their hands. Tisk. risk, what a shame. My taxes are too high already. How can we lower my taxes without increasing crime?
Conservatives will say, the system is working. Camera phones will get the bad cops off the streets. We shouldn't take one step backwards from zero tolerance policies. In the end this is all about reinventing class warfare.
What do you want society to do, hire poorly qualified young blacks to be police officers?
Right wingers will laugh derisively, because liberals can't expect a white woman to be elected President, and then expect male black felons, no matter how the system was stacked against them, to get any kind of legitimate break over the next four years. So, you want your daughter to start keeping company with an ex-con? Well, maybe if they are LGBT activists. Cue more right wing derision.
The data is clear:
1) stop discrimination against blacks,
2) hold whites accountable and put them in jail when they break the law, starting with prominent figures in government, sports, media, and entertainment.
You cannot achieve justice until you have strict enforcement of laws applied equally, without discrimination. Too often, liberals want to erode law enforcement, which only leads to the decay of society.
1) stop discrimination against blacks,
2) hold whites accountable and put them in jail when they break the law, starting with prominent figures in government, sports, media, and entertainment.
You cannot achieve justice until you have strict enforcement of laws applied equally, without discrimination. Too often, liberals want to erode law enforcement, which only leads to the decay of society.
1
The reality described is simply the success the Jim Crow War on Drugs. A policy created by Richard Nixon and the Dixie-crats to reinvigorate Jim Crow segregation while subverting the Voting Rights Act of just six years prior.
Now we have a new generation of Dixie-crats in Hillary Clinton seeking to carry on Bill Clinton's legacy of world record prison populations. Rural white community prisons filled with urban minorities who cannot vote and who's imprisonment is used to prop up conservative legislative districts with coerced populations of non-voters.
Ending the Drug War. Or at least the pot prohibition is one good start. End employment urine testing. With more than 18% of the population smoking pot, according to one 2008 government survey, employment drug testing locks more than 55 million Americans out of the workforce.
Universal suffrage is another way to restore America's participatory society/democracy. (Only exemptions; voting fraud and treason.)
Third is a revitalization of America's public education system. Extend basic public education to community college. Provide tax incentives to businesses that foster public education programs. Local, state and federal business taxes should be on a sliding scale based on how many of the company's employees are from the community where the business is based in America. A company with 100% of its workers in the local town would get the lowest tax rate. A company with no or few local employees would get the highest tax rate.
Now we have a new generation of Dixie-crats in Hillary Clinton seeking to carry on Bill Clinton's legacy of world record prison populations. Rural white community prisons filled with urban minorities who cannot vote and who's imprisonment is used to prop up conservative legislative districts with coerced populations of non-voters.
Ending the Drug War. Or at least the pot prohibition is one good start. End employment urine testing. With more than 18% of the population smoking pot, according to one 2008 government survey, employment drug testing locks more than 55 million Americans out of the workforce.
Universal suffrage is another way to restore America's participatory society/democracy. (Only exemptions; voting fraud and treason.)
Third is a revitalization of America's public education system. Extend basic public education to community college. Provide tax incentives to businesses that foster public education programs. Local, state and federal business taxes should be on a sliding scale based on how many of the company's employees are from the community where the business is based in America. A company with 100% of its workers in the local town would get the lowest tax rate. A company with no or few local employees would get the highest tax rate.
2
Unemployment is quite high; underemployment is also high. Too many of the "new jobs" now being created are dead-end, low-paid jobs in the service sector.
If the people of whatever colour who are now needlessly imprisoned are freed, what will they do to support themselves? If uneducated people return to school, will there be jobs for them when they graduate?
If the people of whatever colour who are now needlessly imprisoned are freed, what will they do to support themselves? If uneducated people return to school, will there be jobs for them when they graduate?
4
The NYT Statisticians have spent an considerable amount of manhours in culling a data correlating Coloured individuals missing due to being incarcerated in correctional facilities or dying prematurely due to Substance abuse or Violence,need to be commended for the high class reporting worthy of next years Pulitzer Prize.
Individuals need to live within the framework of an non deviant behavioural pattern.No one in the United States has the time & energy to target any group
based on Individual's Colour translucency.
The Sum total of individual vagrancy correlates to a disturbing pattern that focuses overall on a larger group that leads to bias & discrimination of the group.
Why some group prefer to be state guest at various Correctional facility is a hot topic that needs to be analysed from all angles,Colour,Genetics,Education...
An excellent article from NYT.
Individuals need to live within the framework of an non deviant behavioural pattern.No one in the United States has the time & energy to target any group
based on Individual's Colour translucency.
The Sum total of individual vagrancy correlates to a disturbing pattern that focuses overall on a larger group that leads to bias & discrimination of the group.
Why some group prefer to be state guest at various Correctional facility is a hot topic that needs to be analysed from all angles,Colour,Genetics,Education...
An excellent article from NYT.
1
You do not offer a solution to this shameful social stigma by the law that violates the spirit of justice, so we must presume that your editorial board either has none to offer or faces an editorial dilemma. Collateral punishment includes lifetime denial of Constiutional Rights long after a citizen black or white has paid his or her dues to society and become a law-abiding citizens. You focus on those convicted of drug offenses, but a case in Massachusetts involves a man subjected to a domestic restraining order decades ago in a divorce. A hunter and gun collector, he wants the court to restore his 2nd Amendment rights. Like many of the African American and Latino men "missing" in society, a once domestic restraining order follows them for life in collateral punishment whether the order was served last week or 3 decades ago. The restriction, a scarlet letter if ever there was, denies them the right to serve in law enforcement, and our military services. In some states it denies them the right to vote or in serve in a political office. It seems that you do not offer a solution because of your restrictive view of our 2nd Amendment. If you feel so strongly that collateral punishment is a problem, perhaps you ought to reassess your efforts to nullify our 2nd Amendment as well as our legistative nullifications of the 14th and 15th Amendments. A law-abiding person who has paid his or her dues to society ought to have all Constitutional rights restored.
1
It has taken more than a generation for us to fully recognize that Reagan's War on Drugs was not a war without consequences for our citizens. In pockets of inner city America the war has decimated the male population. Much like oppressive regimes in foreign lands, given immense powers, police have arrested most of the young, active, aggressive men, leaving only the old or the infirm to survive. Our ghettos have been gutted of life; first by the drugs, which were their only economic hope, and then by law enforcers who used repressive and strict laws to jail users and abusers and sellers and addicts. All at once, all together in the prisons of America. And when these men are released they are released to the same neighborhoods, with the same economic outlook, and the same hope for advantage, only they are meaner.
I cannot say why it has taken us more than a generation to figure this out, and why we don't change this stupid pattern now, today, everywhere in America, with fully funded family support and fully funded treatment programs, and a government that participates in the recovery of our cities rather than the destruction of its population. Clearly, that is our next step, but when will we have the will to spend the money we waste on incarceration more wisely?
I cannot say why it has taken us more than a generation to figure this out, and why we don't change this stupid pattern now, today, everywhere in America, with fully funded family support and fully funded treatment programs, and a government that participates in the recovery of our cities rather than the destruction of its population. Clearly, that is our next step, but when will we have the will to spend the money we waste on incarceration more wisely?
4
Even if governments were to spend money on drug rehab services it would still leave the issue of unemployment. The jobs that used to hire black men are gone and aren't coming back. Republican politicians reject make-work projects initiated by the federal government even when the funding is provided. It is hard to pull yourself up when there is nowhere to do so.
2
>
In conjunction with its going out of business sale, America is having a multifaceted social and psychological psychotic breakdown and this is just one sad part of it.
It remains to be seen if there is anything "real, possible and/or practical" that can change this fact any time soon. I doubt in my life time. This is what a country taken over by the right-wing and their winner take all ideology looks like. Hence, you might as well get use to it, since this illness isn't to be cured anytime soon. Build yourself a fireproof room, because things will become much worse before they become better.
Man hands on misery to man
It deepens like a coastal shelf
Get out as early as you can
And don't have any kids yourself
Philip Larkin, from "This Be The Verse" from High Windows
It is sad but true that in this environment you don't have to out run the bear (the machine) just your fellow man.
Or you may take Schopenhauer's route of asectic resignation: “Resignation . . . is like the inherited estate; it frees its owner from all care and anxiety for ever”
And at the end of the day it all comes down to resignation: "I have lived long enough and I thank God I have enjoyed a happy life; but after all this life is nothing but vanity".
John Locke's last words 1704
In conjunction with its going out of business sale, America is having a multifaceted social and psychological psychotic breakdown and this is just one sad part of it.
It remains to be seen if there is anything "real, possible and/or practical" that can change this fact any time soon. I doubt in my life time. This is what a country taken over by the right-wing and their winner take all ideology looks like. Hence, you might as well get use to it, since this illness isn't to be cured anytime soon. Build yourself a fireproof room, because things will become much worse before they become better.
Man hands on misery to man
It deepens like a coastal shelf
Get out as early as you can
And don't have any kids yourself
Philip Larkin, from "This Be The Verse" from High Windows
It is sad but true that in this environment you don't have to out run the bear (the machine) just your fellow man.
Or you may take Schopenhauer's route of asectic resignation: “Resignation . . . is like the inherited estate; it frees its owner from all care and anxiety for ever”
And at the end of the day it all comes down to resignation: "I have lived long enough and I thank God I have enjoyed a happy life; but after all this life is nothing but vanity".
John Locke's last words 1704
4
The anti-tax movement bears some blame. When communities like Ferguson, MO use fines and penalties to support public services rather than raise income taxes, there are a lot of black scofflaws who get dragged into the justice system. The idea of individual responsibility is fine, but the implementation of polices that purport to promote it has not been helpful.
8
They are "taxing" a segment of society which can least afford to pay and it traps them in a never-ending cycle of enforced poverty. If you take away a person's car for a minor traffic violation and then they can't work and you keep adding fees to the fines you are making it worse for them. Hopelessness and despair become a part of their daily existence. How a municipal government could continue to do this is shameful and morally corrupt. Sadly, this happens in quite a few places across the US not just Ferguson.
"In the name of the greatest people that have ever trod this earth, I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny, and I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever." G. Wallice
"From now on, the Republicans are never going to get more than 10 to 20 percent of the Ne gro vote and they don't need any more than that...but Republicans would be shortsighted if they weakened enforcement of the Voting Rights Act. The more Ne groes who register as Democrats in the South, the sooner the Ne grophobe whites will quit the Democrats and become Republicans..." R. M. Nixon
Politicians.
"From now on, the Republicans are never going to get more than 10 to 20 percent of the Ne gro vote and they don't need any more than that...but Republicans would be shortsighted if they weakened enforcement of the Voting Rights Act. The more Ne groes who register as Democrats in the South, the sooner the Ne grophobe whites will quit the Democrats and become Republicans..." R. M. Nixon
Politicians.
7
I guess Senator Moynihan was wrong when he said the increase in illegitimacy in black society was going to result in a breakdown in family and culture. At the time all we heard was "a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle ". For the children, the village is a poor substitute. How many generations have we now lost due to lousy policies, dime store philosophies and the marginalization of basic societal standards?
17
Of course the NY Times turns the perpetrators into the victims. The reasons the young black men are missing are the results of their actions and poor behavior. Period. As long as people, like the editors of this paper, refuse to put the accountability on a broken culture where criminal activity, high school dropouts, and fatherless families are the norm, nothing will ever change. Blaming others for ones own failures and behaviors will never impel improvement.
20
Are you seriously arguing that the larger society has no impact on the life choices available to us as individuals? That whites aren't given far more chances than blacks in this country? Why are whites given a pass for many of the same crimes for which blacks are aggressively prosecuted? Why is it that poor behavior by young black men leads in one direction and poor behavior by young white men leads in another?
As long as people just like you choose to deny reality, to deny oppression, to deny how desperately you cling to a perch of supperioity there will never allow the sanctification of humans who don't look, behave and think like you. There is no future America in this oppressive justification of an society that remains tainted by the evil of slavery. Slavery's new manifestation has deprived more people of opportunity and liberty than the old slavery. This new form entraps, and violates people with the heavy hand of despots. The very heart, minds and bodies of too many are victims of systemic exploitation. America is sick and decaying at the root. It is just a matter of time when even you will not find safety as oppressed people of all ethnicities, gender and gender identities, disabilities and immigration status lose hope, and retaliate out of a sense that their lives really don't matter in your world view. This is what you secretly fear.
This individualism you cling to as a personal responsibility has always been a delusion, just as the possibility for self actualization is impossible under the yoke of timeless oppression. When are you going to wake up to the human suffering yielded from systemic bigotry and discrimination? When the ones you are afraid of are at your front door? Your fears are the problem. The solution rejects fear, sets aside denial and requires courage. Become an ally of the oppressed and we will all rise.
This individualism you cling to as a personal responsibility has always been a delusion, just as the possibility for self actualization is impossible under the yoke of timeless oppression. When are you going to wake up to the human suffering yielded from systemic bigotry and discrimination? When the ones you are afraid of are at your front door? Your fears are the problem. The solution rejects fear, sets aside denial and requires courage. Become an ally of the oppressed and we will all rise.
Let us not forget that we had a choice back in the 1960s, a war on poverty or the war in Vietnam. If we had used the money we wasted in Vietnam (we did lose that war) and had instead put it into Head-Start, public housing, jobs programs, etc. perhaps history for black men would have turned out differently. Instead we sent them off to Vietnam in disproportionate numbers only to watch many of them return (those that did) either angry, disillisioned or addicted to drugs. Then we enacted draconian drug laws that fell on black neighborhoods like a plague. As a middle-aged, middle-class white person who did not grow up in a stable household and did not have any discernible advantage other than I was white ...all I can say is that one of my parents focussed all her parenting on making sure I got educated...that was all it took along with a fair bit of luck. There is a piece in the Times today about a black kid who made it to Harvard as is now an NFL prospect despite daunting odds. It is possible. It takes responsible, informed parenting and a wider community that really cares and isn't just going through the motions. Back in the 60s there was a notion called the Black Nation...that's not a bad one. If we treated the Black Nation in America as we do nations in the developing world we might begin to get somewhere. Let's not pretend, like the French, that we are all on the same page.
44
Yep, minority males participated in the Vietnam war disproportionately. There were FEWER, not more. In actual fact, the white guys had trouble with health and fitness, the others had trouble with the IQ test. The facts, please.
There was also a shortage of Hispanic males, although they were drafted whether or not they were citizens. Seems like not a lot of youngish men wanted to come to America, and likely be drafted.
Like it or not, the Vietnam war was started, led, fought, and lost, by a bunch of white guys (primarily). I'm one of them....
There was also a shortage of Hispanic males, although they were drafted whether or not they were citizens. Seems like not a lot of youngish men wanted to come to America, and likely be drafted.
Like it or not, the Vietnam war was started, led, fought, and lost, by a bunch of white guys (primarily). I'm one of them....
I can be sure that the 100s commenting on any such article as this will express all the familiar thoughts expressed at previous similar columns. That is why I choose to focus on the words, concepts, and phrasing. Pedantic? yes.
The two words and the concepts they represent that are consistently used less carefully than I should like are "race" and racism. Consider this sentence:
"...The sociologist...has meticulously researched the effect of race on hiring policies..."
I argue that what she probably has researched is the effect of RACISM on hiring policies..."
Does it matter? Yes it does. Each of us has a father and a mother whom we did not choose. As my logo says, IMWHOIM. Read the comments of two of my favorites, Josh Hill and blackmamba. Blackmamba is clearest today, read him. We cannot change our particular makeup referred to in the USA (my home) as "race". We cannot change our genome (but see personalized medicine), but maybe we can change a racist for the better.
The person doing the hiring has a makeup that may contain elements he or she was not born with but has developed and even embraced. Those elements may well contain one or more forms of racism and it is that racism that is expressed by the person doing the evaluation.
I shall read Devah Pager, new to me today, to see if she really researched the effect of "race" or was it racism.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
The two words and the concepts they represent that are consistently used less carefully than I should like are "race" and racism. Consider this sentence:
"...The sociologist...has meticulously researched the effect of race on hiring policies..."
I argue that what she probably has researched is the effect of RACISM on hiring policies..."
Does it matter? Yes it does. Each of us has a father and a mother whom we did not choose. As my logo says, IMWHOIM. Read the comments of two of my favorites, Josh Hill and blackmamba. Blackmamba is clearest today, read him. We cannot change our particular makeup referred to in the USA (my home) as "race". We cannot change our genome (but see personalized medicine), but maybe we can change a racist for the better.
The person doing the hiring has a makeup that may contain elements he or she was not born with but has developed and even embraced. Those elements may well contain one or more forms of racism and it is that racism that is expressed by the person doing the evaluation.
I shall read Devah Pager, new to me today, to see if she really researched the effect of "race" or was it racism.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
3
I would like to see the follow-up to this op-ed which examines cause and effect of today's reality, especially:
1. White flight:
The folly of mandatory busing in the late 60's - early 70's, led to "gerrymandered" school districts, where the property-tax based funding of schools created inequality in education dedicated to the "burbs" vs. inner cities and poor rural communities. After so many years of this, I fear that poor education became systemic in some of these districts.
2. For-Profit Prison Industry:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-prison-industry-in-the-united-states-bi...
3. High court fees and the impact on the poor:
http://www.npr.org/2014/05/19/312158516/increasing-court-fees-punish-the...
1. White flight:
The folly of mandatory busing in the late 60's - early 70's, led to "gerrymandered" school districts, where the property-tax based funding of schools created inequality in education dedicated to the "burbs" vs. inner cities and poor rural communities. After so many years of this, I fear that poor education became systemic in some of these districts.
2. For-Profit Prison Industry:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-prison-industry-in-the-united-states-bi...
3. High court fees and the impact on the poor:
http://www.npr.org/2014/05/19/312158516/increasing-court-fees-punish-the...
4
This article is my reality. Student loans? Check✔ Bills to pay? Check✔ Employment is now where to be seen. I have heard the term "overqualified" more times than I can count. We live in a country that states if you do the right thing you will be treated fairly or at least be able to sustain yourself.
This is a lie!
As an African American, it seems that I am required to pay the same premium taxes as all American while receiving 2nd and 3rd rate citizenship.
I have a graduate degree and 20 years experience and I am technically homeless. So not only do I see the realities that this article discusses. I live them.
Here is to hoping that the privileged finally remove their heads from their collective pampered rear end and accept the fact that we have not lived in a "meritocracy" for quite some time now.
We are told to vote, organize, talk to our representatives and a multitude of other options that I have tried. They have helped very little. While I am not giving up, I have learned one very valuable piece of information...THE SYSTEM IS BROKEN, NOT ME!
Too bad that the words of people like myself may not be heard until generations latter when they research the truth. Its almost like looking at the story of Tesla in 2015. Yes, he is finally getting some justice, but he certainly isn't around to enjoy it and died in poverty and obscurity.
The very least our government can offer is less taxation if you aren't truly representing people like me.
The Bankers are winning!
This is a lie!
As an African American, it seems that I am required to pay the same premium taxes as all American while receiving 2nd and 3rd rate citizenship.
I have a graduate degree and 20 years experience and I am technically homeless. So not only do I see the realities that this article discusses. I live them.
Here is to hoping that the privileged finally remove their heads from their collective pampered rear end and accept the fact that we have not lived in a "meritocracy" for quite some time now.
We are told to vote, organize, talk to our representatives and a multitude of other options that I have tried. They have helped very little. While I am not giving up, I have learned one very valuable piece of information...THE SYSTEM IS BROKEN, NOT ME!
Too bad that the words of people like myself may not be heard until generations latter when they research the truth. Its almost like looking at the story of Tesla in 2015. Yes, he is finally getting some justice, but he certainly isn't around to enjoy it and died in poverty and obscurity.
The very least our government can offer is less taxation if you aren't truly representing people like me.
The Bankers are winning!
