This article really takes Ms Wilkersons prestige down more than a few levels. her analysis here leads me to question much of what I read in her other works.
4
The author inexplicably uses the ambiguous phrase "Eastern European woman" to describe the owner of the Cleveland flat "who saw no need to keep it up." Is the author implying that the woman's "Eastern European-ness" somehow led her to not "keep up" the flat? Why is this detail needed? If the owner of the flat managed to "keep it up" would that have prevented Tamir's death? What ethical code is the author following when describing the geographic origins of Cleveland apartment owners?
3
Yes, yes, a thousand times yes, but why does this column omit the crucial difference, which Jacob Lawrence highlighted in the captions to his epic series of painting?
That difference is the level of immigration. The end of the Great Wave of immigration because of World War I and a subsequent change in the law to moderate immigration are what kept jobs in the North and Midwest open for Black Americans from the South. While immigration remained moderate through the 1950s and mid-1960s, urban Black Americans -- especially Black American men -- had jobs that supported strong communities. With the unprecedented rise to record immigration numbers from 1965 on, Black American economic progress stagnated -- and then regressed.
The turn to non-Black labor through cheap labor immigration policies is the politically incorrect truth of our time and the source of the greatest social injustice of modern America.
Mass immigration + mass joblessness = social, economic, and racial regression.
That difference is the level of immigration. The end of the Great Wave of immigration because of World War I and a subsequent change in the law to moderate immigration are what kept jobs in the North and Midwest open for Black Americans from the South. While immigration remained moderate through the 1950s and mid-1960s, urban Black Americans -- especially Black American men -- had jobs that supported strong communities. With the unprecedented rise to record immigration numbers from 1965 on, Black American economic progress stagnated -- and then regressed.
The turn to non-Black labor through cheap labor immigration policies is the politically incorrect truth of our time and the source of the greatest social injustice of modern America.
Mass immigration + mass joblessness = social, economic, and racial regression.
3
Emmett Till's 23 year old father, Louis Till, was convicted of rape and murder and hanged by the U.S. Army in Italy 1945, the court-martial details not revealed to Mrs. Mamie Till until the trial of her son's murderers. The defense team entered the evidence in an attempt to link the crime of the executed father with that alleged of his murdered child.
Military records show that Black soldiers represented 83% of those executed during the war in an Army that was only 8.5% Black, and those controversial convictions were instrumental in establishing the military court of appeals at the end of WWII.
The late Mrs. Till is a true American hero in that she insisted her slain child's grossly mutilated corpse be displayed in an open-casket funeral, ripping the eye mask off America's denial of the atrocities committed against its citizens of color. Her courage in doing so should be commemorated as the "shock shown around the world."
If only a contemporary surviving parent whose child was a victim of mass murder would step forward with visual evidence of the carnage resulting from our lax gun laws...where is today's Mrs. Till?
Military records show that Black soldiers represented 83% of those executed during the war in an Army that was only 8.5% Black, and those controversial convictions were instrumental in establishing the military court of appeals at the end of WWII.
The late Mrs. Till is a true American hero in that she insisted her slain child's grossly mutilated corpse be displayed in an open-casket funeral, ripping the eye mask off America's denial of the atrocities committed against its citizens of color. Her courage in doing so should be commemorated as the "shock shown around the world."
If only a contemporary surviving parent whose child was a victim of mass murder would step forward with visual evidence of the carnage resulting from our lax gun laws...where is today's Mrs. Till?
8
correction for historical accuracy: I believe Mrs. Till's formal surname to be Till-Mobley.
"If only a contemporary surviving parent whose child was a victim of mass murder would step forward with visual evidence of the carnage resulting from our lax gun laws...where is today's Mrs. Till?"
There will be no "today's Mrs Till" because she would only disclose the fact that most mass murders of Blacks are committed by other Blacks.
Gun laws are not lax. What is lax is the enforcement of them. Rarely are the proper charges for illegal gun possession made and when they are they are plea bargained away.
There will be no "today's Mrs Till" because she would only disclose the fact that most mass murders of Blacks are committed by other Blacks.
Gun laws are not lax. What is lax is the enforcement of them. Rarely are the proper charges for illegal gun possession made and when they are they are plea bargained away.
I admire Ms. Wilkerson's work, but as important as it is to bring forth the humanity of a people so often viewed as mere statistics, as she eloquently does, it's also critical to recognize the political fabric that ties these families and these era's together.
The 'Great Migration' was spurred on by a host of injustices that made up everyday life for black people in the south. But one in particular was the desire to control black labor as an underpaid, terrorized workforce that could be exploited for profit and leveraged against white workers to keep their wages low.