13
Even if drug possession and use is made legal and the blacks are not incarcerated for such 'non-violent' drug use, employers may not hire those whose blood test results show drug use. Secondly, drug use may be non-violent behavior but many blacks who use drugs resort to 'violence' such as robbing corner stores (as Mike Brown did in Ferguson) or carjacking to support their addiction.
I am baffled why the Times and other spokespersons for black community do not suggest that the blacks with drug habits and intransigent behavior in schools clean up their acts and become employable. I know a PS teacher in NYC who teaches at a Bronx school, and she cries every day after coming home from school because some of the black kids in her class dare her to 'expel' them and use B word when addressing her. I would imagine that anyone who shows such disrespectful behavior in schools - be their white or black or brown - should not be allowed within 10 miles of that school.
I would like to know how many blacks the Times would hire notwithstanding their drug history. Your walk does not match the talk.
I am baffled why the Times and other spokespersons for black community do not suggest that the blacks with drug habits and intransigent behavior in schools clean up their acts and become employable. I know a PS teacher in NYC who teaches at a Bronx school, and she cries every day after coming home from school because some of the black kids in her class dare her to 'expel' them and use B word when addressing her. I would imagine that anyone who shows such disrespectful behavior in schools - be their white or black or brown - should not be allowed within 10 miles of that school.
I would like to know how many blacks the Times would hire notwithstanding their drug history. Your walk does not match the talk.
18
purposefully missing the point is a big part of the problem.
This all stems from our fear of people we perceive as different. Since whites are overwhelmingly in power the results are poor for blacks. It's really that simple.
2
Nothing is "that simple." Milestones in the treatment of Sub-Saharan Africans start in Genesis, and continue through European rapacious colonialism. "Whom the Gods would destroy, they first make mad" was applied as "whom the powerful would injure, they first degrade." The powerful English did it all over the empire, including in England itself and In Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Remember Hitler's "untermensch?"
What is the percentage of black murder victims by other blacks compared to the murder rate of black murder victims by white police officers? I bet even if we added all police officers to that list, the percentage of deaths by police officers would be miniscule compared to black on black crime.
8
The same would be true of compared to white on white deaths.
From the Washington Times, Tues., 4/21/15:
“…An analysis released last week shows that more white people died at the hands of law enforcement than those of any other race in the last two years, even as the Justice Department, social-justice groups and media coverage focus on black victims of police force…
…As researchers are quick to point out, FBI data on police shootings by race is notoriously incomplete, which may explain why Peter Moskos, assistant professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice at the City University of New York, decided to use figures from the website Killed by Police.
Based on that data, Mr. Moskos reported that roughly 49 percent of those killed by officers from May 2013 to April 2015 were white, while 30 percent were black. He also found that 19 percent were Hispanic and 2 percent were Asian and other races…
…‘Adjusted for the homicide rate, whites are 1.7 times more likely than blacks die at the hands of police,’ he said. ‘Adjusted for the racial disparity at which police are feloniously killed, whites are 1.3 times more likely than blacks to die at the hands of police.’…
…Despite the recent flood of media coverage involving police shootings, Mr. Moskos adds ... ‘The odds that a black man will be shot and killed by a police officer is about 1 in 60,000. For a white man those odds are 1 in 200,000’...”
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/apr/21/police-kill-more-whites-...
“…An analysis released last week shows that more white people died at the hands of law enforcement than those of any other race in the last two years, even as the Justice Department, social-justice groups and media coverage focus on black victims of police force…
…As researchers are quick to point out, FBI data on police shootings by race is notoriously incomplete, which may explain why Peter Moskos, assistant professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice at the City University of New York, decided to use figures from the website Killed by Police.
Based on that data, Mr. Moskos reported that roughly 49 percent of those killed by officers from May 2013 to April 2015 were white, while 30 percent were black. He also found that 19 percent were Hispanic and 2 percent were Asian and other races…
…‘Adjusted for the homicide rate, whites are 1.7 times more likely than blacks die at the hands of police,’ he said. ‘Adjusted for the racial disparity at which police are feloniously killed, whites are 1.3 times more likely than blacks to die at the hands of police.’…
…Despite the recent flood of media coverage involving police shootings, Mr. Moskos adds ... ‘The odds that a black man will be shot and killed by a police officer is about 1 in 60,000. For a white man those odds are 1 in 200,000’...”
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/apr/21/police-kill-more-whites-...
The breakdown of the African American family, due in part to Lyndon Johnson's Great Society incentivizing out of wedlock births, devastates the inner cities.
Not to mention our need as a people to have more stuff, for less and less cost, which sent the jobs to China.
Incentivize black dads to stay with their kids and bring back manufacturing!
Not to mention our need as a people to have more stuff, for less and less cost, which sent the jobs to China.
Incentivize black dads to stay with their kids and bring back manufacturing!
14
@George:"and bring back manufacturing!"
The issue of the US losing it's manufacturing base is alluded to my many but I have seen no NY Times OP-ED piece address what it would take to bring it back to this country. And before anyone says it, only a fraction of the problem is due to US companies off-shoring. Think of the word "import".
I lived within a couple of miles of Dodge Main and saw the jobs machine it was (in those fabulous 50's and 60's).
But the US consumers have made their decision. For March of 2015 import sales led domestic sales by 2 to 1 for automobiles. For the truck market the US has a 3 to 2 lead over imports.
Now everyone quit pointing the finger at others when lamenting the collapse of the manufacturing jobs base that powered the Post-War Golden Age.
The issue of the US losing it's manufacturing base is alluded to my many but I have seen no NY Times OP-ED piece address what it would take to bring it back to this country. And before anyone says it, only a fraction of the problem is due to US companies off-shoring. Think of the word "import".
I lived within a couple of miles of Dodge Main and saw the jobs machine it was (in those fabulous 50's and 60's).
But the US consumers have made their decision. For March of 2015 import sales led domestic sales by 2 to 1 for automobiles. For the truck market the US has a 3 to 2 lead over imports.
Now everyone quit pointing the finger at others when lamenting the collapse of the manufacturing jobs base that powered the Post-War Golden Age.
The root of the problem is the collapse of the black family. Mainly because of moral failings, coupled with people fleeing from personal responsibility. What follows is the consequences that are outlined in the article. The idea that 'deindustrialization' or any of the other negative conditions that followed are some how the root cause, misses the true nature of the problem. The fact that 83% get it right, should tell you the problem is not 'blackness'. Thinking another government program will solve the problem reinforces the flawed approach The Times is again taking.
15
In this editorial I fail to see one iota of responsibility attributed to the black community for its own plight, but once again blacks are all made victims of white society. At the same time the editorial is completely barren of any solution to the problem but is itself racist because it is premised on white guilt and on the tragically mistaken notion that the black community is unable to empower itself. The little progress that has been made since the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 only underscores the failure of government and the futility of well meaning white intervention as a solution to the problem.
20
Three processes are discussed in this insightful editorial -- (1) the rise of incarceration rates and the war on drugs, (2) the disappearance of so-called low-skill jobs, and (3) the persistence of racism in US culture -- that, while having different starting points and very different internal dynamics, intersected in a very toxic fashion in the lives of Black males the 1980s. From Reagan's rambling, fact-light anecdotes to Bush and Atwater's appalling use of Willie Horton, images of Black failings/criminality were one of the few uniting elements in Reagan's coalition of religious working-/lower-middle class whites (who were being stripped of union protection, while losing ground in the work place) and the much smaller (overwhelmingly White elite) who were doing very well off of Reagan's policies.
There were hidden trickle-down "benefits" in this intersection that were not discussed in this piece, however, such as prison jobs (one of the last unionized sectors of the economy (when they are run by the state) and the prison construction boom itself (and all the local opportunities in that great American pastime of land speculation that this boom offered)). This extraction formalized in the 1990s with increasing use of outsourced prisoner labor in the value chain. This "Prison mode of Production", as scholars such as Angela Davis and others have noted, puts a lot of disparate social and economic interests in growing rates of incarceration. It will not be an easy nut to crack.
There were hidden trickle-down "benefits" in this intersection that were not discussed in this piece, however, such as prison jobs (one of the last unionized sectors of the economy (when they are run by the state) and the prison construction boom itself (and all the local opportunities in that great American pastime of land speculation that this boom offered)). This extraction formalized in the 1990s with increasing use of outsourced prisoner labor in the value chain. This "Prison mode of Production", as scholars such as Angela Davis and others have noted, puts a lot of disparate social and economic interests in growing rates of incarceration. It will not be an easy nut to crack.
3
Pull up your pants, cut your hair, quit mumbling and joins society. Works today just like it did for the hippies in the 60s.
11
The "hippies" were white who re-joined their own society.
I am so sick of perspectives that use the black and white lense.
The reality is that we are going to need all brains and all talents in order to solve the very grave problems that are facing humanity.
Each wasted mind is a tragedy—whatever the phenotype.
The reality is that we are going to need all brains and all talents in order to solve the very grave problems that are facing humanity.
Each wasted mind is a tragedy—whatever the phenotype.
3
How about joining the army? It's a good, well paying job, now that there hasn't been a draft for forty years. And, it's a second chance for everyone when they hit their 18th birthday. Males, females, gay, black, white, whatever!!!
5
Black men have been doing that.
Some solution, though.
Some solution, though.
"How about joining the army?"
Or the Navy, Air Force or even the Coast Guard.
Or the Navy, Air Force or even the Coast Guard.
1
Thanks to having mixed race kids, I, a white person, learned how institutional racism works. (Lovely) Before we had sons, we had no experience of the insidious subtle institutionalized racism that goes on in the US these day, post drug wars. Tellingly, this was the first time I heard my black husband willingly cite racism, something he was always loathe to do.
The fright went thus: A nurse in a clinic who oversaw our sons' ADHD medication (controlled), claimed that a pediatrician my husband saw once reported that my husband walked into the office and promptly asked for drugs for his own use. Damned weird, we thought: Husband had had high security clearance, worked at White House (OMB), was taught by Paul Krugman at Princeton, was primarily an athlete (a runner) and to anyone with any sense, not a drug user. Horrified, I probed the doctor who supposedly made the accusation, and he found it risible. Would he do anything to clear our name? No. (That would jeopardize his position on the board of the prestigious hospital.) After the accusing nurse met us, she seemed to see her mistake, but the hospital would undo nothing, not on appeal. They shamed us and kicked our children out of the children's hospital program. Our kids' original pediatrician also discarded us. Persona non grata, we limped back to Africa to escape the US insanity.
I was shamed, and our kids were silently harmed. I will never again trust doctors, police, the system. No longer "white, free, and 21," I guess.
The fright went thus: A nurse in a clinic who oversaw our sons' ADHD medication (controlled), claimed that a pediatrician my husband saw once reported that my husband walked into the office and promptly asked for drugs for his own use. Damned weird, we thought: Husband had had high security clearance, worked at White House (OMB), was taught by Paul Krugman at Princeton, was primarily an athlete (a runner) and to anyone with any sense, not a drug user. Horrified, I probed the doctor who supposedly made the accusation, and he found it risible. Would he do anything to clear our name? No. (That would jeopardize his position on the board of the prestigious hospital.) After the accusing nurse met us, she seemed to see her mistake, but the hospital would undo nothing, not on appeal. They shamed us and kicked our children out of the children's hospital program. Our kids' original pediatrician also discarded us. Persona non grata, we limped back to Africa to escape the US insanity.
I was shamed, and our kids were silently harmed. I will never again trust doctors, police, the system. No longer "white, free, and 21," I guess.
186
Stories of prejudice against upscale blacks cut both ways. They suggest that color is the problem, which is only partly true. A good part of prejudice is cultural, the culture of the black underclass. What happens to upscale blacks is unpleasant. What happens to the underclass can be deadly. I think upscale blacks -- who get to tell their stories to upscale whites -- have an obligation to add that things are much worse for poor blacks.
How do you force black men - and a few inconvenient white non-conforming skeptics as well - out of society? Here in Florida, they've got that down to a science. Just about EVERYTHING can be turned into a felony. Sitting in an area sheltered by a roof while waiting for a bus? Felony trespass. Knocking on someone's door after walking up to it along the walk through their front yard, and taking too long (a few knocks will do) before, after no answer, giving up and walking away? If a cop sees you before you've exited the front - private property - the same charge, or perhaps burglary. Were you too slow in getting out if an impatient store owner or employee got miffed because you hadn't bought anything, and they ordered you to leave? Here we go again. And then, of course, there are the drug laws, in which the traditional common law doctrines of scienter and mens rea - knowledge and criminal intent (literally, 'evil mind') - have been specifically thrown out as requirements for a conviction. If the drugs are on you, you're going down. Regardless of how they got there. Oh, and if you're on prescribed legal narcotics for severe pain, and you went to Dr No.2 because Dr No.1 gave you a prescription for a pittance of a dose compared to what you've been regularly taking for years, that's 'doctor shopping'. You guessed it - a felony.
And when will you get your voting rights back after paying your 'debt to society'. Hint - expect snow here first. Here, one strike, and you're out.
And when will you get your voting rights back after paying your 'debt to society'. Hint - expect snow here first. Here, one strike, and you're out.
30
There is a organized conspiracy in the United States to remove black men from society through the use of brutal drug laws. It's so obvious, it's mind blowing, yet we continue doing it. It continues to blow my mind that we as a society allow this to happen.
And by the way, it's working perfectly. Job well done. +10 (sic)
And yet we do nothing. Nothing at all to change.
And by the way, it's working perfectly. Job well done. +10 (sic)
And yet we do nothing. Nothing at all to change.
16
The other way to look at this is to realize that most Americans don't want to live in a society that embraces easy access to addictive drugs, with all the social ills that that brings. I struggle almost every day to keep my teenage son away from drugs because I know where that slippery slope can lead. Since that's my goal (and it may not be yours) I support criminal penalties for the adults who would like to make a living by getting him addicted to one drug or another. And I feel the same way whether his dealer ends up being white, black or brown. Do I want to see my son's life ruined if he makes a bad decision and gets himself arrested for possession? No. But he knows the ramifications of walking that path and if he decides to take it ... that will be on him. It will not have been something that somebody else did to him. He will have done it to himself.
If you lived in NYC in the mid/late 80s you might remember what the crack epidemic meant for people just trying to go about their daily lives - cars broken into regularly, aggressive panhandlers, violent muggings, the "squeege guys," etc etc. Wanting to live a better life than that does not make you a racist.
If you lived in NYC in the mid/late 80s you might remember what the crack epidemic meant for people just trying to go about their daily lives - cars broken into regularly, aggressive panhandlers, violent muggings, the "squeege guys," etc etc. Wanting to live a better life than that does not make you a racist.
1
Come on NYT, report the numbers. How many of the 1.5 million black men died young and how many were in jail. My guess, less that 1% died young. This board is unwilling to report that fact! 1.985 million black men commit crimes and end up in jail. How many black men have children and pay absolutely nothing to support them? The number is millions more than the 1.5 million. Just count the children with no father around. Then, we wonder why the children end up out of school and repeat the crime cycle.
Oh, I know, it is all because the police have it in for blacks. This problem will never change until the parents involved, whatever color, accept their responsibility.
Oh, I know, it is all because the police have it in for blacks. This problem will never change until the parents involved, whatever color, accept their responsibility.
108
Its difficult to find a solution when you're part of the problem.
1
interesting how so many readers even of the nytimes refuse to see the truth, embracing attitudes that are clearly racist.
1
You might want to read the article a second time. You agree with the author that absent fathers are a problem. What you don't realize is that - for the same 'crime' - blacks are put in prison and better off white people are given a warning. As the article points out, once you are labeled and black, jobs are harder to come by.
To illustrate the challenge of 'going straight' one white bank robber on probation couldn't get a job to pay his probation fees and risked going back to prison. Guess what he did to get money to pay his fee? You, sadly, are emblematic of the un-christian attitude that has created a huge underclass mired in poverty.
To illustrate the challenge of 'going straight' one white bank robber on probation couldn't get a job to pay his probation fees and risked going back to prison. Guess what he did to get money to pay his fee? You, sadly, are emblematic of the un-christian attitude that has created a huge underclass mired in poverty.
2
These analyses have a point, to a point,.
However, for the Times to espouse that 1.5 million black men are "missing," like the desparacidos of Latin America a decade ago, is pure propaganda.
Many black men are "missing," but not because they were forced into jail, but because some made poor choices. In my neighborhood, like almost every immigrant group before them, it was common among black families to have one son go to college, and the other go to jail.
The public library was open to all and it was free. Going to the public library then, for black teens, was often seen as "acting white," and I saw plenty of black students derided for doing so. But those black teens did not go to jail.
Describing "the many grievous cases of unarmed black men and boys who were shot dead by the police — now routinely captured on video — ," is engaging in irresponsible falsity. You do not have to be armed to pose a deadly threat and policing is a dangerous business. While white and black cops battle daily urban crime, largely black on black, you have just made it more dangerous through lumping together disparate cases like the notorious Walter Scott shooting, with Michael Brown who committed strong arm robbery moments before he tried to wrestle a gun from a cop,
Congratulations. But I suppose we can do away with the armed security guards at the Times building.
However, for the Times to espouse that 1.5 million black men are "missing," like the desparacidos of Latin America a decade ago, is pure propaganda.
Many black men are "missing," but not because they were forced into jail, but because some made poor choices. In my neighborhood, like almost every immigrant group before them, it was common among black families to have one son go to college, and the other go to jail.
The public library was open to all and it was free. Going to the public library then, for black teens, was often seen as "acting white," and I saw plenty of black students derided for doing so. But those black teens did not go to jail.
Describing "the many grievous cases of unarmed black men and boys who were shot dead by the police — now routinely captured on video — ," is engaging in irresponsible falsity. You do not have to be armed to pose a deadly threat and policing is a dangerous business. While white and black cops battle daily urban crime, largely black on black, you have just made it more dangerous through lumping together disparate cases like the notorious Walter Scott shooting, with Michael Brown who committed strong arm robbery moments before he tried to wrestle a gun from a cop,
Congratulations. But I suppose we can do away with the armed security guards at the Times building.
107
Ah yes, someone finally says it like it is.
Your bootstrap argument ignores that while drug use among whites and blacks are roughly the same, black drug users are far more likely to be imprisoned than whites caught with the same amount. The young white who makes a mistake is more likely to walk away with a clean slate. The young black has a conviction to hang over his neck the rest of his life.
Similarly your 'policing is dangerous' creed. Most first world countries have economically and racially diverse populations presenting difficult challenges to their police forces. Yet the rate of individuals shot - most black - and killed in the United States is proportionately well above that of any other first world country.
Similarly your 'policing is dangerous' creed. Most first world countries have economically and racially diverse populations presenting difficult challenges to their police forces. Yet the rate of individuals shot - most black - and killed in the United States is proportionately well above that of any other first world country.
What about those studies that show that Caribbean (and other) black immigrants fare far better than native black Americans? Time to look elsewhere.
90
Note that in the Times such distinctions are never made. A major flaw.
Nope descendants of former slaves have been and are treated differently. The way they have been treated influences current behavior.
1
Segregation replaced slavery and mass incarceration replaced segregation. But there is something else going on, mass ignorance. Right wing media, talk radio and cable "news" networks like Fox have spent the last thirty years conditioning the minds of white america to blame the victim no matter what the circumstances, no matter what the evidence shows about the regressive, repressive, racist nature of american society. It has now become a hardcore three ring circus of denial involving the media, the government and even the churches and other civic institutions that speak to whites.
Since the end of slavery 150 years ago black america has had to fight two battles, overcoming the crippling affect of being held for over two centuries as white peoples chattel property and overcoming the headwinds of white peoples use of the power they have as the numerical majority to continue crippling the ability of black america to stabilize and prosper.
Since the end of slavery 150 years ago black america has had to fight two battles, overcoming the crippling affect of being held for over two centuries as white peoples chattel property and overcoming the headwinds of white peoples use of the power they have as the numerical majority to continue crippling the ability of black america to stabilize and prosper.
46
Justifying criminal behavior only make the situation worse and actually exacerbates the problem. Pretending that somehow an individual deciding to be a criminal thinks about what happened before they were born is utter nonsense.
Very well stated.
1
This editorial illustrates the failure to use the language as carefully as it must be used. Color is not "race". African American is not a synonym for black. A well written editorial and a well done study would define each of these variables carefully. If the variable used is color then do not conflate that with "race".
One-variable thinking is not helpful. Mark Thomason makes this point very clearly and readers have responded by placing his comment along with Josh Hill's comment at the top of reader recommends where I am sure they will remain until comments are closed.
I make the same point in my first comment appearing 4th in chronological sequence. A pilot project on voting behavior found that the probability of voting Republican or Democratic could be related to skin color, that is to Duke Ellington's color scale Black, Brown, and Beige.
Both Josh Hill and Mark Thomason tell us, the researchers, and the Times Editors - See the problems as they are and provide far better data than we yet have.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
One-variable thinking is not helpful. Mark Thomason makes this point very clearly and readers have responded by placing his comment along with Josh Hill's comment at the top of reader recommends where I am sure they will remain until comments are closed.
I make the same point in my first comment appearing 4th in chronological sequence. A pilot project on voting behavior found that the probability of voting Republican or Democratic could be related to skin color, that is to Duke Ellington's color scale Black, Brown, and Beige.
Both Josh Hill and Mark Thomason tell us, the researchers, and the Times Editors - See the problems as they are and provide far better data than we yet have.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
4
In fact race is not a determinant in calculations on the place of ethnic minorities in US society. "race" in homo sapiens is a nothing, a bogeyman, an ephemera invented by literature and ignorance to explain away cultural differences. What you might call race is a visual distinguisher only. There is no difference, intrinsically, between a Swede and an an African. It's visual, ONLY.
So your points, while interesting, need not be anywhere as severe and still remain what they are; simply interesting, not definitive.
So your points, while interesting, need not be anywhere as severe and still remain what they are; simply interesting, not definitive.
1
Actually, having lived in the US for decades, and having become accustomed to the nuances of daily language (not just that of research papers) I have to tell you, Larry, African-American is a functional synonym for Black, particularly as understood in the old slave term of a "touch of the tar-brush."
Fy fan! What more data do you need when the facts are obvious? The prisons are stuffed with Blacks who are there for crimes that would merit a slap on the wrist for Whites. The death penalty has been selectively applied. Justice has been selectively applied on a variety of fronts. And if you have a problem with the American language, check out the modern meaning of "a rough ride" as used by cops in Baltimore when they throw a handcuffed (behind the back) Black in the back of a van and deliberately do not secure him before taking the van on a wild ride.
Fy fan! What more data do you need when the facts are obvious? The prisons are stuffed with Blacks who are there for crimes that would merit a slap on the wrist for Whites. The death penalty has been selectively applied. Justice has been selectively applied on a variety of fronts. And if you have a problem with the American language, check out the modern meaning of "a rough ride" as used by cops in Baltimore when they throw a handcuffed (behind the back) Black in the back of a van and deliberately do not secure him before taking the van on a wild ride.
1
A quick review of the Afro-American's experience while in America will reveal why this is happening now. You will find a systemic philosophy of rules very detrimental to their welfare and economic growth.
Their dehumanization began early in American history and many still if not consciously, subconsciously believe Blacks are second class citizens predominately but not confined to just the southern regions of this country.
Economics played a much deeper role in this than racism especially after slavery. In this country capitalism and racism are unfortunately woven into the very fabric of American society and this double-barreled shotgun is aimed right at America’s Afro-Americans.
Their dehumanization began early in American history and many still if not consciously, subconsciously believe Blacks are second class citizens predominately but not confined to just the southern regions of this country.
Economics played a much deeper role in this than racism especially after slavery. In this country capitalism and racism are unfortunately woven into the very fabric of American society and this double-barreled shotgun is aimed right at America’s Afro-Americans.
15
Racism was and is a factor. Now add neoliberalism and this completes the picture. Blacks must unite to behave as successors not failures. The aversion to acting white has to be expelled from their mind set . The best revenge is success. Let's do it sisters and brothers.
1
It should be surprising, but unfortunately it is not, that many of the commenters adhere to prejudices they already have and refuse to actually read and understand the editorial. The article implies that structural deficiencies are the root of the problems that we witness. Even if black males commit more violent crimes than other demographic groups, for example, that says nothing about WHY this disparity exists. Here are only two REASONS the editorial suggests: a shrinking labor market and incarceration for non-violent crimes, which have decimated black neighborhoods. Thus no, the editorial does not suggest that blackness itself is the cause of missing black men, although it would be silly to suggest that racial discrimination does not exist in the US. Just reread the section on Devah Pager's work.
25
Marginalization of minority citizens has been the agenda of neo-conservative ideologists since they were threatened by the voting rights act that Lyndon Johnson signed in 1965.
That campaign included the Crime Bill of 1994 which when combined with the CIA importation of drugs under Reagan, led to huge numbers of Black and Hispanic males going to prison and losing their voting rights. The focus is on controlling the elections, state by state in America to continue rule by the wealthy.
That campaign included the Crime Bill of 1994 which when combined with the CIA importation of drugs under Reagan, led to huge numbers of Black and Hispanic males going to prison and losing their voting rights. The focus is on controlling the elections, state by state in America to continue rule by the wealthy.
35
So the R's are controlling elections by gerrymandering congressional districts that they cannot lose and also over incarcerating minorities?
Are the D's allowing in waves of minority immigrants-future D voters as a counter-attack? Is this why the R's are so furious about immigrants?
Is this how our democracy works?
Are the D's allowing in waves of minority immigrants-future D voters as a counter-attack? Is this why the R's are so furious about immigrants?
Is this how our democracy works?
The loss of voting rights after conviction for a felony goes back to ancient times, it was called Civil Death. Nothing to do with Neo-conservatives, 1965, 1994 or Reagan. New York, Baltimore, Washington, Detroit, Chicago, Los Angles and Philadelphia the places in this country most effected by Black male marginalization are and have been controlled by liberal Democrats. Sorry, there is no Republican boggy man in this subject.
You really think that the people who are in jail would be voters if they had never been imprisoned? Considering that the voting rate among high functioning Americans is pretty low, it seems unlikely to me that these people who would otherwise be living on the margins would be voters if they were on the outside.
I'll stick with what I know. Teachers and administrators in my school district are not racists. I have seen multiple times when a Black kid was given a break and not suspended - primarily because we do everything we can to avoid suspending Black students. Administrators actively worry about accusations around race anytime they suspend a Black kid.
Our district's Black population is 9% and Black students represent 37% of our suspensions for 2013-2014. The most vilified group in California, we locked up every Japanese in 1942, has historically been Asians. Our district's Asian population is 30%, they represent 12% of our suspensions.
In my experience, students are suspended because of their behavior. Children should be able to get an education without fear of being hurt or robbed. They should not have their learning constantly disrupted by children who don't want an education. I have 32 students in my classroom. One disruptive child can cause 31 students to lose important amounts of learning time.
Disruptive or violent behavior needs to stop. If students don't want to be suspended, they need to change their behavior.
And there are lots of Black children who never have any problem of note at school. And they want a good education too. Lots of children, of all colors, get raised by single mothers without many resources. Most of them grow up without getting in too much trouble, and do reasonably well in life, I did.
Our district's Black population is 9% and Black students represent 37% of our suspensions for 2013-2014. The most vilified group in California, we locked up every Japanese in 1942, has historically been Asians. Our district's Asian population is 30%, they represent 12% of our suspensions.
In my experience, students are suspended because of their behavior. Children should be able to get an education without fear of being hurt or robbed. They should not have their learning constantly disrupted by children who don't want an education. I have 32 students in my classroom. One disruptive child can cause 31 students to lose important amounts of learning time.
Disruptive or violent behavior needs to stop. If students don't want to be suspended, they need to change their behavior.
And there are lots of Black children who never have any problem of note at school. And they want a good education too. Lots of children, of all colors, get raised by single mothers without many resources. Most of them grow up without getting in too much trouble, and do reasonably well in life, I did.
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Some children of single mothers even grow up to be President.
And in many quarters you would be branded a racist for this thoughtful post.
And that is the cancer of policies that refuse to recognize root causes of problems.
And that is the cancer of policies that refuse to recognize root causes of problems.
The statistics are generalized to the overall population. So, what does it say for suspension of students who are largely in minority populations with little to no whites or Asians? I too taught. NYC is very reluctant to suspend students because it reflects on the 'administration'. For example, I once had a student who would repeatedly follow me around punching his fist into his hand as a threat to me. Three separate incidents finally got him to the suspension process where time was served over the spring break! This did a disservice to my many well behaved students who want to learn. The following year this child was designated SPED - did that solve the problem? I think not!
1
The tragedy is they have submitted. They are treated as badly as ever in their history but they have been transformed into such a diminished state of self worth; they have truly given up. A higher number of blacks are admitted into prominent positions and may have turned their backs on their brethren.
They are shooting themselves either with bullets or heroin and shunted off to prison. White society looks the other way. Some day retribution will come.
They are shooting themselves either with bullets or heroin and shunted off to prison. White society looks the other way. Some day retribution will come.
6
All this social dislocation is epi-phenomenal to the most powerful of the forces in play here: Jobs.
When will the honest statements ever be made on this matter in late Capitalism? The very narrow set of values of the economic system will never, ever, produce a broad-based employment opportunity for the full spectrum of society. The functioning values of Capitalism do not permit it.
If, if, if we ever have a genuine interest a highly inclusion employment structure, then other values than those of late Capitalism must be made prominent. The net result of this, in concrete terms, would be a very massive promulgation of non-profit, non-free-enterprise, government jobs, defined and characterized to produce family-supporting income and benefits, considerably independent of the skills the individual job requires.
In such a system, other values than efficiency and effectiveness in job performance and production outcome results will be paramount.
When will the honest statements ever be made on this matter in late Capitalism? The very narrow set of values of the economic system will never, ever, produce a broad-based employment opportunity for the full spectrum of society. The functioning values of Capitalism do not permit it.
If, if, if we ever have a genuine interest a highly inclusion employment structure, then other values than those of late Capitalism must be made prominent. The net result of this, in concrete terms, would be a very massive promulgation of non-profit, non-free-enterprise, government jobs, defined and characterized to produce family-supporting income and benefits, considerably independent of the skills the individual job requires.
In such a system, other values than efficiency and effectiveness in job performance and production outcome results will be paramount.
Personal acts have consequences
In the Dept of America, the Black race is still devalued, by most of white Americans, behind closed doors of course. But in public, we will continue to create the illusion that we are supportive of your race, and smile in your face but behind closed doors, it is something entirely different which really has not changed that much through the years, which is still a majority rule of white folks who still make the final decisions in Washington, who will continue to keep blacks and whites separate at whatever cost, unless you have a cam corder to prove otherwise.
8
The shrinking labor market for low-skilled workers is a direct result of illegal immigration, which has been cheered by the editorial page of this paper.
81
So your answer to black unemployment and poverty is to take the unpleasant, undesirable, low-paid no-benefit jobs of undocumented Mexican immigrants and... give them to black men... What a good deal! Have they said "Thanks" yet?
No pain no strain for the corporations who have off-shored our manufacturing jobs, not because off-shore manufacturing is "better," but because the corporations thereby off-shore practices that would be illegal here: no-minimum wages, dangerous working conditions, limitless hours, no right to unionize, child labor, and environmental destruction.
Anyway, thanks for the racist, xenophobic... "idea." I'm sure it's appropriately esteemed.
No pain no strain for the corporations who have off-shored our manufacturing jobs, not because off-shore manufacturing is "better," but because the corporations thereby off-shore practices that would be illegal here: no-minimum wages, dangerous working conditions, limitless hours, no right to unionize, child labor, and environmental destruction.
Anyway, thanks for the racist, xenophobic... "idea." I'm sure it's appropriately esteemed.
1
I wish it were that simple. I am an employer. I can not find qualified willing workers. White men do not want to work. period.
The only thing keeping our economy moving are immigrants.
The only thing keeping our economy moving are immigrants.
That is patently false. I am 70 years old and long before there were waves of immigrants in urban areas, industries shipped jobs overseas in search of cheaper labor and less restrictive regulation. Small towns were devastated when factories were shuttered and 100's of jobs simply disappeared. I have witnessed it first hand in NH. If your commitment is to ensuring higher and higher profits, and you have no commitment to building community or to the labor force you have in front of you, the result is inevitable. It's just capitalism at work.
If you add racism to the mix...it is just a travesty.
If you add racism to the mix...it is just a travesty.
1
The lingering effects of even relatively minor, non-violent crimes have a negative effect on all job seekers, not just blacks. I have been saying for years now that once a period of some length has passed with no further criminal activity, the conviction as well as the arrest records should be permanently and totally expunged. One mistake should not marginalize anyone for life, but that is exactly what happens nowadays, especially with easy Internet access to criminal records, many of which are inaccurate. I would not extend this clean slate to pedophiles as one example, but everyone else should be entitled to one do-over in their lives.
36
Most juvenile offenders get their records sealed when they reach adulthood. Almost all people who commit major crimes start their criminal careers as juveniles. You wish has been granted.
The first thing that black society needs is about 25,000 lawyers of the caliber of Thurgood Marshall to begin protecting the fortunes of black men swept into the criminal processing system. Another 5,000 should be then put to work rebuilding the education system given the ravages of unequal funding and discrimnatory practices at every level.
We have created a penal system in the U.S. where we have only 5% of the people on the planet but 25% of its incarcerated persons. Blacks are disproportionately captured by this system.
Politicians are always quick to point human rights abuses of other countries but it seems that we should examine the abuses within our borders first.
We have created a penal system in the U.S. where we have only 5% of the people on the planet but 25% of its incarcerated persons. Blacks are disproportionately captured by this system.
Politicians are always quick to point human rights abuses of other countries but it seems that we should examine the abuses within our borders first.
40
If US society at large had 25,000 lawyers of the caliber of Thurgood Marshal among our ranks, never mind their ethnic, racial, or religious backgrounds, this nation would be a far better place from top to bottom.
I read, recently, that there are more black men in prison in America today than there were slaves. So what has civil rights done for black people? If you are interested you ought to read Michelle Alexander's book, The New Jim Crow. Another point: a black man getting out of jail cannot get an apartment in public housing. Thank Bill Clinton for that one.
26
Please keep in mind that slaves didn't do anything to deserve their "incarcertation", while the vast majority of those in prison certainly did. While disparate treatment of white vs. black ex-prisoners is unacceptable, to compare prisoners to slaves is hyperbole.
2
Please let's not forget a major variable of successful mothering of children.
12
Really? No mentioning of the 72% single motherhood rate among the black community? Even if 17% of black men are "missing," you still shouldn't be having 72% of your kids to a single mother.
117
And of course the GOP in congress want to defund and destroy Planned Parenthood.
I have watched this horrible phenomenon grow all through my life. I grieve for my close African-American male (and female) friends who suffer from racial profiling, stereotyping, simple, ugly racism. Yes, it is a legacy of slavery, when blacks were not people but property. Today. to many of other races, they are still not "real" people (while corporations, hideously, are.) They are the scary "other."
While I take no special pride in it, because I thought it was merely being human and doing what was right, I vividly recall times where only the fact a black man was with me prevented him from being harassed or worse by police, merchants, people on the street. And sometimes even then, we would both be harassed, because I was obviously a radical race traitor to be in the company of such a person. I fought to have my firm adopt Dr. King's birthday as a firm holiday fully two years before it became a national one. Of that I AM proud. I appointed the first African-American woman to the vice presidency of a non-profit to which I had been elected president. I count black men and women among my most treasured counselors as well as friends, and I am whiter than Casper the Friendly Ghost.
Now, it may be that affirmative action did not truly work. Even if it was morally and economically right. But we clearly need a new kind of affirmative action, not based on race, but on rewarding individuals and companies for creating jobs where they are needed. And punishes those who offshore them.
While I take no special pride in it, because I thought it was merely being human and doing what was right, I vividly recall times where only the fact a black man was with me prevented him from being harassed or worse by police, merchants, people on the street. And sometimes even then, we would both be harassed, because I was obviously a radical race traitor to be in the company of such a person. I fought to have my firm adopt Dr. King's birthday as a firm holiday fully two years before it became a national one. Of that I AM proud. I appointed the first African-American woman to the vice presidency of a non-profit to which I had been elected president. I count black men and women among my most treasured counselors as well as friends, and I am whiter than Casper the Friendly Ghost.
Now, it may be that affirmative action did not truly work. Even if it was morally and economically right. But we clearly need a new kind of affirmative action, not based on race, but on rewarding individuals and companies for creating jobs where they are needed. And punishes those who offshore them.
28
Soon after emancipation, there was a brief period where black males took an equal stand in society. Then Jim Crow and segregation stopped that in its tracks. In WWll, many black males held positions of great responsibility in the military, came home and were treated like dirt. In the 60's, many young blacks were shipped off to Viet Nam, came back to nothing. In 1964, the Civil Rights Act was passed which was supposed to usher in a new era. By 1980, Ronnie what's his name took care of that.
This nation has been pressuring black males since its inception. The tactics have worked. Things have gotten so bad that we now warehouse them in our penitentiaries.
I am no super bleeding heart liberal, but I grew up in the urban core. I witnessed the decline of classmates firsthand. Some of these kids were victims of their own choices. Some were pushed over the edge. In either event, the system, or society, did not provide the social infrastructure they needed. Everything fell apart, neighborhoods, families, bad parents, no parents, jobs, schools. In marched drugs, poverty, violence, gangs, crime and hopelessness.
The response has been to just throw them in jail. Once that starts, there is no way out for most. It's a revolving door to nowhere.
My take is that society just doesn't care. We have created a permanent underclass. Hooray for us. Now what do we do?
This nation has been pressuring black males since its inception. The tactics have worked. Things have gotten so bad that we now warehouse them in our penitentiaries.
I am no super bleeding heart liberal, but I grew up in the urban core. I witnessed the decline of classmates firsthand. Some of these kids were victims of their own choices. Some were pushed over the edge. In either event, the system, or society, did not provide the social infrastructure they needed. Everything fell apart, neighborhoods, families, bad parents, no parents, jobs, schools. In marched drugs, poverty, violence, gangs, crime and hopelessness.
The response has been to just throw them in jail. Once that starts, there is no way out for most. It's a revolving door to nowhere.
My take is that society just doesn't care. We have created a permanent underclass. Hooray for us. Now what do we do?
384
I suspect liberals would like to throw more money at them with government programs. Why not a lifetime stipend of say $50,000 a year based on male African appearance, open to all applicants.
Right on brother ! I am a bleeding heart liberal progressive race man from the South Side of Chicago who watched hopes and dreams and fears and faults and weakness and strengths at every socioeconomic educational level be overcome for a few but crush and succumb the mass of black humanity. The wars on drugs, welfare and public education were and are wars against Black African Americans.
Most of us are bell curve average. Extremes at either end are exceptional.
"Twice as good to go half as far" is the "Guess Who is Coming to Dinner" Super Negro myth. But smiling humble articulate urbane temperate Barack Hussein Obama is still despised as being a Kenyan Luo Arab Muslim socialist usurper by too many whites. And 57 % of white voters in 2008 and 59% in 2012 voted white Republican. While Blacks voted 90+% Democrat as they have since 1964.
If the American colored racial status were reversed and whites changed places with blacks the white suicide rate would increase and there would a violent terrorist uprising as a prelude to the Second Civil War. Black patience and humanity and humility and morality are unknown and ignored. "I am an invisible man". unnamed protagonist "Invisible Man" Ralph Ellison.
Most of us are bell curve average. Extremes at either end are exceptional.