The northern variant of that exploitation was different in kind, but not in function. By the time blacks got a foothold in the better paying blue collar jobs of smokestack industry, those jobs were being 'globalized' and transferred to Asia. Black labor was no longer needed and so they were discarded like old shoes. But there were no local sheriffs working with mill bosses or plantation owners to keep a now restive black labor in check. That task went to the municipal police force, aided by white hysteria, long standing racial bias and drug laws waging a war against the addicted and the unemployed.
Emmett Till and Tamir Rice were victims of a system. One marked by private violence, the other the official violence of the state. Both deaths were deeply symbolic for the communities that they came from. And the perpetrators of this violence were exonerated for doing the job their bosses assigned them to do.
The 'Great Migration' was spurred on by a host of injustices that made up everyday life for black people in the south. But one in particular was the desire to control black labor as an underpaid, terrorized workforce that could be exploited for profit and leveraged against white workers to keep their wages low.
The northern variant of that exploitation was different in kind, but not in function. By the time blacks got a foothold in the better paying blue collar jobs of smokestack industry, those jobs were being 'globalized' and transferred to Asia. Black labor was no longer needed and so they were discarded like old shoes. But there were no local sheriffs working with mill bosses or plantation owners to keep a now restive black labor in check. That task went to the municipal police force, aided by white hysteria, long standing racial bias and drug laws waging a war against the addicted and the unemployed.
Emmett Till and Tamir Rice were victims of a system. One marked by private violence, the other the official violence of the state. Both deaths were deeply symbolic for the communities that they came from. And the perpetrators of this violence were exonerated for doing the job their bosses assigned them to do.
12
Thank you for a provocative and thoughtful piece. While much has changed , what is disheartening is that the heart , souls and minds of most Caucasian Americans has not. That is why Donald Trump and Ted Cruz and all they embody and stand for capture the attention and emotions of so many " Americans". Talk of making " America Great again " is merely code for bring America back to a time when there certainly were no black men in the white house and they were forced to use a separate outhouse! I was most struck by this quote, “The attack on voting rights, incarceration, obviously but even more intellectually and culturally, a sort of exhaustion with black protest, an attitude of ‘What are these people really complaining about? Look at what we’ve done for you.’ . Imagine this attitude coming from a country where " these People" were enslaved, beaten , humiliated and sold as chattel, a war was waged over this issue and then for another hundred plus years they were discriminated against, lynched and treated as second class human beings. Imagine, it took the killing of innocent people of color in Church for South Carolina to finally take down the confederate flag. Until America and Americans own their true history on race relations and work towards true change this country will never be great or at peace.
11
Bryan Stephenson's documentation about lynchings should be required reading. Most of us white Americans have no idea what it is like to afraid all the time. Looking away is not an option. Racism diminishes us all.
14
If I'm alive on the fifth day of August, I will be 72. I am now an old man, something I thought would never come to me. I was just 11 when Jet magazine's regular Saturday delivery lay on my grandmother's telephone desk. I paged through it with foreboding, urged on by the horror on the cover. I grew up that day, my twin and I. I have met thousands of my fellows, urban as well as rural, who acknowledge the kidnapping-lynching of "the Chicago boy" as their Rubicons, too. In my 70th year, a 12-year old, much like me in 1955, lost his life because a dumb white cop panicked in the face of "the other," a centuries-old reaction to our forced presence in their cherished, entitled space. Both murders were and are eternal reminders of the ephemeral guarantee of a wasted life devoid of promise.
16
I am a (white) immigrant to this country, and I am still shocked at the apartheid nature of American society. Anti-black prejudice seeps through every facet of life in the US. I am impressed every day by the dignity and forbearance of African Americans who must live in a system so implacably opposed to their rise.
28
"Decades ago, in the Jim Crow South, Emmett Till’s killers were acquitted by an all-white jury, but at least they had gone to trial." I sat in Mrs. Mobley's living room in Chicago with a group of white high school students from Ohio while she told her son's story. The trial was a joke. Mose Wright, Emmett Till's great-uncle, testified against the two men who came to his home in the middle of the night and took Emmett Till away to be tortured and murdered. After the trial, Wright left Mississippi lest he suffer a fate similar to that of his grand-nephew. During the trial, one of the defendant's 2-year-old son sat on his daddy's lap. The blacks at the trial were relegated to the balcony, and Emmett's mother, Mamie Till Mobley, was taunted and terrified as she walked through a crowd of jeering whites and into the courtroom. No one expected the white male jury to find the men guilty. Emmett's mother did explain to her son before he left Chicago that he had to be careful--that life for blacks in Mississippi was much different than in Chicago. She also said she didn't believe that he whistled at the woman--as if that were even an excuse for his murder. The students were spellbound and could not imagine such a thing happening in the U.S. I am appalled that so many supposedly well-educated readers of this column play the blame-the-victim game, minimize the experiences of people of color, and make no attempt whatsoever to learn about systemic racism and the legacy of slavery.
15
Understand: Tamir Rice did not cause his own murder, especially given that it was at the hands of a police officer: someone the public has hired and armed to serve public safety. Tamir, his family, and we all have every right to expect careful use of that power in return for our trust.
Yes, police work entails risk; but that's the choice of each man or woman who takes the job.
Carrying a toy gun. Being tall for his age (or so people say). The clothes he had on that day. The larger problems in American society. Being an African-American male. Do any of these *really* sound like reasonable excuses for shooting that 12-year-old boy to death?
Yes, police work entails risk; but that's the choice of each man or woman who takes the job.
Carrying a toy gun. Being tall for his age (or so people say). The clothes he had on that day. The larger problems in American society. Being an African-American male. Do any of these *really* sound like reasonable excuses for shooting that 12-year-old boy to death?
13
Today Blacks have the equal rights and equal opportunity they have strived for. They just need to do what a *lot* of people need to be doing: overcoming their irresponsible self, pursue education at least to the two year technical degree level, and stop having 75% of their children out of wedlock. No marriage, no children. And only marry a responsible hard working person. And shun Ghetto Culture. Any black or white or Hispanic person doing those things will be successful and reasonably comfortable in life. That needs to be the message, not the constant pandering, excuse making and living in the distant past.
15
I find the concept of living in the distant past untenable. Tamir Rice was essentially lynched in 2014. How is that living in the past
The institutional racism exhibited in towns like Ferguson is a phenomenon of the past?
The institutional racism exhibited in towns like Ferguson is a phenomenon of the past?
7
William, your statement is the perfect example of why America still has so far to go. If you truly do believe your statement then all I can say is you have absolutely no clue as to the discrimination minorities and the poor face. Alabama was brought kicking and screaming into the 20th century and it appears with your help has relapsed.
4
A moving piece. But, the view that only an "elite few" of African-Americans have advanced & "the country remains...a caste system based on what people look like," I believe is incorrect and quite harmful to young African-Americans, Hispanics, & other minority youth.
I recently read that the majority of African-Americans are now middle-class, with a significant number (I believe 20%) making over $75,000/yr.
Yet, the weight of history is powerful. I've worked with minority kids from disadvantaged backgrounds who seemed to harbor the belief that success was a crapshoot; they wanted to succeed, they had dreams, but there was always this "maybe," a doubt, at the edge of consciousness. They did not dream of becoming sports or entertainment stars, but hdordinary middle & upper-middle class aspirations. Yet they doubted that doing A (e.g. studying hard) would lead to B (e.g. finishing college, or going to graduate school). And who, when doubting the outcome, who is going to try their absolute best? And who's going to have the strength to ride out setbacks? So many of these kids are easily discouraged.
Clearly, that there is still much injustice in our society, and it's imperative that we recognize it in order to correct it. Yet, views which minimize real progress risk becoming self-fulfilling prophecies; people can simply buckle under and give to despair. And children ad teen-agers, with their lives ahead of them, have the most at stake.
I recently read that the majority of African-Americans are now middle-class, with a significant number (I believe 20%) making over $75,000/yr.
Yet, the weight of history is powerful. I've worked with minority kids from disadvantaged backgrounds who seemed to harbor the belief that success was a crapshoot; they wanted to succeed, they had dreams, but there was always this "maybe," a doubt, at the edge of consciousness. They did not dream of becoming sports or entertainment stars, but hdordinary middle & upper-middle class aspirations. Yet they doubted that doing A (e.g. studying hard) would lead to B (e.g. finishing college, or going to graduate school). And who, when doubting the outcome, who is going to try their absolute best? And who's going to have the strength to ride out setbacks? So many of these kids are easily discouraged.
Clearly, that there is still much injustice in our society, and it's imperative that we recognize it in order to correct it. Yet, views which minimize real progress risk becoming self-fulfilling prophecies; people can simply buckle under and give to despair. And children ad teen-agers, with their lives ahead of them, have the most at stake.
8
Our original sin is exactly that: indelible and eternal. No black male, no matter his status, can ever assume safety in America.