"Twice as good to go half as far" is the "Guess Who is Coming to Dinner" Super Negro myth. But smiling humble articulate urbane temperate Barack Hussein Obama is still despised as being a Kenyan Luo Arab Muslim socialist usurper by too many whites. And 57 % of white voters in 2008 and 59% in 2012 voted white Republican. While Blacks voted 90+% Democrat as they have since 1964.
If the American colored racial status were reversed and whites changed places with blacks the white suicide rate would increase and there would a violent terrorist uprising as a prelude to the Second Civil War. Black patience and humanity and humility and morality are unknown and ignored. "I am an invisible man". unnamed protagonist "Invisible Man" Ralph Ellison.
I'd like to know what happen to the police watch dog organizations? Do they still exist? Not one has been mentioned lately to my knowledge on following up on this egregious epidemic of "black man" hunting season. While this disturbing "sport" spirals out of control--where is President Obama. Sure at the White House Correspondents Dinner making jokes. But this is no joke. Please do your job and help fix this social, legal, moral malaise.
9
Many people avoid jail by avoiding criminal behavior. It is an effective tool and widely recommended.
77
Many criminals avoid jail by being white, being wealthy, and having connections. They are either not caught to begin with, or hire lawyers to make charges dwindle or vanish.
Some even wind up getting bailed out by taxpayers and being given bonuses by their bosses.
Some even wind up getting bailed out by taxpayers and being given bonuses by their bosses.
25
Just thinking, are you aware that blacks and whites use both use drugs, one no more than another? And that a black person is more likely than a white person to be arrested for it? And more likely to be convicted of the same offense? So it's really not as simple as saying avoid criminal behavior, although that would be great it does not help solve the inequality of justice in this country.
I think that the frustration here is in the unequal application of the law. For example, drug use is virtually the same among blacks and whites, but blacks are far more likely to go to jail for it.
Our country needs, no demands a million Jackie Robinsons. Young black men need to step up and prove to the world that they can overcome everything that is stacked against them. My heart cries at the injustices in our country, but black men need to do better. Education is the key, without it an entire segment of our population will remain worthless. With hard work,education and strong families everyone can succeed. Everyone!
17
"Harry" write, " Education is the key, without it an entire segment of our population will remain worthless. With hard work,education and strong families everyone can succeed. Everyone!"
Worthless? No human being is worthless. That includes people who have little or no money, people who are not intelligent, and people who dropped out of school for one or another reason.
Everyone can succeed if they work hard enough? How does that happen when there are far too few jobs, and an ever-increasing proportion of those jobs pay too little to live on?
Oh, just add education and you can succeed? Great--let's start by making quality daycare and BA-level education free.
A "strong family" is also needed? So true. Let's stop imprisoning so many men for minor drug offenses. Without a record they might be able to find a job, and thus feel more able to support a family--and marry. And let's create an America with paid parental leave for those who find work and generous social supports (including welfare and a new Works Progress Administration) for those who can't.
Worthless? No human being is worthless. That includes people who have little or no money, people who are not intelligent, and people who dropped out of school for one or another reason.
Everyone can succeed if they work hard enough? How does that happen when there are far too few jobs, and an ever-increasing proportion of those jobs pay too little to live on?
Oh, just add education and you can succeed? Great--let's start by making quality daycare and BA-level education free.
A "strong family" is also needed? So true. Let's stop imprisoning so many men for minor drug offenses. Without a record they might be able to find a job, and thus feel more able to support a family--and marry. And let's create an America with paid parental leave for those who find work and generous social supports (including welfare and a new Works Progress Administration) for those who can't.
9
Black people have worth, with or without an education.
Does the education they receive in the U.S. prepare them for jobs in the current marketplace?
Does the education they receive in the U.S. prepare them for jobs in the current marketplace?
It's karma. Bring over a race as slaves, and a nation sells it's hypocritical soul. A few decades after liberation and desegregation is obviously not enough time to heal the deep-rooted trauma, the lack of education for the mass of those descendants whose ancestors were exploited. Whites, Asians, even Latino, immigrants came here voluntarily. Native Americans were shoved onto reservations, and most blacks were brought here in chains. Now the Native Americans suffer from alcoholism and the blacks are imprisoned for drug crimes. As an alcoholic, I know depression and anxiety are correlated, and these groups have scars and fears the other immigrants don't. It's a damn shame. But our society is callous and in denial about so many things, from climate change to factory farming, that it is no surprise we deny the amends due to blacks and Native Americans.
136
Amends? Like what? A lifetime pension? For being black?
Racism, whites intolerant of blacks, is 'alive and well', a willful ignorance of the fact that we share a common humanity. These 'blind spots' we choose to have can be exposed for what they are, our own inadequacies and insecurities requiring control of 'the others'. Educating ourselves and maintaining vigilance of subconscious bias may help minimize this injustice, and its shame.
9
“The missing men should be a source of concern to political leaders and policy makers everywhere.”
True. But the Republicans and their base would have it no other way.
True. But the Republicans and their base would have it no other way.
33
New Haven, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Detroit, Chicago, los angles and the States they are in are all controlled and have been controlled by liberal Democrats. But stay smug and avoid the issue by blaming Republicans.
1
In the last few years, the effect of institutional racism has begun to bubble up through the many strata of society. Like a rusty car fender, that has been hastily painted over to allow for a quick sale, the realities engendered by racism are now bubbling up through the hasty applied propaganda that said a black president means the end of racial discrimination. On the contrary, racism now thrives beneath the surface. Occasionally, events like Treyvon Martin, or
12
Racism, as we see today in my hometown of Baltimore and all the other cities where the killings have taken place, is clearly "above" the surface.
There's exactly one politician working to correct the injustices suffered by young black men. Rand Paul.
The lone voice in support of ending the drug war. Teaming up with Cory Booker on sentence reform. Working to reinstate the voting rights of felons.
All this goes to show that he's not only a better conservative than anyone in the Republican field. He's a better liberal than any Democrat.
The lone voice in support of ending the drug war. Teaming up with Cory Booker on sentence reform. Working to reinstate the voting rights of felons.
All this goes to show that he's not only a better conservative than anyone in the Republican field. He's a better liberal than any Democrat.
15
During the Vietnam War, young black GIs died in disproportionate numbers compared to others in their ranks. Your editorial could have cited that fact as well in the not-so-subtle America that has existed from the 20th century before and after.
8
It is the experiment of putting rats together in close quarters. Depriving them of decency and enough resources for all. No caring. No respect. What happens in the animal kingdom bares out in humanity. As long as we shoot balls, catch them or throw them, those of us who can't do so at an elite level must risk the castration of a society that, honestly, doesn't want us here to remind them of the wealth they built on our backs even to this day through the industrial revolution. We are seen as cattle. Animals. It is in how the majority culture treats us, represents our stories and will even adopt our babies but not marry or date us.
There are a few enlightened but the truth is if the majority of white America gave a damn, we wouldn't face any of this. They never will. It's not their struggle nor their care to lift a finger. It serves them no benefit. Push them out of the inner city with gentrification. Keep them out of the suburbs with unlinked mass transit. Keep them out of school with less set asides and more stringent us-only rules. Then smile. Give a few bucks her to the NAACP. Maybe even date a black actress to seem "down." Until we build our own, we will be on the periphery of this nation--as planned and expected.
There are a few enlightened but the truth is if the majority of white America gave a damn, we wouldn't face any of this. They never will. It's not their struggle nor their care to lift a finger. It serves them no benefit. Push them out of the inner city with gentrification. Keep them out of the suburbs with unlinked mass transit. Keep them out of school with less set asides and more stringent us-only rules. Then smile. Give a few bucks her to the NAACP. Maybe even date a black actress to seem "down." Until we build our own, we will be on the periphery of this nation--as planned and expected.
67
That's the best "go back to Africa" speech I have ever read.
Who would have guessed?
Who would have guessed?
Why the disparity between black women and black men in terms of wanting to get an education and a steady job? Why the male preference for violent street crime?
1
Rats? Chimpanzees or bonobos which share 97.5 % of or DNA genome.
"Missing"? "Forced out of society"? Not quite accurate. Based on the information given in this editorial, the 1 out of 6 black men who have "disappeared" are not missing: they are either in jail or dead. Nor have they been "forced" to leave. They have been arrested for crimes they chose to commit (usually against other black men), or killed by other black men. This is very unfortunate, but hardly the fault of "society".
Editorials like these insult the intelligence of NYT readers and squander the chance to address real examples of racial injustice.
Editorials like these insult the intelligence of NYT readers and squander the chance to address real examples of racial injustice.
178
My intelligence is not insulted by acknowledging that being systemically marginalized renders me "missing" by society. The real examples of racial injustice are all around us, too many and profound to be counted.
3
The Black folks in the Southern Town of Mayberry weren't missing either, right? Only in a Mayberry of the mind is, "not available to wives and children because you are in jail or dead" not considered missing.
1
Cliven Bundy was not arrested. While the white gyrocopter flying U.S. Capital buzzing white man Doug Hughes was arrested alive and well. Just like Lee Harvey Oswald, Jared Loughner, James Holmes, Eric Rudolph, Eric Frein. James Earl Ray and John Hinckley.
While unarmed black men are gun downed for living and breathing while black.
While unarmed black men are gun downed for living and breathing while black.
3
"In recent months, the many grievous cases of unarmed black men and boys who were shot dead by the police — now routinely captured on video — show how the presumption of criminality, poverty and social isolation threatens lives every day in all corners of this country."
This is wrong on so many levels. "Many cases" is how many, exactly? Compared to a weeks' tally of black-on-black killings in Chicago, maybe? Yes, one unjustified police killing is one too many but let's not kid ourselves, the very rare unjustified police killing is not what is threatening black lives "every day in all corners of this country". It may make folks feel better about avoiding the harsh truths about the social pathologies affecting black males in America, but the police are not the problem and pretending they are just prolongs the real conversation required to address the issues.
This is wrong on so many levels. "Many cases" is how many, exactly? Compared to a weeks' tally of black-on-black killings in Chicago, maybe? Yes, one unjustified police killing is one too many but let's not kid ourselves, the very rare unjustified police killing is not what is threatening black lives "every day in all corners of this country". It may make folks feel better about avoiding the harsh truths about the social pathologies affecting black males in America, but the police are not the problem and pretending they are just prolongs the real conversation required to address the issues.
44
First let me state that white on white crime are not distortionate in numbers. This has been statistically shown both crimes range in the 83% mark. Second, those men killed by police weren't armed not committing crime. Third, police brutality against men of color have gone beyond the 1 incident mark. Trayvon Martin has been deceased for almost 2 years now and how many more crimes similar in nature to his has been reported? If you haven't checked the news, look at the case of Rakeiya Boyd or the recent death of Freddie Gray. I'm not suggesting that violence amongst blacks is not common but violence amongst whites is just as common too.
“…An analysis released last week shows that more white people died at the hands of law enforcement than those of any other race in the last two years, even as the Justice Department, social-justice groups and media coverage focus on black victims of police force…
…As researchers are quick to point out, FBI data on police shootings by race is notoriously incomplete, which may explain why Peter Moskos, assistant professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice at the City University of New York, decided to use figures from the website Killed by Police.
Based on that data, Mr. Moskos reported that roughly 49 percent of those killed by officers from May 2013 to April 2015 were white, while 30 percent were black. He also found that 19 percent were Hispanic and 2 percent were Asian and other races…”
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/apr/21/police-kill-more-whites-...
…As researchers are quick to point out, FBI data on police shootings by race is notoriously incomplete, which may explain why Peter Moskos, assistant professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice at the City University of New York, decided to use figures from the website Killed by Police.
Based on that data, Mr. Moskos reported that roughly 49 percent of those killed by officers from May 2013 to April 2015 were white, while 30 percent were black. He also found that 19 percent were Hispanic and 2 percent were Asian and other races…”
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/apr/21/police-kill-more-whites-...
After the civil rights movement the black middle class expanded with jobs and education, due to specific govt policies. But not too long after, began the off shoring of jobs, the drug war and the trend to mass imprisonment, especially of minorities. It all got politically acceptable, and an opposition couldn’t take hold, due to political money.
From job outsourcing profits, congress profited with big donations from business sending jobs to lower wage nations. It was good to be anti union and pro lower wages, so not to be labeled anti business, and beg for campaign funds. It all worked in a chain of causation that combined with our racial gulf on the part of police, judges, prosecutors, to lead to destructive results.
Easy to blame the victims with moral superiority, in fact to run for office on that moral superiority. Prison inmates escalated beyond any numbers seen before in US history, and also in the world currently. Now some communities depend on prisons for jobs. Ex felons can't vote.
We need updates on any progress the Dept of Justice is making in reducing our unreasonably imprisoned. Even conservatives admit it’s gone too far. It's destroyed families, and now with pot decriminalization it is grossly abusive to keep people in prison who were excessively sentenced in the 1st place.
The continued reporting about executions exposes that horror and brings additional shame on the US. It’s 2015. The European Union discontinued executions some time ago.
From job outsourcing profits, congress profited with big donations from business sending jobs to lower wage nations. It was good to be anti union and pro lower wages, so not to be labeled anti business, and beg for campaign funds. It all worked in a chain of causation that combined with our racial gulf on the part of police, judges, prosecutors, to lead to destructive results.
Easy to blame the victims with moral superiority, in fact to run for office on that moral superiority. Prison inmates escalated beyond any numbers seen before in US history, and also in the world currently. Now some communities depend on prisons for jobs. Ex felons can't vote.
We need updates on any progress the Dept of Justice is making in reducing our unreasonably imprisoned. Even conservatives admit it’s gone too far. It's destroyed families, and now with pot decriminalization it is grossly abusive to keep people in prison who were excessively sentenced in the 1st place.
The continued reporting about executions exposes that horror and brings additional shame on the US. It’s 2015. The European Union discontinued executions some time ago.
13
Allowing commercial online, for profit background check firms to sell arrest records, as distinguished from conviction records, contributes to the difficulty of individuals getting hired who have been arrested but not convicted of any crime. Public policy should prohibit this pernicious practice.
17
Black men are at the bottom of the 'pink ceiling', the 'burrito ceiling,' the 'bamboo ceiling,' the 'curry ceiling, the 'blue collar' ceiling, and all the other ceilings that have been created since the early civil rights movement. We black men need new political strategies for a new American millennium, but our leaders are stuck in the 60's. BTW NYT, thanks for printing the piece; it's hard to see us under all of those ceilings.
21
The winning strategy is simple, it was worked for wave after wave of immigrant groups: get an education, get a job, work, save, don't commit crime, don't get pregnant outside of a stable relationship.
Is this really a difficult concept?
Is this really a difficult concept?
One would hope that a civilized society would have a place for all citizens.
This article summarizes what has been reported for quite a while.
Pretty sad.
This article summarizes what has been reported for quite a while.
Pretty sad.
8
It starts with roundups by police, looking for a black young adult that "may look like someone." No specifics. The boy gets frisked, cuffed and taken to Rikers to
get his background checked. If he held a can of lite beer on his front porch it's public nuisance and a misdemeanor. This opens the way for having a pen knife
called a 'threat.' The little nothings get written up, unlike white boys. The police
methodically build up these nothings, to hold leverage. It's a common tactic.
The young adult gets held without a hearing for 8 months - though he did nothing.
But he's kicked out of school, loses his job, and has 'jail' on his record. Being released is no prize. He's already lost too much. I saw the system for myself. It's a cat-mouse game. The cat in blue waits knowing it will win. Me: I'm a white professional. Many of these young males are A -OK
get his background checked. If he held a can of lite beer on his front porch it's public nuisance and a misdemeanor. This opens the way for having a pen knife
called a 'threat.' The little nothings get written up, unlike white boys. The police
methodically build up these nothings, to hold leverage. It's a common tactic.
The young adult gets held without a hearing for 8 months - though he did nothing.
But he's kicked out of school, loses his job, and has 'jail' on his record. Being released is no prize. He's already lost too much. I saw the system for myself. It's a cat-mouse game. The cat in blue waits knowing it will win. Me: I'm a white professional. Many of these young males are A -OK
Is this an example of discrimination against black men or the consequences of their choices? Perhaps both?
106
Possibly it is the choices of their parents. Have we looked at what makes all those other groups more successful than the black group? Let's give that a try.
1
This article shows that it has to do with unemployment and poverty which carries extremely limited choices, if at all. These are conditions, not character traits.
1
"Is this an example of discrimination against black men or the consequences of their choices? Perhaps both?"
Both. It is a tragedy that the liberal establishment adamantly looks away from half of the problem. Black young men do commit a lot of crimes - not just drug offences. And it is a reality that the cops treat black women teenagers better than they treat white male teenagers. So it is not "just racism". These facts are not acknowledged.
There needs to be dual responsibility. Police departments are badly in need of reform. We need to work hard on reducing unemployment, but isn't it president Obama who is trying to legalize five million illegal immigrants, thereby increasing pressure on black employment?
Republicans ARE to blame for many of the problem. But liberals need to understand their own contribution rather than play party politics. Will they?
Just so sad!
Both. It is a tragedy that the liberal establishment adamantly looks away from half of the problem. Black young men do commit a lot of crimes - not just drug offences. And it is a reality that the cops treat black women teenagers better than they treat white male teenagers. So it is not "just racism". These facts are not acknowledged.
There needs to be dual responsibility. Police departments are badly in need of reform. We need to work hard on reducing unemployment, but isn't it president Obama who is trying to legalize five million illegal immigrants, thereby increasing pressure on black employment?
Republicans ARE to blame for many of the problem. But liberals need to understand their own contribution rather than play party politics. Will they?
Just so sad!
1
If we could resurrect a Works Progress Administration-like strategy, under which, the government would provide public employment to every American over 18 who wanted it, we could get rid of the Military Industrial Complex. We could build new things and rebuild some things that need repair. All the money would be spent here and there is a history of this idea working out well in the recent past. There is a certain dignity in work. When you give a man a job, you give him a degree of dignity. The government should take every measure to make sure that the population is dignified. We already have the money, just steer it away from the war profiteers. A hardly dignified profession.
20
I agree with Rick Gage: a two-year national service stint for all citizens would be a boon to the country. Pacifist that I am, I could even envision the draft with the civilian service alternative for those who self-determine that a stint in the military is not for them.
For people with s deficits, night classes along with their service would be a good idea. People would walk out of their two-year service with a resume and maybe some hope. They'd also walk out of there with the knowledge that they made a contribution, no matter how small, to the welfare of the nation. What a concept.
For people with s deficits, night classes along with their service would be a good idea. People would walk out of their two-year service with a resume and maybe some hope. They'd also walk out of there with the knowledge that they made a contribution, no matter how small, to the welfare of the nation. What a concept.
Slavery and the failure of post-civil war reconciliation and reconstruction is the genesis of these horrible statistics and realities facing black men and women today. Federal intervention is the only thing that has made a real positive difference for black people in America since the end of slavery. The conservative mantra of small government and personal responsibility without historical context is getting harder to bear. Given the new revelations of systematic discrimination in municipal policing and police brutality towards unarmed black persons, people of good conscience should know what is needed to right these disparities. Who will stand up for the politically disenfranchised in this country?
24
This editorial provides poor justification for being a deadbeat dad. If you sire the kid, it's your responsibility to take care of it however you can, even if you're jobless.
19
The article isn't attempting to justify "deadbeat dads". You obviously fail to understand the extent of the problem. This country has failed to address the problems blacks have faced since they were freed and continues to try and ignore the problems. As poster fdc states. By jailing black men at much higher rates than other races, in particular for non-violent crimes, we create the problem of single parenting by women. Removing jobs from the country is the work of rich whites seeking profits rather than looking out for the society they live in. That's a bit simplistic, but it is relevant and is borne out by the gap in incomes. Until we stop blaming black men and begin addressing the underlying problems (education, employment, over-incarceration) this problem will not go away.
Just what is a deadbeat dad. Seen too many woman just want a kid to pick up a welfare check. They don't want to be a wife or have a father for their kid.
If we legitimately, I'm convinced, use "genocide" to define the disappearance of 1.5 million Armenians, maybe we should use the term to describe this injustice as well. There's no free pass just because "we're America."
9
The genocide is the result of liberal thinking which refuses, even in this editorial, to accurately assess the problem for fear of being branded "racist".
We are looking at the result of choices, freely made choices. You demean the horror that befell the Armenians and perpetuate the horror that is befalling our citizens of color.
We are looking at the result of choices, freely made choices. You demean the horror that befell the Armenians and perpetuate the horror that is befalling our citizens of color.
We are fast-becoming a completely tiered society with first-class citizens (largely white, non-disabled, non-obese), and second and third class citizens (either racially different, differently abled, differently proportioned, unemployed and/or economically disadvantaged).
When violence and/or discrimination is levied against second class citizens, their choice is either to continue to suffer these indignities or initiate class struggle to overcome it.
Clearly, the initial success, and then consistent setbacks to the civil rights movement of the 60's, shows we have great struggles still to overcome to have a society where there is equal justice, and equal opportunity for all.
When violence and/or discrimination is levied against second class citizens, their choice is either to continue to suffer these indignities or initiate class struggle to overcome it.
Clearly, the initial success, and then consistent setbacks to the civil rights movement of the 60's, shows we have great struggles still to overcome to have a society where there is equal justice, and equal opportunity for all.
8
One commentator has it exactly right in stating that this is a very complex problem where every problem affects the other. One major problem that can be corrected are the actions of police in harrassing black folks regularly and courts also exhibiting racial bias. But for the article to blame drug laws for discrimination against African Americans because apparanly black people abuse the laws in low level instances and are then sent away to prison because of court abuses because they are simply black is unfair. The problem is how to stop the numbers of black citizens from using drugs in the first place. Likewise I can't believe that schools just expel black kids because of their color without any cause. Perhaps if they come from one parent families ( which has many reasons) and discipline is not instilled in the home and respect for teachers,there is a problem. Lets solve the actual problems and not lumping all problems in our society in one bag labeled, everthing bad affecting black folks is caused by pure racial prejudice!!!.
16
If we gave meaningful employment to black men drug use would drop. The relationship between that and drug use is well documented. Additionally it has been shown that blacks don't use drugs any more than whites, but are disproportionately punished for it when caught. And you don't have to believe the discipline problem in schools, but the statistics bear this out. So you may not like the stats, but facts are facts. You lump all of this into a lack of discipline in the home without any supporting facts that this is a "black" problem. How would you expect a class of people to respond to constant injustice and harassment from law enforcement? What are the "actual problems" in your opinion? If you don't understand the pervasive nature of racism in this country you are one of the many people who choose to ignore it because it's there, plain to see.
You misunderstand the facts. Whites use drugs at the same or higher rates than blacks. There are far more white folks out there you'll need to stop from using drugs (certainly as a raw number and likely as a percentage of their of the population). The higher arrest rates for blacks is an issue of police enforcement. (This also relates to income, as poor black people are more likely to be using drugs outside in poor neighborhoods with a heavy police presence.) And there is no evidence whatsoever that black children are behavioral problems at a higher rate than white. The issue is that they are suspended and expelled at a higher rate.
Being a retired high school teacher I wish everyone could spend a month teaching/observing in the inner-city. You would see what is wrong and how daunting it is to change things. You see it every day. It is impossible sometimes to get continuity for lessons. Kids are here one day, gone the next. The discipline problems are redundant, but if you are unsuccessful at altering behavior, you must continually address it, write referrals. Kids get internal suspension or sent home, which they don't mind, only to return with a parent who is impossible to reason with. The 'celebrity' associated with acting out is desirable to some kids so being good is not an option. There are few home rules. No curfews. They're out all night, come to school to mix it up, with no sense of consequences. The causes of this dysfunction are so complex and difficult to address in school where the focus desperately needs to be on learning, but instead, becomes similar to the prison system's: address the infraction, determine fault, try probation, return kid to class, and watch it happen all over again,until finally, the kid gets expelled. Then, on the street, he escalates his behavior to criminal, lives in the moment, gets picked up by the police, jailed, and the justice system, harsher than school discipline, swallows him. Teachers cannot do all things. Parent, counsel, feed, shelter, clothe, create self-esteem, teach how to set goals and educate as well. But we try. We try--and do test prep, too.
1
Recently, in January, while on a trip to India, President Obama was kind enough to unnecessarily raise the issue of 'growing religious intolerance' in India based probably on presumptuous and incomplete input. The problems in US and India are very similar. The collective national feeling of 'guilt' for past misdeeds or perceived misdeeds (as may be applicable) coupled to the national sense of projecting an image of tolerance, inclusiveness and equitable social justice, has often resulted in even minor issues being blown highly out of proportion, resulting in the projection of isolated incidents as a national malaise. For example Josh Hill has rightly pointed out the fact that statistically, African-American community, as a community, are pre-dominant in the number of criminal cases as also actual instances of crime. However, in case of a wrongful/illegal action against them in course of law enforcement, is immediately highlighted as a potential case of discrimination while such incidents involving the white community hardly find any mention. This has resulted in enhanced ghettoization of this community resulting in further alienation and a feeling of discrimination perpetrated due to constriction in thinking space. It has also provided an incentive to vent anger against the government at large and society in particular based on a distorted thought of historical and perpetual discrimination and feeling of alienation of self from the nation. Thus, fracturing the society.
3
You don't see making the purchase and/or consumption of beef a crime punishable by 5 years in prison as intolerant? Please. Several states in India have enacted such intolerant and unreasonable laws based solely on religious grounds. The statistics about crimes rates and race can be twisted in many ways to suit the teller's bias. But it remains a fact that our prisons are full of black men and women, the racial makeup does not reflect the racial balance in the greater society. That's the evidence.
Have you actually followed the number of police shootings of black men and children? I guess getting shot in the back numerous times over a traffic stop is nothing society should be concerned about. It is "distorted thought".
Just heard today that the Michigan State legislature wants to build yet another prison in Michigan's upper peninsula to hold "hardcore" criminals from other states. Hardcore here is code for black. We have too many black men imprisoned in this state supporting a very profitable corporate prison system.
14
You have hit the nail on the head! For profit prison systems should be outlawed. I cannot think of a better way to describe the conflict of interest. Law enforcement officials who must stand for election, coupled with the for-profit prison industry, yeah that will work just fine. Another thing we can thank the Republicans for.
"Hardcore" is the code for incorrigible, everywhere.
If you had to choose the most important cause, it would be de facto segregation, mostly in our large cities. 61 years ago, the Supreme Court declared that separate was not equal. That has not changed.
4
Put your actions where your words are. Move to the inner city.
1
This Times analysis article was in The Upshot, which isn't very widely read....this should be on page 1, more than an editorial. It makes explicit what has gone unrecognized and covered up.
This enormous trend is a tale of 2 cities, and of 2 Americas, out of sight and mind of most white people who, with our racial segregation, live basically in their own country. This is a symptom of a Disunited States of America, while we pretend our civil rights laws make our system ok.
Few whites even see anyone stopped and frisked, they only read about it, while profiling goes on in many towns, raising revenue, as the Times reported after Ferguson. Finally NY’s extreme Stop/frisk has abated after a judge ruled it unconstitutional. Before that, officials were proud of it.
See article “American Exception: Rendering Justice, With One Eye on Re-election” by Adam Liptak, May 25, 2008--one of an eye opening series. Says the US is one of the few countries that elect judges, and with bad results for our justice system—see article quote by Justice Sandra Day Oconnor. What else can a judge run on but ‘tough on crime’ records? Same with prosecutors. In other countries judges are appointed, not elected, resulting in a less extreme, more rational, humane justice system.
The upshot is a continued string of police horrors on our news with black victims. How many more dead? Is there any mechanism in our politics to remedy this contradiction to the Bill of Rights and decency, in 2015?
This enormous trend is a tale of 2 cities, and of 2 Americas, out of sight and mind of most white people who, with our racial segregation, live basically in their own country. This is a symptom of a Disunited States of America, while we pretend our civil rights laws make our system ok.
Few whites even see anyone stopped and frisked, they only read about it, while profiling goes on in many towns, raising revenue, as the Times reported after Ferguson. Finally NY’s extreme Stop/frisk has abated after a judge ruled it unconstitutional. Before that, officials were proud of it.
See article “American Exception: Rendering Justice, With One Eye on Re-election” by Adam Liptak, May 25, 2008--one of an eye opening series. Says the US is one of the few countries that elect judges, and with bad results for our justice system—see article quote by Justice Sandra Day Oconnor. What else can a judge run on but ‘tough on crime’ records? Same with prosecutors. In other countries judges are appointed, not elected, resulting in a less extreme, more rational, humane justice system.
The upshot is a continued string of police horrors on our news with black victims. How many more dead? Is there any mechanism in our politics to remedy this contradiction to the Bill of Rights and decency, in 2015?
11
Until every police shooting is displayed equally, I will ignore you.
1
Dear white people, pause before you too are tempted to write a blame-the-victim comment. Reread the editorial, imagine yourself having been raised in a neighborhood that, through no fault of your own, lacks employment possibilities, where the prevailing sensibility is one of frustration, dejection, and helplessness, and where a stunning percentage of the men are dead or in jail. Imagine the anger that grows from the lack of prospects, the unfairness of the treatment of the children in your neighborhood schools relative to the treatment of white kids in predominantly white schools, and the equally and often fatal mistreatment of your young men by the police. Then, perhaps you will not be so quick to express your contempt for the way young blacks present themselves in public, or your frustration with the editorialists for not pointing out that blacks are killed primarily by blacks when you aren't willing to admit that whites who are murdered are killed primarily by other whites.
123
Nelson@ Well stated, very well stated....
Remind them of the "NYC draft riots" where Irish men and women rioted killing blacks at will. Even attempting to burn down a colored orphanage with the children still inside. They barely escaped. Those irish rioted because of no opportunity. They refused to fight a war when they were barely able to feed themselves and their families.
The aftermath? Society employed the irish as firemen and police officers. Giving them gainful employment and changing the social ills within that community. The will was there to change the dynamic of disenfranchisement. Remember irish were compared to "dogs" at one time.
We have too many examples of empowering and enfranchising groups if we really wanted to change their condition.
White America refused blacks , and stultified any advancement for generations....Period.
Remind them of the "NYC draft riots" where Irish men and women rioted killing blacks at will. Even attempting to burn down a colored orphanage with the children still inside. They barely escaped. Those irish rioted because of no opportunity. They refused to fight a war when they were barely able to feed themselves and their families.
The aftermath? Society employed the irish as firemen and police officers. Giving them gainful employment and changing the social ills within that community. The will was there to change the dynamic of disenfranchisement. Remember irish were compared to "dogs" at one time.
We have too many examples of empowering and enfranchising groups if we really wanted to change their condition.
White America refused blacks , and stultified any advancement for generations....Period.
1
The problem is that liberal policies are perpetuating the plight of black people liberal pols in general care only for the votes of blacks, but not their true well being. They do nothing for their self confidence, their ability to gain and keep jobs, and taking care of themselves. They offer a many state as a solution, and are very condescending in their true treatment of black people. I believe black people need to abandon the liberal pols and their policies, to gain true independence.
11
What, vote for the Republicans who are most responsible for their plight? Lack of employment is a major contribution to the problem, and the "war on drugs" started by the Republicans handles those who are unemployed by imprisoning them! Your stereotype of the liberal is to applicable.
Mandatory prison sentencing rules are excessive, and used to punish black people disproportionately. Public schools are inadequate, but especially in poor, disproportionately black neighborhoods. Racial prejudice still exerts a malign influence in our society.
But the headline here is misleading. It suggests that there is some movement to force black men out of society, ignoring how many opt out through elective acts of crime, school leaving, etc., and it ignores the resources that our society has put (inadequate though they have been) to supporting and welcoming racial and ethnic minorities.
Solving persistent divides will take rational debate, not hyperbole or political correctness. If our nation's newspaper can't raise the level of its communication here, less edifying debates will continue to swirl through our divided communities. Please, New York Times, do better.
But the headline here is misleading. It suggests that there is some movement to force black men out of society, ignoring how many opt out through elective acts of crime, school leaving, etc., and it ignores the resources that our society has put (inadequate though they have been) to supporting and welcoming racial and ethnic minorities.
Solving persistent divides will take rational debate, not hyperbole or political correctness. If our nation's newspaper can't raise the level of its communication here, less edifying debates will continue to swirl through our divided communities. Please, New York Times, do better.
5
First, this editorial begins with the racist presumption that black women can only marry black me. What, is the Times afraid of a little miscegenation?
Second, the quickest way to avoid being arrested for a crime is not to commit a crime in n the first place. What a shocking revelation!
Second, the quickest way to avoid being arrested for a crime is not to commit a crime in n the first place. What a shocking revelation!
18
Not committing a crime does not preclude being arrested. If black an arrest record is, in all likelihood, as dis-enfranchising as a felony conviction.
Racism in America is a cold hard fact. But it's extent, the reasons behind it, and it's impact are not so black and white. For instance, the disparity in number of stops and ticketing of black drivers is often stated as proof racism exists. A deeper analysis will show that generally the poorer one is the less likely they are to drive a vehicle that has insurance, current inspection and tags, fully functioning lights and signals, and ownership of vehicle matching the current driver. This is true of poor black, white, and brown drivers. Thus a greater number of stops and tickets are issued to these drivers. But unfortunately, as a percentage of population, blacks are vastly over represented in the poverty category.
We quote the statistics of blacks being incarcerated in greater percentages than whites for minor drug offenses as further proof racism exists. Yet any prosecutor will attest past criminal record has a huge on sentencing requests and most of these young men have lengthy criminal records. And don't discount the fact that most of these charges have been reduced in return for a guilty plea and lighter sentencing.
We quote the statistics of blacks being incarcerated in greater percentages than whites for minor drug offenses as further proof racism exists. Yet any prosecutor will attest past criminal record has a huge on sentencing requests and most of these young men have lengthy criminal records. And don't discount the fact that most of these charges have been reduced in return for a guilty plea and lighter sentencing.
14
This a one dimensional liberal exercise. Does anyone on the editorial board read the critical takes on your race pieces? Not surprisingly they often come from people backed with relevant experience.
The predominant post-civil rights era trend has been to try just about anything to avoid appearances of traditional racism which has led to very unproductive reverse-biased policies. Pity is not helpful. Do any of the academics cited here do anything other than plunger the racial bias-hypothesis?
Actual exposure to inner city schools leaves one wondering why there aren't more suspensions. A local school here underreported their annual fight count (200-ish vs. 700-ish) to avoid pressure for more discipline (which likely would have led to accusations of racism).
What do the skewed representations in competitive athletic programs reflect?
What about relevant FBI crime statistics?
Finally, the biggest race-related obstacle for African American (AA) progress is the 'don't be white, don't study' mentality that has derailed many AA youths. I knew immediately from a newspaper headline last year what was behind the Atlanta cheating scandal. Atlanta would have significant numbers of AA teachers and of course AA students. The former would have found reasons to try cover up for the terrible performances of many of the latter and thus the scandal. What I didn't see coming was subsequent charges of racism.
The predominant post-civil rights era trend has been to try just about anything to avoid appearances of traditional racism which has led to very unproductive reverse-biased policies. Pity is not helpful. Do any of the academics cited here do anything other than plunger the racial bias-hypothesis?
Actual exposure to inner city schools leaves one wondering why there aren't more suspensions. A local school here underreported their annual fight count (200-ish vs. 700-ish) to avoid pressure for more discipline (which likely would have led to accusations of racism).
What do the skewed representations in competitive athletic programs reflect?
What about relevant FBI crime statistics?
Finally, the biggest race-related obstacle for African American (AA) progress is the 'don't be white, don't study' mentality that has derailed many AA youths. I knew immediately from a newspaper headline last year what was behind the Atlanta cheating scandal. Atlanta would have significant numbers of AA teachers and of course AA students. The former would have found reasons to try cover up for the terrible performances of many of the latter and thus the scandal. What I didn't see coming was subsequent charges of racism.
15
I don't think we are ever going to have the frank talk that changing the racial problems in America requires. To have a meaningful dialogue demands acknowledging the importance of character in the evolution of who we are as people, and acknowledging what we seem to be afraid to criticize as lack of character, of decency, of empathy. MLK had it right when he looked forward, referencing black children, but applicable to all, when someday they would be judged by the content of their character. Shelby Steele took a lot of heat for his critical text on the same topic. Character seems no longer to be a key element in what makes a human being exemplary. We need to revisit what it is to be a decent human being, regardless of race, but maybe that's too much introspection for all of us to handle.
8
The name "Maureen O'Brien" suggests an Irish background. It always bothers me when a person of such background (which is that of my birth and education) fails to understand just how lowly a position the Irish occupied in society in Britain, the US, and even in Ireland for a long time.
Character had nothing to do with it. Many Irish always had character; some never will. But the opportunity for the majority of Irish to exercise responsibility came from the muzzle of 1916's guns, not from the huffing and puffing of the sanctimonious.
Character had nothing to do with it. Many Irish always had character; some never will. But the opportunity for the majority of Irish to exercise responsibility came from the muzzle of 1916's guns, not from the huffing and puffing of the sanctimonious.
How odd! I posted this as a reply to Maureen O'Brien.
I read this editorial twice looking for solutions and saw none. Frankly there is no short-term solution. I believe the core solution is education and that will require money and time. At the end of this post are suggestions to address the problem in Detroit and I believe it applies to most metropolitan cites having a large minority population.
As a nation we must address this problem as the federal government addresses defense. Regarding the funding of our defense budget we first figure out what our military needs to maintain the strongest military in the world and then we figure out how to get the funds.
With education congress first establishes a budget and then it decides how to spend the allocated funds. In the not to distant future the super powers of the world will have the best educated citizens of the world. The number of battleships and nukes will be secondary. By 2020 it is projected that China will have more college graduates in its workforce than the total workforce of the United States. For national security reasons we need to better educate our total population not just the white ones. If for no other reason, let's do it for national security.... http://lstrn.us/1th8KwQ
As a nation we must address this problem as the federal government addresses defense. Regarding the funding of our defense budget we first figure out what our military needs to maintain the strongest military in the world and then we figure out how to get the funds.
With education congress first establishes a budget and then it decides how to spend the allocated funds. In the not to distant future the super powers of the world will have the best educated citizens of the world. The number of battleships and nukes will be secondary. By 2020 it is projected that China will have more college graduates in its workforce than the total workforce of the United States. For national security reasons we need to better educate our total population not just the white ones. If for no other reason, let's do it for national security.... http://lstrn.us/1th8KwQ
2
Good comment. Actual data tracking this relationship between spending on prisons and spending on universities is a little tough to find, however. CA seem to have better data than most. In terms of new institutions, CA has invested in 23 new carceral institutions since 1980 (and dramatically expanded scores more), while building only one new University of California campus. Actually General Accounts money going to both sectors pretty much equalized a few years ago in the 2012 budget, but the university figure hides a massive rise in both the number and pay of "managers" in that system, hence there has also been a large rise in tuition during the same period.
See http://cacs.org/research/winners-and-losers-corrections-and-higher-educa...
The data for very prison-phile states like TX and FL seem a little harder to find, but I can only imagine that such trends are far more striking there.
See http://cacs.org/research/winners-and-losers-corrections-and-higher-educa...
The data for very prison-phile states like TX and FL seem a little harder to find, but I can only imagine that such trends are far more striking there.
Yes education is a main problem, but many in the black community don't value it the way they should. How do you fix that?
great editorial. thank you for citing the plight of black men in America...your voice will help to end this.
4
This is an editorial that might have appeared in the New York Times in 1965, as Congress was considering passage of the Voting Rights Act. It’s like that time machine view of our past that I indulged in just today with the PDF of a NYT article written on Olivia Newton-John in 1978 that I remember reading in 1978 on the subway, fingers blackening with newsprint ink.