Which leaves me in a quandry. At 70 I find myself--a rich, exceedingly priviledged white male--living with an eighteen-month old, natural born black American male brimming with life and promise His mother has been the primary care taker of my now bed-ridden parents (93 and 90) for many years. In December her husband of three years walked out on her and their son. At her request and with my total support she and her son are now living with us. Money is no object and I have long planned to provide for her when my parents slip away, but should she stay in America? Raise him in America? With its indelible, horrifying history of threat and death? If not America where? The Jews have their own state. There are many black nations. Where can she and he live and grow in both freedon and safety?
Which leaves me in a quandry. At 70 I find myself--a rich, exceedingly priviledged white male--living with an eighteen-month old, natural born black American male brimming with life and promise His mother has been the primary care taker of my now bed-ridden parents (93 and 90) for many years. In December her husband of three years walked out on her and their son. At her request and with my total support she and her son are now living with us. Money is no object and I have long planned to provide for her when my parents slip away, but should she stay in America? Raise him in America? With its indelible, horrifying history of threat and death? If not America where? The Jews have their own state. There are many black nations. Where can she and he live and grow in both freedon and safety?
10
England, Canada, Australia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the Scandinavian countries, even Germany and France are generally civil toward everyone including the African diaspora. There are about 10 states in the US too that have comparatively low violent crime rates, northern New England comes to mind, look at the violence stats for each American state, there are a couple handfuls with low violent crime rates. Even Alaska, there was a forthright and popular African American women up there that famously resigned from her broadcasting job on-air to pursue other business opportunities in that state.
2
For better or worse, Black people have to be even more moral, more reserved, more ascetic, and more disciplined than the larger population just to tread water. The notion that we have to be twice as good to get half as much is just as relevant in the days of yesteryear as it is today.
Neither I nor my children have the, ahem, luxury of experimenting with certain hallucinogens as other more suburban kids have had. What will get people like Newt Gingrich, Bill Clinton, or David Brooks warm and funny memories of youthful indiscretions will provide me and my people a felony conviction and certain jail time.
Sure, we can ask Blacks to be more like St. Augustine and St. Theresa, but, here in the real world, we have to find a way to be less judgmental and more forgiving of moral challenges. Yes, we must all seek our higher and better selves, but we must not ask of others what we are not willing to do ourselves.
Neither I nor my children have the, ahem, luxury of experimenting with certain hallucinogens as other more suburban kids have had. What will get people like Newt Gingrich, Bill Clinton, or David Brooks warm and funny memories of youthful indiscretions will provide me and my people a felony conviction and certain jail time.
Sure, we can ask Blacks to be more like St. Augustine and St. Theresa, but, here in the real world, we have to find a way to be less judgmental and more forgiving of moral challenges. Yes, we must all seek our higher and better selves, but we must not ask of others what we are not willing to do ourselves.
29
Why is this piece that sets up a false equivalence between violent racism against an innocent boy and self defense against a man-sized child bearing a toy modified to look like a deadly weapon published in the newspaper of record? This is not news that is not to print. As Senator Moynahan used to say, you are entitled to your own opinions, but not to your own facts.
13
There are 3 times as many whites killed by the police as blacks. Many did far less to be perceived as threatening than Rice, who was holding a toy gun that looked realistic. Many were only a few years older than him.
Till was killed for whistling at a white woman. I am not sure how this is more despicable than the murders that happen every day by young men over a minor perceived slight. Many of these murders have plenty of witnesses yet no one will come forward. If these were white on black murders there would be outrage from the black community over the silence of witnesses but most of them are black on black and black on non-black so there is no outrage.
Black activists have such a long and clear memory when it comes to the crimes whites committed against them in the 1940's yet they have written out of history equally shameful racist mob violence that has been black on Asian/Jewish/Hispanic that occurred far more recently. Why when talking about racist violence does Yankel Rosenabaum and Antony Grazzoni's name always get omitted? Why doesn't the Freddy's Fashion Mart massacre ever get included? When there is condemnation over xenophobia happens why is Sharpton's Korean boycott and the targeting of Asian owned businesses that occurred in the 90's all over this country and Ferguson and Baltimore recently always omitted?
Till was killed for whistling at a white woman. I am not sure how this is more despicable than the murders that happen every day by young men over a minor perceived slight. Many of these murders have plenty of witnesses yet no one will come forward. If these were white on black murders there would be outrage from the black community over the silence of witnesses but most of them are black on black and black on non-black so there is no outrage.