This is a complex problem, but empty the prisons of low-level drug offenders and make a federal law prohibiting that imprisonment for such offenses may affect consideration for employment, and what effect would that have on the 83-100 black men-to-women ratio? Probably immense. About time we did it, while not ignoring the other causes of black male marginalization.
As to those other causes, their result is that of poverty generally, people frozen in that state by the diminishing availability of low-skilled work. We’ll never get America to agree to reparations, but a massive transformation of our educational system in impoverished school districts would go a long way to allowing ALL of our poor to mainstream themselves and achieve better life outcomes – blacks AND whites. As such, this might be sold.
2015 is not 1965, and racism as the primary cause of black marginalization is not the force it once was. Economic and educational deprivation resulting in limited choices, though, MAKES people different. Just because we can’t solve ALL causal factors doesn’t mean we can’t solve SOME.
This is a complex problem, but empty the prisons of low-level drug offenders and make a federal law prohibiting that imprisonment for such offenses may affect consideration for employment, and what effect would that have on the 83-100 black men-to-women ratio? Probably immense. About time we did it, while not ignoring the other causes of black male marginalization.
As to those other causes, their result is that of poverty generally, people frozen in that state by the diminishing availability of low-skilled work. We’ll never get America to agree to reparations, but a massive transformation of our educational system in impoverished school districts would go a long way to allowing ALL of our poor to mainstream themselves and achieve better life outcomes – blacks AND whites. As such, this might be sold.
2015 is not 1965, and racism as the primary cause of black marginalization is not the force it once was. Economic and educational deprivation resulting in limited choices, though, MAKES people different. Just because we can’t solve ALL causal factors doesn’t mean we can’t solve SOME.
4
In 1965, males were being drafted. Any color, any education, anyone. You had to be reasonably healthy. That's all.
"Forcing Black Men Out of Society". Really? If black men engage in self-destructive behavior through drug abuse, how is this a case of being forced out of society? If black men engage in criminal behavior which leads to incarceration, how is this a case of being forced out of society"? As for police killing black men, the biggest threat to the lives of black men is murder by other black men.
63
Black men are being forced out of society in order to fill the beds of the “for profit” prison industrial complex.
As prisons replaced factories throughout the American landscape as a primary source of employment, black and brown bodies, no longer needed for the unskilled manufacturing jobs that disappeared, became the fuel to keep prisons running and rural America employed. As Professor Angela Y. Davis points out in her book, “Are Prisons Obsolete?” many economically depressed rural communities ravaged by deindustrialization, sponsored bake sales hoping to attract the attention of the prison builders for the construction of a prison in their communities.
Deindustrialization intersected with the war on drugs to produce the bodies needed to fill the beds of the prison. As it was following the end of the enslavement, and it remains true today, the question has always been, “How to profit from the excess black labor?”
As prisons replaced factories throughout the American landscape as a primary source of employment, black and brown bodies, no longer needed for the unskilled manufacturing jobs that disappeared, became the fuel to keep prisons running and rural America employed. As Professor Angela Y. Davis points out in her book, “Are Prisons Obsolete?” many economically depressed rural communities ravaged by deindustrialization, sponsored bake sales hoping to attract the attention of the prison builders for the construction of a prison in their communities.
Deindustrialization intersected with the war on drugs to produce the bodies needed to fill the beds of the prison. As it was following the end of the enslavement, and it remains true today, the question has always been, “How to profit from the excess black labor?”
7
To add: Michelle Alexander writes in her book, "The New Jim Crow," "The collapse of inner-city economies coincided with the conservative backlash against the Civil Rights Movement, resulting in the perfect storm. Almost overnight, black men found themselves unnecessary to the American economy and demonized by mainstream society. No longer needed to pick cotton in the fields or labor in factories, lower-class black men were hauled off to prison in droves. They were vilified in the media and condemned for their condition as part of a well-orchestrated political campaign to build a new white, Republican majority in the South. Decades later, curious onlookers in the grips of denial would wonder aloud, "Where have all the black men gone?""
When I taught at a New York high school with a predominantly black and Latino student body in the 1980s I was struck by the gender imbalance that increased from 9th to 12th grade. In many 12th grade classes as few as ten percent oh the students were male.
12
This editorial and the analysis about missing black men show there is no single cause.
When industrial jobs for inner-city men started disappearing, crime rose, and Richard Nixon and the "silent majority" (i.e., white Republicans) reacted to the social upheavals of the '60s. This led to "white flight" from the cities, increased segregation, and "law and order" government policies that put huge numbers of black men behind bars for non-violent crimes. California's 3-strikes law became the crowning achievement - or failure - of this policy.
Reagan's "government is the problem" mantra prevented the creation of effective policies to deal with these changes. Globalization and technology further limited opportunities of inner-city blacks to get good, well-paying, stable jobs. Conservatives are quick to blame jobless blacks for not taking responsibility for their lives, ignoring the larger social and economic factors.
Conservatives say throwing money" at these problems (i.e., welfare) has failed. While not exactly true (welfare has helped millions stay out of deep poverty), there are no simple solutions. It will take political will, money, and multi-layered approaches - better education starting at pre-school, help for parents, affordable child care, access to jobs.
The free market and individual responsibility will not solve all problems, as decades of evidence shows. Nor will prayer. Our society is failing the 90%. Missing black men have it the worst. This is a national shame.
When industrial jobs for inner-city men started disappearing, crime rose, and Richard Nixon and the "silent majority" (i.e., white Republicans) reacted to the social upheavals of the '60s. This led to "white flight" from the cities, increased segregation, and "law and order" government policies that put huge numbers of black men behind bars for non-violent crimes. California's 3-strikes law became the crowning achievement - or failure - of this policy.
Reagan's "government is the problem" mantra prevented the creation of effective policies to deal with these changes. Globalization and technology further limited opportunities of inner-city blacks to get good, well-paying, stable jobs. Conservatives are quick to blame jobless blacks for not taking responsibility for their lives, ignoring the larger social and economic factors.
Conservatives say throwing money" at these problems (i.e., welfare) has failed. While not exactly true (welfare has helped millions stay out of deep poverty), there are no simple solutions. It will take political will, money, and multi-layered approaches - better education starting at pre-school, help for parents, affordable child care, access to jobs.
The free market and individual responsibility will not solve all problems, as decades of evidence shows. Nor will prayer. Our society is failing the 90%. Missing black men have it the worst. This is a national shame.
115
White flight started before Nixon ... and the policies of Carter .. or lack of them inmost cases did more to tank the economy in the 70's then Nixon and Ford. This is not a R vs D discussion .. remember it's the D's that started deregulation and trade agreements -- starting with Carter (airline/ trucking) and the big one NAFTA (Clinton).
Sadly -- it's mostly education. Without an education very little is possible. We start to loose black males by about 12 years old.
Sadly -- it's mostly education. Without an education very little is possible. We start to loose black males by about 12 years old.
1
It's disingenuous to not make clear to readers that many of the missing black men are missing because they've been murdered by other black men or they are in prison for murdering or attempting to murder other black men.
40
Privatizing prisons adds further impetus to this gradual slaughter. The owners need prisoners & bring political pressure to bear on police & courts for more bodies – a modern slave trade. Bodies they then lease out to corporate America for 23 cents an hour, bragging how competitive this imprisoned labor force is compared even to off-shoring. Where, precisely, do the current presidential candidates, both parties, stand on this trade? The press should, well, press them on it.
8
This editorial raises some valid issues, including our over incarceration of men, and black men in particular. That can be addressed through criminal justice reform (if the unions don't foil it), but the lack of jobs for low skilled individuals is not going to change.
In addition, any effort to improve the prospects of black men and women in this country needs to be two fold. Address the systemic issues like incarceration and overuse of force by police, but also address the behavioral issues that hold blacks back. What effect does the widely expressed attitude that doing well in school is "acting white" have on black academic achievement? Why are black men and boys killing each other in such high numbers?
Asians, Italians and Irishmen all overcame widespread negative stereotypes by changing that stereotype. Blacks can do the same.
In addition, any effort to improve the prospects of black men and women in this country needs to be two fold. Address the systemic issues like incarceration and overuse of force by police, but also address the behavioral issues that hold blacks back. What effect does the widely expressed attitude that doing well in school is "acting white" have on black academic achievement? Why are black men and boys killing each other in such high numbers?
Asians, Italians and Irishmen all overcame widespread negative stereotypes by changing that stereotype. Blacks can do the same.
9
An important element that supports this stigmativation is denial. Racism in all forms continues to survive and even thrive because major portions of the population find ways to assert claims that it doesn't exist! Over the years, those claims have run the gamut from not-me-but-others, it only exists in reverse, it's a blame game, it's a race card, it is a genetic function, it is an inherent brain difference, it is ordained by God, it is a function of politics and bleeding hearts caused by laziness and freebies and giveaways.
Yet every black, as the President has mentioned, has had the experience of being invisible. Not seen as a classmate, neighbor, church member, worker, peacemaker, parent, problem solver, or human being, but placed in a role that stigmatizes and denies. The two functions are inextricably bound. A swarm of arguments always arises to deny and assert invisibility for the personal and institutional actions that are racist. And denial makes the targets themselves invisible! And egregious example is the wearing of t-shirts by NYPD officers after the death of Eric Gardner that read, "I can breathe." In Ferguson, a joke circulated among police and city officials whose "humor" supported eugenics.
The enabling force for racism is not ignorance but denial and silence. Extreme measures and lengths are employed to say, "it ain't so." Name one Republican who has spoken out about the emerging police state-- or who has agreed that black lives matter.
Yet every black, as the President has mentioned, has had the experience of being invisible. Not seen as a classmate, neighbor, church member, worker, peacemaker, parent, problem solver, or human being, but placed in a role that stigmatizes and denies. The two functions are inextricably bound. A swarm of arguments always arises to deny and assert invisibility for the personal and institutional actions that are racist. And denial makes the targets themselves invisible! And egregious example is the wearing of t-shirts by NYPD officers after the death of Eric Gardner that read, "I can breathe." In Ferguson, a joke circulated among police and city officials whose "humor" supported eugenics.
The enabling force for racism is not ignorance but denial and silence. Extreme measures and lengths are employed to say, "it ain't so." Name one Republican who has spoken out about the emerging police state-- or who has agreed that black lives matter.
183
Lest I forget, one of my favorite forms of denial--which reading the comments reminded me of--blame the victims! It's their fault!
3
Mr. Rhett,
Thanks for saying cogently and concisely what I was thinking in less articulate form as I read the comments already posted here. Many are disturbingly similar to those posted with the original article's explanation of its methodology. Lots of denial, blame, and simplistic narratives many white people drag out when confronted with clear facts about the functioning of racism in American society.
I will say this, these people are awfully good at convincing themselves and each other that if black men just tried harder, murdered less, and got the kind of good jobs even white people have a hard time finding in our deindustrialized nation, everything would be fine. It's rather obvious to the rest of us how shallow, self-centered and fundamentally mythic the consciousness of many are on this subject. The demographic facts are unassailable in the general conclusions the NY Times and the researchers involved drew.. Perhaps it's this basic irrefutability that causes the deniers to pass over even attempting to honestly engage with the facts? One hopes they don't devote much time to thinking about what they're saying, because that would mean they are also engaged in the fantasy that they can fairly judge the facts, the arguments, and apparently all black men. And there their circular logic that equates black men with criminality gets them comfortably and narcissistically back full circle. Let's hope they will one day abandon their defense of the outcomes of racism in the U.S..
Thanks for saying cogently and concisely what I was thinking in less articulate form as I read the comments already posted here. Many are disturbingly similar to those posted with the original article's explanation of its methodology. Lots of denial, blame, and simplistic narratives many white people drag out when confronted with clear facts about the functioning of racism in American society.
I will say this, these people are awfully good at convincing themselves and each other that if black men just tried harder, murdered less, and got the kind of good jobs even white people have a hard time finding in our deindustrialized nation, everything would be fine. It's rather obvious to the rest of us how shallow, self-centered and fundamentally mythic the consciousness of many are on this subject. The demographic facts are unassailable in the general conclusions the NY Times and the researchers involved drew.. Perhaps it's this basic irrefutability that causes the deniers to pass over even attempting to honestly engage with the facts? One hopes they don't devote much time to thinking about what they're saying, because that would mean they are also engaged in the fantasy that they can fairly judge the facts, the arguments, and apparently all black men. And there their circular logic that equates black men with criminality gets them comfortably and narcissistically back full circle. Let's hope they will one day abandon their defense of the outcomes of racism in the U.S..
3
Even in areas where we should not -- like greater Atlanta -- we live in segregated societies. As a white male I don't get up thinking "white" ... I don't think about race. You make some very good points, but I believe that for many race does not enter into daily life -- Most whites view the inner city troubles as not affecting them ... a world apart.
Is it denial .... or ignorance and apathy? And many republicans have spoken out against the militarization of our police ... this is an overwhelming problem in many cities .. almost all controlled by democrats.
Is it denial .... or ignorance and apathy? And many republicans have spoken out against the militarization of our police ... this is an overwhelming problem in many cities .. almost all controlled by democrats.
The horrific stigmatizing, jailing and killing of black men has broadened into a demonizing of men in general and, increasingly, boys. To be male in American today is to be presumed guilty of anything you may be accused of. Mark my words: within a generation there will be widespread, selective abortion of male fetuses in North America.
3
"The missing men should be a source of concern to political leaders and policy makers everywhere."
Are the missing men a source of concern to black leaders or to black men, or white men?
Political leaders and policy makers do not care a darn for anything unless the population first becomes concerned. Until that happens politicians are self-neutered.
Are the missing men a source of concern to black leaders or to black men, or white men?
Political leaders and policy makers do not care a darn for anything unless the population first becomes concerned. Until that happens politicians are self-neutered.
1
This is not news. This is the exceptionally malicious nature of white supremacist colored American history. From 1619 until 2015 about 90% of the Black African American historical sojourn was spent in humanity crushing slavery and/or equality denying Jim Crow. See 'The Half Has Not Been Told" E. Baptist"; "The Condemnation of Blackness" K. G. Muhammad; "Slavery By Another Name" D. Blackmon; "The New Jim Crow" M. Alexander.
According to the SCOTUS decision in Dred Scott the Founding Fathers did not intend that African slaves be persons. While the 13th Amendment perpetuated slavery and involuntary servitude as legal forms of punishment for a criminal conviction. Plessy blessed separate but equal and Woodrow Wilson finalized Jim Crow as official Federal policy and practice. Then the Civil Rights era legislation opened the political door for the GOP of Lincoln to turn to Davis and Lee.
Wilson's "The Declining Significance of Race" came out in 1978 ahead of Reagan which destroyed all of his presumptions about class replacing race as the demarcation. There are more blacks on in prison, on welfare and unemployed than ever before. White families have more homes and wealth. A white man with a criminal record and HS diploma has more opportunity than a black man with no record and a college degree.
My 1st white ancestor came here in 1640. My 1st black ancestors have been here since 1790 census. My native ancestors came 12,000 years ago. I am only colored black in 2015 America.
According to the SCOTUS decision in Dred Scott the Founding Fathers did not intend that African slaves be persons. While the 13th Amendment perpetuated slavery and involuntary servitude as legal forms of punishment for a criminal conviction. Plessy blessed separate but equal and Woodrow Wilson finalized Jim Crow as official Federal policy and practice. Then the Civil Rights era legislation opened the political door for the GOP of Lincoln to turn to Davis and Lee.
Wilson's "The Declining Significance of Race" came out in 1978 ahead of Reagan which destroyed all of his presumptions about class replacing race as the demarcation. There are more blacks on in prison, on welfare and unemployed than ever before. White families have more homes and wealth. A white man with a criminal record and HS diploma has more opportunity than a black man with no record and a college degree.
My 1st white ancestor came here in 1640. My 1st black ancestors have been here since 1790 census. My native ancestors came 12,000 years ago. I am only colored black in 2015 America.
10
I can see your point. On the other hand, it IS news when white people can't read their Sunday paper without stumbling over having to think about race. I'm not saying it solves anything. But this is all too sadly something that black and other people of color can't solve on their own. If it was within their power, this sort of thing would have been dealt with long ago. As you point out, there's a long and all too often still continuing history. Black folks know it,. White folks usually try to ignore it, but it's their minds we all have to change to even begin fixing racism.
If they're not reading it in the paper, they're sure not getting it via cable news, for the most part, or by going to the library, taking a course in community college, or maybe best of all just going to a church picnic in that other part of town, because it's a good deal, priced well, and likely the best meal you'll taste this week.
Nope, us white folks most spend our time doing "more important stuff" like not thinking about racism. Then all we have to work is news. Facts presented fairly about things everyone in a decent society should care about. Sadly, we're still working on the decent thing, because so many think the status quo is tolerable or even an "improvement" from before the state withdrew its blatant legal support for racism in the 50s and 60s.
If you don't want it to be news, do we go back in time where only happy stuff on race made it into press, because that's what white folks will assume?
If they're not reading it in the paper, they're sure not getting it via cable news, for the most part, or by going to the library, taking a course in community college, or maybe best of all just going to a church picnic in that other part of town, because it's a good deal, priced well, and likely the best meal you'll taste this week.
Nope, us white folks most spend our time doing "more important stuff" like not thinking about racism. Then all we have to work is news. Facts presented fairly about things everyone in a decent society should care about. Sadly, we're still working on the decent thing, because so many think the status quo is tolerable or even an "improvement" from before the state withdrew its blatant legal support for racism in the 50s and 60s.
If you don't want it to be news, do we go back in time where only happy stuff on race made it into press, because that's what white folks will assume?
2
blackmamba, as you already know, I want a future America where you are not put in a black box by the US Census Bureau but simply become an American with a particular educational background, economic situation, and set of capabilities. My intellectual heroine, Professor Dorothy Roberts, seems to want that also with an America where we all get the medical care we need and with far better access to good educational opportunities and good nutrition.
My reason for filing my first comment (accepted) was to point to the absolute failure of "the system" in its simple minded assignment of everyone - you and Josh Hill good examples - to a "black race". If researchers want to study racism then they do not need the Fatal Invention "race" but could in appropriate situations use skin color but only as one of many variables as Professor Sheldon Piston is experimenting with. I do not pretend that this will prove to be useful, but at least worth discussing.
I report here that I have finished Nadifa Mohamed's Black Mamba Boy and among other things it was a revelation concerning the depth of racism practiced by the British and Italians in the Horn of Africa from the 30s on - and of course even forms of racism practiced by various clans.
Larry
My reason for filing my first comment (accepted) was to point to the absolute failure of "the system" in its simple minded assignment of everyone - you and Josh Hill good examples - to a "black race". If researchers want to study racism then they do not need the Fatal Invention "race" but could in appropriate situations use skin color but only as one of many variables as Professor Sheldon Piston is experimenting with. I do not pretend that this will prove to be useful, but at least worth discussing.
I report here that I have finished Nadifa Mohamed's Black Mamba Boy and among other things it was a revelation concerning the depth of racism practiced by the British and Italians in the Horn of Africa from the 30s on - and of course even forms of racism practiced by various clans.
Larry
1
No. I feel and love and hear you Mike. Thanks.
John Brown, Abraham Lincoln, James Reeb, Viola Liuzzo, Bruce Klunder, Michael Schwerner, and Andrew Goodman were all my beloved brothers and sisters.
John Brown, Abraham Lincoln, James Reeb, Viola Liuzzo, Bruce Klunder, Michael Schwerner, and Andrew Goodman were all my beloved brothers and sisters.
1
Why do this paper’s editorial writers consistently ignore the impact that illegal aliens have had on Black employment? Harvard economist George J. Borjas has found that many Blacks have been displaced by illegal aliens, with the result that some of these unemployed Blacks have turned to illegal activities and have ended up in prison. The editorial writers are so sure that everyone who is against amnesty is a racist that they are ignoring the fact that illegal aliens are taking jobs that Blacks would have otherwise held.
53
Vicente Fox, former president of Mexico, said in 2006, "There is no doubt that Mexicans, filled with dignity, willingness and ability to work, are doing jobs that not even blacks want to do there in the United States".
"Nuff said.
"Nuff said.
1
I disagree. Unless a person is a member of the military or is in prison, our entire lives are lives of choices. "Black Men" have NOT been FORCED out of society: it is a choice they made voluntarily. They may not have had a lot of choices, but they were all voluntarily made......
18
"millions more are shut out of society, or are functionally missing, because of the shrinking labor market for low-skilled workers"
Yet the Times and others have no problem with the fact that many of the low skilled jobs are taken by 11-12 million illegal immigrants. If immigration laws were enforced, many of our poor minority citizens would have employment opportunities.
Why are our poor citizens allowed to suffer so that non citizens can prosper?
Yet the Times and others have no problem with the fact that many of the low skilled jobs are taken by 11-12 million illegal immigrants. If immigration laws were enforced, many of our poor minority citizens would have employment opportunities.
Why are our poor citizens allowed to suffer so that non citizens can prosper?
60
"As deindustrialization got underway, earnings declined, neighborhoods grew poorer and businesses moved to the suburbs, beyond the reach of inner city residents."
The movement from the cities started before any deindustrialization. In fact it was the union members working for the automakers who were able to lead the way in moving out of Detroit. So unions were good for providing the mobility to get out of the city in trying to stay ahead of the crime and violence.
The movement from the cities started before any deindustrialization. In fact it was the union members working for the automakers who were able to lead the way in moving out of Detroit. So unions were good for providing the mobility to get out of the city in trying to stay ahead of the crime and violence.
4
Phenomenally clear and succinct summation of a very complex problem. Any particular issue discussed in this article, from fatherless homes, incarceration rates, unemployment, discrimination, education gap, to police brutality, can be mined for untold depth. The negative implications of each of these issues is untold.
You won't find a better "cliffs notes" explanation of the issues black men face in this country.
You won't find a better "cliffs notes" explanation of the issues black men face in this country.
10
Excellent editorial. Thank you. It occurred to me, seeing news reports of coyotes in Manhattan, that if they'd been Black, a sniper would have been called out and there would have been no hour-long chases. Or if a coyote were taken alive, he be thrown shackled in the back of a van and taken for a very rough ride.
4
How exactly does this lead to more out-of-wedlock births? If these millions of men are stuck inside of prison, how exactly are they impregnating women while held inside walls?
11
Presumably either before they go to prison, or in between stints in prison. The point is that they can get a woman pregnant, but then they're not able to be around to help support the child.
Deindustrialization? I call it "free trade". A voluntary policy that is destroying our nation. We are fools.
7
I'm certain that the millions of other jobless and deprived men in our society would have appreciated a bit of attention also.
5
Here in Chattanooga there's roughly a black on black shooting roughly every 3 days. What's remarkable is that when a shooter is caught, he invariably has a lengthy rap sheet, and not for drug possession. Sometimes they're out on bond for another violent crime. If anything, the courts are so overwhelmed that serious crimes become devalued.
16
Marginalizing a group of people (hate the word "marginalize" but can't think of a better) leads to a breakdown of a culture; and most often, that breakdown occurs from the inside out. It is safer to explode in your own ghetto (I'm referring to all the talk about how most young black victims are killed by other young black men) than it is to run amok in the neighborhood of the powerful other. But the explosion's echoes spread. To all of us.
Yes, ALL of us. Every single one of us. We are all in the greater social milieu of 21st Century America together, and we all pay the price when there is violence, injustice, disorder. If there is anything we, as a group, can do to ease the divide, we should do it. The first step is to acknowledge that the problem is NOT with "them." It is, let me repeat, with all of us.
Yes, ALL of us. Every single one of us. We are all in the greater social milieu of 21st Century America together, and we all pay the price when there is violence, injustice, disorder. If there is anything we, as a group, can do to ease the divide, we should do it. The first step is to acknowledge that the problem is NOT with "them." It is, let me repeat, with all of us.
19
A while back, formal and informal segregation protected working-class whites from competition from blacks for most of the better sorts of jobs. As these gradually diminished, something else arose -- the war on drugs and new policing styles that gave many blacks criminal records -- that could and did serve the same purpose. To what extent this is intentional we cannot say, but these policies have been having this effect for decades.
Their effects, however, have been superseded by the general shortage of good jobs for the working class, so the bad effects of a shortage of decent jobs are showing up in the white working class too. Too many of the new jobs are bad, so that the solution of reserving them for black people no longer works.
Their effects, however, have been superseded by the general shortage of good jobs for the working class, so the bad effects of a shortage of decent jobs are showing up in the white working class too. Too many of the new jobs are bad, so that the solution of reserving them for black people no longer works.
13
Programs instituted by President Roosevelt worked, my husband benefitted from them. Reagan dismantled many of them. Remember the "welfare queens," cited as a reasong to gut those programs? There was once a program that worked to remove children from the negative environments many of them lived in. Eager to cut the program, Reagan's budget director or another of Reagan's henchman, quipped cynically, "Can't we just buy them a bus ticket to Buffalo." The programs were gleefully cut and the war on drugs was stepped up by the president who began his campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi, the city where the three civil rights workers (Cheney, Schwerner, and Goodman) were murdered. Telling, isn't it?
The Congressional Black Caucus is opposed to amnesty precisely because so many of its constituents will be forced out of the workplace for unskilled and low skilled jobs, or will have to compete for these jobs with 5-10 million newly legalized residents, a result of concern cited by this editorial. Why isn't Obama listenening? Why doesn't America care more about black Americans who are already suffering economically than millions of non citizens who will compete for those scarce jobs?
35
Shame on the NYT for advancing the political narrative favored by the Progressive left that the plight of Black men in America is the inevitable result of economic and criminal justice systems canted against them. This narrative begets the election of Democrats, a huge, well-paid and unionized social services bureaucracy, and the allocation of society's fiscal crumbs to a permanent minority underclass.
Interestingly, there is virtually no advocacy whatsoever from either the progressive left or the institutional minority organizations on the rather straight-forward things that would most directly and most significantly improve the life circumstances facing the Black community: stop dropping out of school, stop abusing drugs and stop having children until they can be raised in a stable and economically sound environment. Nor is there any advocacy from either group about transforming our public schools from an employment program for underperforming adults into an educational program for children.
Unfortunately, our leaders have been co-opted by the high positions, the insider benefits, the grants, the TV shows, etc., so the real inwardly-facing work goes undone. And with black leaders firmly under Democrat Party control, the real progressive agenda -- women's and gay rights, the environment, and union power -- get advanced aggressively, while minority concerns simply languish. As
Minister X once said, "we've been took."
I
Interestingly, there is virtually no advocacy whatsoever from either the progressive left or the institutional minority organizations on the rather straight-forward things that would most directly and most significantly improve the life circumstances facing the Black community: stop dropping out of school, stop abusing drugs and stop having children until they can be raised in a stable and economically sound environment. Nor is there any advocacy from either group about transforming our public schools from an employment program for underperforming adults into an educational program for children.
Unfortunately, our leaders have been co-opted by the high positions, the insider benefits, the grants, the TV shows, etc., so the real inwardly-facing work goes undone. And with black leaders firmly under Democrat Party control, the real progressive agenda -- women's and gay rights, the environment, and union power -- get advanced aggressively, while minority concerns simply languish. As
Minister X once said, "we've been took."
I
34
Nicely written, but crazy. Also "Democratic Party" was misspelled.
Talk about racial stereotypes. The NYT has fallen victim to propaganda, which becomes a self fulfilling cycle. But in reality, these days there is far less racism than ever before in our countries history and relative to the rest of the world. Both white and black convicts ate regularly hired when hiring takes place, the problem is that due to the lack of enforcement of our immigration laws and our borders, there are more people than ever competing for low level jobs. Barring a convicted on for a felony or of a violent crime, convictions are not that determinative anymore, but education and literacy probably are. Ironically, much of the breakdown of black society can be directly traced to the civil rights movement and desegregation when black businesses had to compete with larger better, managed businesses and failed.
4
This seems to say blackness is the cause of the missing men. Correlation isn't causation. With such a large disparity it may well be a cause, or even the most basic cause of the factors which take black men out or away from the general population. It may be that there are factors associated with blackness that causes some of the other things which lead to this societal condition.
A bit more nuance and analysis might be useful, and of course I might have written the same regarding the report you published earlier.
A bit more nuance and analysis might be useful, and of course I might have written the same regarding the report you published earlier.
4
No, it says racism is the cause - racism against blackness.
1
It was Henry Louis Gates who was locked out of his house, then appeared to be "breaking in" with a cab driver's assistance. The incident brought a response from the White House and the police officer, Gates and Obama shared a beer.
5
The problem has been around for many, many years.
No one has come close to solving it yet.
Why is that?
When one can aswer the "why?", the solution will slowly evolve.
Naf 85 years worth
No one has come close to solving it yet.
Why is that?
When one can aswer the "why?", the solution will slowly evolve.
Naf 85 years worth
1
How about the fact that some do not want to be found for various reasons? Whatever the reasons - criminal records, child support, probation violations, underground economy, aliases, check it out.
3
Is it really just about jobs? I don't think so. Here is what I think...our economic-social structure is inherently hierarchical and oppressive to both black and white, and this system breeds, domination, racism, sexism, etc...what we need to start with is a public education system that teaches us all how to use critical theory to uncover, expose and then proceed to change.
9
Or is it that our nature has bred our economic-social structure? Try seeing consumer capitalism as a reflection of human nature rather than seeing human nature as a tabula rasa upon which consumer capitalism has built the mindless drones it needs to march on. I see no viable alternative, in any case, and certainly not the direct democracy of the far Left. On the whole, people are very stupid, and I don't care how many socialists get angry when I say that; it's true. And what people mean when they say that the answer is education is this: I am so smart, and if everyone just thought like I did, the world would be a wonderful place.
But, yes, people need to be able to reason, need to be educated, need to be able to construct an argument. There must, though, be a buffer between policy and mass opinion. I don't want dictatorship, but I don't want to see the so-called "will of the people" as arbiter, at least not yet, and probably never.
Our system is captured by special interests. One constantly hears this to the point that one's eyes roll back in one's head when the phrase is repeated, but it's quite true. Money buys policy. Big companies distort the legal system, do as they wish. I heard Jonathan Israel say that the law should be nationalized. Brief summation: "No more private lawyers; every lawyer, say, in the senior rank is paid the same by the state; no more stupendous fees to wiggle around the rules; all have equal access, and the law now serves the common good."
But, yes, people need to be able to reason, need to be educated, need to be able to construct an argument. There must, though, be a buffer between policy and mass opinion. I don't want dictatorship, but I don't want to see the so-called "will of the people" as arbiter, at least not yet, and probably never.
Our system is captured by special interests. One constantly hears this to the point that one's eyes roll back in one's head when the phrase is repeated, but it's quite true. Money buys policy. Big companies distort the legal system, do as they wish. I heard Jonathan Israel say that the law should be nationalized. Brief summation: "No more private lawyers; every lawyer, say, in the senior rank is paid the same by the state; no more stupendous fees to wiggle around the rules; all have equal access, and the law now serves the common good."
As a Canadian, I would say that the most notable example of US exceptionalism is the American justice system. Too many people go to prison for way too long, often for crimes that would be considered misdemeanors in other countries.
259
You are correct. But our politicians get elected by being "tough on crime" and our privatized prison systems (AKA the prison industrial complex) is profitable to those who fund political campaigns.
3
In Europe and Mexico they don't have the death penalty or life imprisonment for homicide. You can get away with murder and just about anything else. A soft touch on criminals.
'because of the shrinking labor market for low-skilled workers'
Along with a massive increase in undocumented immigrants seeking those low-skilled jobs, due to non-enforcement of immigration laws.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2014/oct/09/americas-front-lines/
'The fraction of those who were called back—indicating they would be considered for a job—was 31 percent for white applicants, 25 percent for Hispanic applicants, and 15 percent for black applicants.'
Along with a massive increase in undocumented immigrants seeking those low-skilled jobs, due to non-enforcement of immigration laws.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2014/oct/09/americas-front-lines/
'The fraction of those who were called back—indicating they would be considered for a job—was 31 percent for white applicants, 25 percent for Hispanic applicants, and 15 percent for black applicants.'
28
Robots are on the way to replacing 40% of ALL USA jobs, this argument is really just so wrong. Immigration the least of our worries, automation of practically everything is.
2
Who are the toughest men in America? Black men, of course. Who makes up the bulk of our early education system? Women. Until schools reflect the reality of the streets, boys will lose interest in what they see as their feminization, not their education.
10
Thank you for showcasing how sexism is also still a prominent issue in the U.S.
3
At 9:00 a.m. this morning, my twin sister purchased a 15 year old Toyota Corolla for $900.00 and 124, 000 mile, here in Petoskey, for a 29 year black man in Flint, where she once again resides due to job loss. She has a home here in Petoskey, and bought a small two bedroom home in the Mott Park area of Flint, very close to our childhood home due to job loss here, and job security in Lapeer, MI.
This wonderful young black man has a criminal record, having stole a car at age sixteen. He has recently graduated from a grant program as a welder. He has never been able to find work. He lives with his parents, and by chance my sister met him two weeks ago, when looking for someone to help with yard work, and other maintenance chores.
He now will be working on having his drivers licence reinstated, and Mott Community College where he attended the work grant program is said to be helping him.
My sister by no means is financially well off. This young man lives with his parents, where he will always have a home. My sister is performing the work that our government should be doing, but our government prefers to mooch off people like my sister.
This wonderful young black man has a criminal record, having stole a car at age sixteen. He has recently graduated from a grant program as a welder. He has never been able to find work. He lives with his parents, and by chance my sister met him two weeks ago, when looking for someone to help with yard work, and other maintenance chores.
He now will be working on having his drivers licence reinstated, and Mott Community College where he attended the work grant program is said to be helping him.
My sister by no means is financially well off. This young man lives with his parents, where he will always have a home. My sister is performing the work that our government should be doing, but our government prefers to mooch off people like my sister.
44
A great personal story with many lessons. Thanks. If there were more folks like your sister who cared, it would help. But the problem is deep and systemic and we need a radical change of consciousness so we can build communities that include and honor all, black and white, gay and straight, Asian and Hispanic.
1
"My sister is performing the work that our government should be doing"
Is it now the government's job to buy people (or is it only black people?) cars? Are people (including black people) responsible for any aspect of their own lives anymore?
Is it now the government's job to buy people (or is it only black people?) cars? Are people (including black people) responsible for any aspect of their own lives anymore?
2
This article is so true. I am one of only a few black me at my job. I have never been in trouble, yet I have to fight negative stereotypes all the time. I get asked to touch my hair, and stupid thing like that. It is so much that I sometimes want to snap. I really think a refocused reservation system would help. I would move there. A place where black people can live in peace. The police hate us, we cant get jobs, the system is totally rigged to hurt us. How can America sleep is beyond me. If we stopped being scared of each other (white and black) we could use that money to improve things. I wish some other country would hold America's feet to the fire and insist we take care of our own country before we invade other places. America is doomed unless it rights its original sin. It is worst than in the 60's and wont get any better.
78
You are right. I live in Seattle, and I know what you're talking about. I'm white, my husband is black.
Generally, Seattle is an ignorant place when it comes to race. Though it sees itself as enlightened and liberal. Funny that.
Generally, Seattle is an ignorant place when it comes to race. Though it sees itself as enlightened and liberal. Funny that.
5
Really? If someone asks to touch your hair, you think that's racist?
I'm mostly bald so I cut my hair about a quarter of an inch long. At school, children are constantly asking if they can touch my hair. They like the way it's bristly in one direction and smooth in the other.
Why do you think someone is being hateful if they want to touch your hair?
I'm mostly bald so I cut my hair about a quarter of an inch long. At school, children are constantly asking if they can touch my hair. They like the way it's bristly in one direction and smooth in the other.
Why do you think someone is being hateful if they want to touch your hair?
The article and the issue it talks about begs the question: Why black men? Why are they stigmatized and stereotyped? The reality is that most violent crimes are committed by black men. I work in the juvenile justice system and am confounded by the fact that nearly all the violent crimes are committed by black youth and hispanic youth (although to a smaller degree). Youths of other ethnicities also occasion through the courthouse but they are there largely for non-violent offenses like marijuana possession. If we can pinpoint what it is about black men that causes them to express themselves in violence, perhaps then we can address the consequences that result. If we are too PC to even talk about the root of the problem, then we won't get anywhere.
354
Perhaps we should first pinpoint what it is about the system and the culture that does this to black people. Males are more likely to act out than females.
6
Please remember that the criminal justice system profiles and arrests blacks far more than whites. So you can't depend on arrests to determine who is committing crimes. Also research on the "root" of the problem of violence in black communities concludes that it is poverty, and poor economic structures that lead to crime, not the color of the person's skin.
http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~roos/Courses/grstat502/phillipssp802.pdf
http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~roos/Courses/grstat502/phillipssp802.pdf
5
"Why black men? Why are they stigmatized and stereotyped?" Those 'rhetorical questions' alone prove the editorial hit the nail on the head.
2
It's very hard to know what to do about this, absent a strongly liberal Congress and presidency to pursue needed reforms on a national level and strongly liberal state legislatures and governors to do likewise at their level, other than to try to reverse the damaging self-segregation that has weakened the US in the last forty to fifty years, ever since the collapse of busing. So many whites are not aware of this ongoing tragedy because they are not aware of black people. They attended heavily white schools and their children have/had a very similar or even smaller exposure to people of different races and ethnicities. This bodes very poorly for our future.
We can even go so far as to say that whites will cheer for their favorite black athletes, but they won't necessarily introduce themselves to the new black family that just moved to their neighborhood. Too many whites, even those in positions of power who are expected to know better, have a visceral fear of black men. A walk is an aggressive strut and a normal, even contemplative frown is the beginning of "angry black man" behavior. If they knew more black men, it's logical to hope that they wouldn't feel this way and would support policies that would truly begin to destroy the rancid remnants of the slave system. We used to keep them enslaved, then we kept them in chain gangs, more recently our policies are designed to keep them locked up and away from whites, as many as possible for as long as possible. How despicable.
We can even go so far as to say that whites will cheer for their favorite black athletes, but they won't necessarily introduce themselves to the new black family that just moved to their neighborhood. Too many whites, even those in positions of power who are expected to know better, have a visceral fear of black men. A walk is an aggressive strut and a normal, even contemplative frown is the beginning of "angry black man" behavior. If they knew more black men, it's logical to hope that they wouldn't feel this way and would support policies that would truly begin to destroy the rancid remnants of the slave system. We used to keep them enslaved, then we kept them in chain gangs, more recently our policies are designed to keep them locked up and away from whites, as many as possible for as long as possible. How despicable.
142
Well said. Bravo.
3
You are on the money,
2
Racism is a white problem, having been the powerful and oppressor group. It is ridiculous to now ask and expect black people to solve the problem. If white people change, someday blacks may come to trust them. Till then, we've got what we've got. Sad. One would like to think we could all be human beings together, good and bad, leaving color out of it!
5
The foundation to this problem is the unconscious fear of blacks that American whites routinely demonstrate. It's not inborn, but develops in childhood as whites become socially moulded. Why do African Americans make Anglo Americans so uncomfortable? Alternatively, why do Asian Americans /not/ make whites uncomfortable?
15
To a white child who sees mostly whites, the face of a black person, which they rarely see and are unused to, is "other," different, frighting, ugly, scary.
I recently noticed this with a blonde, white 6 year-old who told me she did not like a picture of dancers because it was frightening. I glanced at the picture in question, and it was of a smiling black men with strong features dressed in an African costume dancing.
I've heard this many times from children, and remember similar thoughts when I was a child. I remember being horrified by Nat King Cole's face and features.
If, on the other hand, you become the minority, live in Africa, you come to see the black people as the beautiful ones. I noted a subtle shift in my psyche as we left the continent where I was in the minority and flew to the one where my skin color was the one in power and the majority color. I could feel my sense of self, my sense of importance expand. It was interesting.
I recently noticed this with a blonde, white 6 year-old who told me she did not like a picture of dancers because it was frightening. I glanced at the picture in question, and it was of a smiling black men with strong features dressed in an African costume dancing.
I've heard this many times from children, and remember similar thoughts when I was a child. I remember being horrified by Nat King Cole's face and features.
If, on the other hand, you become the minority, live in Africa, you come to see the black people as the beautiful ones. I noted a subtle shift in my psyche as we left the continent where I was in the minority and flew to the one where my skin color was the one in power and the majority color. I could feel my sense of self, my sense of importance expand. It was interesting.
3
It's not ONLY Black Men who are being forced out of society. Black people on the whole are being forced out, if not by being relegated to the outer parts of the "Outer Boroughs" from which there is no return, then by hitting the glass ceiling before even getting through the door.
Granted, it sometimes seems like 'open season' on Black folks' lives, when almost each passing day brings along with it a new report of yet another shooting. The best way to explain this critical mentality is surely to be found in the history books, and in the founding of our great nation -- where the reasoning behind "Black on Black" crime can be found too.
Granted, it sometimes seems like 'open season' on Black folks' lives, when almost each passing day brings along with it a new report of yet another shooting. The best way to explain this critical mentality is surely to be found in the history books, and in the founding of our great nation -- where the reasoning behind "Black on Black" crime can be found too.
5
This is a very uncomfortable issue for me, both as an academic and as a old white man. Any attempt to improve the lives of African Americans seems inherently racist because it presupposes that something is seriously wrong with African American culture and society. Who am I to inventory the "faults" of another culture?
At the same time, it is simply and irrefutably the case that African-Americans themselves find their own lives to be damaged by violence, crime, drug-addiction, and fraying familial ties.
Perhaps the most uncomfortable aspect of this problem it is that it seems impossible to devise a remedy. Once one has accepted that the perceived ills of African American society are not genetically based--as all moderately educated and well-intentioned people must--then the only options seem to be massive social engineering or the hope that in time this society and culture will be changed by forces internal to African-American culture and society. But social engineering is hideously difficult and rarely successful, and I see no negative natural or cultural selective pressures that will ultimately resolve the problem. I hope others are more optimistic and insightful.
At the same time, it is simply and irrefutably the case that African-Americans themselves find their own lives to be damaged by violence, crime, drug-addiction, and fraying familial ties.
Perhaps the most uncomfortable aspect of this problem it is that it seems impossible to devise a remedy. Once one has accepted that the perceived ills of African American society are not genetically based--as all moderately educated and well-intentioned people must--then the only options seem to be massive social engineering or the hope that in time this society and culture will be changed by forces internal to African-American culture and society. But social engineering is hideously difficult and rarely successful, and I see no negative natural or cultural selective pressures that will ultimately resolve the problem. I hope others are more optimistic and insightful.
9
This is why I fully support decriminalization of drug possession. It won't fix everything, and frankly it may not help the older men who have grown up in this cycle, but it would be a relatively simple start to not have so many black men sent straight to prison.
4
Every now and then you come across some data that explains many mysteries. The "missing men data" certainly deserves that label. While it cannot explain all causes of the misery in America's black population, it goes a long way to explain the status quo. This data must be the wake up call for America. It is very obvious that we have moved seamlessly from the days of slavery to the days of mass incarceration. Whatever the root cause, it must be solved with drastic actions. Any nation that attempts to put a vast quantity of their citizens on the sidelines will loose the long turn battle for global relevance. We cannot afford it. The solution must be based on principled bi-partisan quick action. I do hope that both Republicans and Democrats can rally around this cause.
7
Black men are "profiled" then "criminalized" and then "forced out of society" (per title of this article) after going through the "school to prison pipeline" while they are "at risk youth". The black lobby and their liberal apologists ability to twist language (as the title of this article does) to make blacks passive victims in all instances, even when they are victimizing others (or themselves), is pathological and disturbing.
23
But you just accurately described the problem: black boys and men are profiled, then criminalized, after going through the school to prison pipeline. They are certainly at risk youth. White boys and men are given a pass for the same behavior, chalked up to mischievousness, sowing wild oats, proving their masculinity, and other rites of passage.
4
It's dismaying that nowhere in this editorial is there any acknowledgement that one very big reason why so many black men are in jail is that black men commit so much serious crime.
True, a lot of blacks are in jail "nonviolent drug offenses," and the Times would have us focus on that. But a vastly disproportionate amount of America's violent crime is also committed by blacks. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, blacks commit murder at a rate almost eight times higher than whites (see page three in the link below. That's huge! The disparity for other crimes is similar; whatever sort of crime you are looking at, blacks commit a lot more of it than whites (or Asians). Yet the Times talks about imprisonment as though it's just sort of happening to blacks, as though they had no say in the matter.
It's truly unfair that so many law abiding blacks get stigmatized because of the crimes committed by other blacks. But it's also pretty much unavoidable -- that's just the way people think, and human nature isn't about to change any time soon. The true problem is not stigmatization; the true problem is black crime. Bring that down, and all the other problems mentioned here will improve as if by magic. However uncomfortable it makes liberals, however much it feels like "blaming the victim," reducing black crime is where the focus should be.
http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/htus8008.pdf
True, a lot of blacks are in jail "nonviolent drug offenses," and the Times would have us focus on that. But a vastly disproportionate amount of America's violent crime is also committed by blacks. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, blacks commit murder at a rate almost eight times higher than whites (see page three in the link below. That's huge! The disparity for other crimes is similar; whatever sort of crime you are looking at, blacks commit a lot more of it than whites (or Asians). Yet the Times talks about imprisonment as though it's just sort of happening to blacks, as though they had no say in the matter.
It's truly unfair that so many law abiding blacks get stigmatized because of the crimes committed by other blacks. But it's also pretty much unavoidable -- that's just the way people think, and human nature isn't about to change any time soon. The true problem is not stigmatization; the true problem is black crime. Bring that down, and all the other problems mentioned here will improve as if by magic. However uncomfortable it makes liberals, however much it feels like "blaming the victim," reducing black crime is where the focus should be.
http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/htus8008.pdf
174
You may not be able to change "human nature," but you can change the attitudes that people have toward others of different races or ethnicities. We actually have done that over the years.
2
Racism is not "just the way people think, and human nature." Racism actually recently evolved in human history. Race is a social construct developed to define blacks as "the other". Racism is learned and can be unlearned. We can train our brains to think differently. The difference in homocide rates between blacks and whites can be explained by their different socio-economic structures. Blacks live in much harder situations as explained in this article and the environment is what results in higher crime rates, not the skin color. Here's research on the topic: http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~roos/Courses/grstat502/phillipssp802.pdf
4
But I suspect a lot of those murders are related to other illegal activity. And I would suspect that a lot of that other illegal activity has something to do with how difficult it is for black men to find work, especially if they've had any run-ins with the law. That's the endless loop.
2
Are we planning more job loss with new trade agreements that allow corporations to shift work opportunity overseas?
Yes, we need to restart the WPA programs of the depression era, because there is a depression era right now in many communities of America.
There are several groups in America. The wealthy, the working people we call the middle class , the working poor and the rest; unemployed, and in our jails and prisons.
Our Democracy is disappearing with corporate control of American government and a political ideology that makes the rich the super rich.
Yes, we need to restart the WPA programs of the depression era, because there is a depression era right now in many communities of America.
There are several groups in America. The wealthy, the working people we call the middle class , the working poor and the rest; unemployed, and in our jails and prisons.
Our Democracy is disappearing with corporate control of American government and a political ideology that makes the rich the super rich.
44
It's abhorrent that we need the Editorial Board to remind us of the fact the facts haven't changed in decades: black men are disappearing from slanted arrest criteria that gets them young and mars them for life.
What good is it going to do to debate sentencing reform if so many were shut out of the workplace for years, and may even be back there out of desperation. The loss of human capital is astounding.
And the fact that we now have cameras to bear witness to atrocities that have been a routine part of police culture also gives me pause: how many lives were taken unjustly? It's a "if you're not in the forest, does a falling tree make a noise?" argument: If we're seeing one or two cases of videos revealing unjustified police brutality a week now, how many more were committed all across the country yet exonerated due to cop self-defense arguments.?
Our leaders call out other countries for inhumane treatment of citizens with different religions or political beliefs. But many say little about the inhumane treatment of a wide swath of citizens with skin of a different color.
What good is it going to do to debate sentencing reform if so many were shut out of the workplace for years, and may even be back there out of desperation. The loss of human capital is astounding.
And the fact that we now have cameras to bear witness to atrocities that have been a routine part of police culture also gives me pause: how many lives were taken unjustly? It's a "if you're not in the forest, does a falling tree make a noise?" argument: If we're seeing one or two cases of videos revealing unjustified police brutality a week now, how many more were committed all across the country yet exonerated due to cop self-defense arguments.?
Our leaders call out other countries for inhumane treatment of citizens with different religions or political beliefs. But many say little about the inhumane treatment of a wide swath of citizens with skin of a different color.
70
Growing up in a liberal environment I soon became aware of the obsessive patronizing concern white liberals show blacks and how they seen blacks as the victim in every and all circumstances, particularly black men. I remember my first job two black male coworkers who were openly misogynistic, homophobic, and anti-Semetic while obsessively labeling everyone anti-black racists and using that successfully for leverage. Many decades later nothing has changed. I am sick of the 24/7 pity party for black males the left has. I have no doubt this obsession contributes greatly to their inability to thrive in our society. Studies for decades show that black males have higher self esteem then whites. I am not surprised as I see this "all about me" attitude constantly including from black writers for this paper who write obsessively about any and all instances of anti-black racism but never one word about the wrongdoings blacks commit against others.
This article closes with a study about blacks and employement. Asians have a lower unemployment rate than whites and their names usual identify them as Asian on job applications. Asians (both SE and S) and Jews have a higher income on average than non-Jewish whites and black immigrants have a far lower rate of incarceration, unemployment, and failure to graduate from high school and college than black Americans. Maybe the problem isn't everyone else.
This article closes with a study about blacks and employement. Asians have a lower unemployment rate than whites and their names usual identify them as Asian on job applications. Asians (both SE and S) and Jews have a higher income on average than non-Jewish whites and black immigrants have a far lower rate of incarceration, unemployment, and failure to graduate from high school and college than black Americans. Maybe the problem isn't everyone else.
40
The statistics you cite do not prove anything about nature. Jews could be imprisoned or unemployed as could Asians. The power structure, the atittudes are subtle. Perhaps you've never lived in another place, time, or context.
6
Both Asians and Jews have a reputation of excelling academically above whites. So it would not be a surprise if they had a lower unemployment rate. Both Asians and Jews have a much different history than blacks. Asians and Jews were immigrants largely from middle and upper class families. Blacks on the other hand were kidnapped, enslaved, and subjected to extreme racism. Why would anyone expect these groups to be in the same place at this point in time? Better yet, why would anyone even compare these groups? They are all American citizens entitled to fairness and equity in this country. Our country is not a minority competition. It is a group of diverse individuals trying to live and work in harmony. To succeed we have to examine the problem of race, but we do not have to judge one ethnicity against another.
98
Ah, so becaue one practices or has a Juadaic background no longer qualifies someone as "white"? Hmmm...ALL the old tropes are aive and well.
5
It is time for NYT writers, commenters, and American "race" researchers to consider using the variable that appears in every article like this one, but that most dare not use in detail.
That variable is skin color. Note that in men are first referred to in terms of a single color "black", as if they are all the same color. They are not.
Suppose researchers like Devah Pager added skin color as a research variable as has Spencer Piston, Political Scientist at the Maxwell School, has attempted to do. Look at the graphs he has prepared at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2014/09/17/lighter-sk....
Interesting aren't they?
He used self evaluated skin color but my many young Somali friends here in Linköping, Sweden, taught me long ago how attuned Sub-Saharan Africans are to variation in skin color. Several of the many who come to the Red Cross to practice Swedish have shown me how they distinguish Somalis from Africans coming from the Congo, for example. They point to the color of the skin on the inner aspect of the wrist and say "see, not like the color of your friend from the Congo, Larry, he is black, he is African."
So look at Professor Piston's graphs and tell me here or at my blog why researchers who blithely use "race" as a variable should not be using objectively measured skin color as a research variable.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
That variable is skin color. Note that in men are first referred to in terms of a single color "black", as if they are all the same color. They are not.
Suppose researchers like Devah Pager added skin color as a research variable as has Spencer Piston, Political Scientist at the Maxwell School, has attempted to do. Look at the graphs he has prepared at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2014/09/17/lighter-sk....
Interesting aren't they?
He used self evaluated skin color but my many young Somali friends here in Linköping, Sweden, taught me long ago how attuned Sub-Saharan Africans are to variation in skin color. Several of the many who come to the Red Cross to practice Swedish have shown me how they distinguish Somalis from Africans coming from the Congo, for example. They point to the color of the skin on the inner aspect of the wrist and say "see, not like the color of your friend from the Congo, Larry, he is black, he is African."
So look at Professor Piston's graphs and tell me here or at my blog why researchers who blithely use "race" as a variable should not be using objectively measured skin color as a research variable.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
3
Maybe because it's not so "black and white"?
5
We use "black" in America to refer to people whose ancestors came from Africa. Or maybe Australia. It doesn't matter what shade their skin color is.
6
DR. Martin Luther King only used the words Negro race to describe his people ,or Black . The term African American was not even invented by social minded liberals until the 1980's. Jews ,Italians ect the Irish are yet referred to as Americans of such extraction ,yet just Americans .Not to mention that most would discover Africa today to be a much more dangerous place to live in extreme poverty that no American has ever experienced.
1
Is this a remnant of slavery? Is it a signal that the United States has still to accept black people as an integral part of society without feeling threatened by them? We keep on blaming them for our reactions. We tell them to act more like us rather than putting ourselves in their shoes and trying to understand why a black man might run from the police. The idea that if he's innocent he shouldn't run doesn't allow for the fact that his innocence has probably been in doubt from the minute he came into contact with white people. I've seen how white people react to black people in quite a few situations. To expect blacks to view us as trustworthy we have to be trustworthy from day 1, not from the time they become legal adults. We can continue to say it's all their fault but it's not.
I do have some small amount of insight into what goes on because I have a handicapped brother whom others often deliberately misunderstand. He's expected to behave while others can break rules, treat him with complete disrespect, lie about him, and so on. He's guilty because he's handicapped. It makes no sense but that's how it is. The same people who treat him like garbage would scream bloody murder if they were treated the same way. No one should be treated like trash based upon the color of their skin. As King said, they should be judged on the content of their character. And they should also not be treated as guilty because of being black in America.
I do have some small amount of insight into what goes on because I have a handicapped brother whom others often deliberately misunderstand. He's expected to behave while others can break rules, treat him with complete disrespect, lie about him, and so on. He's guilty because he's handicapped. It makes no sense but that's how it is. The same people who treat him like garbage would scream bloody murder if they were treated the same way. No one should be treated like trash based upon the color of their skin. As King said, they should be judged on the content of their character. And they should also not be treated as guilty because of being black in America.
277
hen3ry,
I have been reading your comments for a while now, and I just want to say I appreciate your insights and humaneness. You're a good person. From what I've read, you've lived through a lot, and relating your experience is a powerful source of connection to meaningful ideas. As pointless as participating in these comment sections can seem, I just want you to know I do appreciate your voice here. You're posts have made a difference to me.
Sincerely,
Jay
I have been reading your comments for a while now, and I just want to say I appreciate your insights and humaneness. You're a good person. From what I've read, you've lived through a lot, and relating your experience is a powerful source of connection to meaningful ideas. As pointless as participating in these comment sections can seem, I just want you to know I do appreciate your voice here. You're posts have made a difference to me.
Sincerely,
Jay
9
Fact: most black males have jobs. If the others availed themselves of free education during youth instead of hustling, stealing, and evading child support, then there would be no problem of huge numbers of black men in jail. Black women don't have this problem because they accept education.
2
Thank you so much for this comment. All of the "It's their own fault" responses to this devastating Black incarceration drive me into depression. Nice to read some sanity and some humanity.
7
"stigmatized blackness itself" lumps together many different things.
Well educated black people, professionals well dressed and well spoken, do still face difficulty in ways that are shameful. Harvard Prof. Cornel West arrested in Cambridge for opening his own front door was a classic example. That happens.
However, what happens to others can be very different. There are ways to walk and talk and dress that are guaranteed to bring trouble dealing with those who do not share that. They are seen as threatening, and many times they are done as self assertion that is in part meant to be felt as a vague threat. Those people are treated far worse.
The two are not the same. They are not both just "blackness."
They are both problems, but they are different problems.
This has gone on for centuries, it involves millions of people of many varieties and gradations. It is incredibly complex. It is not just "blackness" the same for all.
None of this excuses such responses. The point is to see the problem clearly for what it is. It is more than just "blackness."
Well educated black people, professionals well dressed and well spoken, do still face difficulty in ways that are shameful. Harvard Prof. Cornel West arrested in Cambridge for opening his own front door was a classic example. That happens.
However, what happens to others can be very different. There are ways to walk and talk and dress that are guaranteed to bring trouble dealing with those who do not share that. They are seen as threatening, and many times they are done as self assertion that is in part meant to be felt as a vague threat. Those people are treated far worse.
The two are not the same. They are not both just "blackness."
They are both problems, but they are different problems.
This has gone on for centuries, it involves millions of people of many varieties and gradations. It is incredibly complex. It is not just "blackness" the same for all.
None of this excuses such responses. The point is to see the problem clearly for what it is. It is more than just "blackness."
104
It was Henry Louis Gates Jr., I believe, who was arrested trying to get into his home at Harvard, not Cornell West.
5
Actually, it was Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. who was arrested, after the police had received a call from a witness reporting a possible burglary when she observed two men trying to force open the front door of Gates' home.
It's all in the details, which are readily available right here on the Internet.
It's all in the details, which are readily available right here on the Internet.
6
You probably meant Prof. Henry Louis Gates, Jr.; not Prof. West.
2
You would make a better case if the editorial were written honestly. I note, for example, that nothing is said about the fact that most of the young black men killed by violence are killed by other young black men. That being said, I agree that decent jobs are of key importance. So are the presence of a father in the household, drug law and sentencing reform, and measures to reduce the inequities in the criminal justice system -- inequities that too often mean that poor black men receive jail sentences that would earn middle class white men a slap on the wrist.
218
There are decent jobs out there. How else do you explain the unemployment rate dropping? And who is forcing black fathers to abandon their children? I know it's considered impolitic, but : personal responsibility people!
7
The statistics of black on black crime are about the same as white on white crime.
14
It's unfortunate that people see what they want to, and want to keep the discussion where they want it to stay. And in your case, that's safely on the shoulders of the victims to remain the ones responsible for their plight. "You note that nothing is said about the fact that most young black men are killed by other young black men" because that's what you want to talk about. The article clearly stated that premature death is no longer as big of an issue as it once was. Why talk about the fallacy of black on black crime, if that's not the issue the article is discussing? Because it would take the focus off the real problem and the real perpetrators of inequity.
People who want to cloud the issue are the ones that don't want to let the conversation progress to its logical conclusion, nor do they want to mine for depth. Keep it at the surface of the news stories they show on TV of these violent black men.
People who want to cloud the issue are the ones that don't want to let the conversation progress to its logical conclusion, nor do they want to mine for depth. Keep it at the surface of the news stories they show on TV of these violent black men.
29
Is it about increasing the size of the tent? Or decreasing the welcome mat to the size of a postage stamp?
Is it about promoting human welfare first? Or is it only --- and always --- about money?
http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2012/12/tolerance-and-inclusion...