Black activists have such a long and clear memory when it comes to the crimes whites committed against them in the 1940's yet they have written out of history equally shameful racist mob violence that has been black on Asian/Jewish/Hispanic that occurred far more recently. Why when talking about racist violence does Yankel Rosenabaum and Antony Grazzoni's name always get omitted? Why doesn't the Freddy's Fashion Mart massacre ever get included? When there is condemnation over xenophobia happens why is Sharpton's Korean boycott and the targeting of Asian owned businesses that occurred in the 90's all over this country and Ferguson and Baltimore recently always omitted?
13
To me the most horrifying part of this story is the response of the police when Tamir's sister and mother arrived. The sister was tackled and then put into the police cruiser. Later, when the mother arrived, they did not let her near her son. I have not heard anyone account for why this could happen and if it is likely to happen in the future. It is possible that anyone administering first aid might have saved the boy's life, but he was left there bleeding for quite a while. Given the current proliferation of defibrillation devices, it is clear that our society understands the need for immediate, on site, medical intervention. Also, given the accumulated knowledge of emergency first aid that came from our recent wars, it is well known how to save lives of those bleeding from gunshot wounds. Is this knowledge not disseminated to police and why do they wait for EMTs to arrive, when it is usually too late?
15
At the deepest level, racial discrimination is as strong today as it was when Emmett Till lost his life. But until we reach sincere and honest discourse, and not masked platitudes, we'll sadly see more incidents like that of Tamir Rice.
8
My father's white family came North in the late '20's from a poor "one-mule farm" in Tennessee. They were drawn by jobs, extremely good jobs by the standards of the times.
Whites got the best jobs, and blacks got what was left. Then when the area started to decline, blacks suffered first.
Blacks came North to work when there were jobs, and they worked hard at those jobs. They had some real success at first, when they had income, and rising income.
If those jobs had continued, that community would have continued its progress, just as have so many other communities.
The failure of the black communities was first and most powerfully the economic failure that hit them first, but is now washing over far more of us.
Yes, people were racist. But as economic tensions increase, and the problems that come with it, the other things that divide us get sharper.
Racism got worse, as tensions rose, all from the economic decline. Blacks were hit first, and the rest of us blamed them instead of seeing what was coming for all of us.
Many still won't see it.
Whites got the best jobs, and blacks got what was left. Then when the area started to decline, blacks suffered first.
Blacks came North to work when there were jobs, and they worked hard at those jobs. They had some real success at first, when they had income, and rising income.
If those jobs had continued, that community would have continued its progress, just as have so many other communities.
The failure of the black communities was first and most powerfully the economic failure that hit them first, but is now washing over far more of us.
Yes, people were racist. But as economic tensions increase, and the problems that come with it, the other things that divide us get sharper.
Racism got worse, as tensions rose, all from the economic decline. Blacks were hit first, and the rest of us blamed them instead of seeing what was coming for all of us.
Many still won't see it.
17
You need to read this piece almost to the end before you learn that Rice had a pellet gun which resembled a real gun.
Also, in the 'seconds' it took for the officer to shoot was it possible to determine the age of 12 year old Rice?
Look up Officer Steven McDonald who in 1986 was paralyzed by a 15 year old thug in Central Park. I'm sure he wishes he shot within 'seconds'.
Also, in the 'seconds' it took for the officer to shoot was it possible to determine the age of 12 year old Rice?
Look up Officer Steven McDonald who in 1986 was paralyzed by a 15 year old thug in Central Park. I'm sure he wishes he shot within 'seconds'.
26
That's what they are paid to do and failed miserably. And trotting out that NY case was supposed to do exactly what? shut down the comment section and have everyone shaking their heads in agreement that it's good Tamir is dead? Interesting logic there...
1
Just found out he was 5'7" -- 195 lbs.
4
Yes, Rice at 12 was already 5'7" 170 lbs. such that the 911 caller told the operator a man was walking around the rec center park waiving a gun at adults and kids. When police arrived, Rice took off running and then when stopped refused to "show his hands" as directed, instead reaching to lift his shirt to show the glock lookalike bb gun in his waistband.
4
I admire Ms. Wilkerson greatly. I purchased and read her book "Warmth of Other Suns". It is a monumental achievement. I recommend it highly. An especially good reason to read it is her wonderful, detailed reporting of the stories of three migrants: a young man who left Florida under threat of death and settled in New York (he had an unsatisfying career on the railroad, would have probably been a college-educated professional but for the barriers presented by racism); a young woman who moved to Chicago from a sharecropper's life in Mississippi (& who made a much better go of it than if she'd stayed in the South); and a member of the African American elite who left Louisiana to achieve great success in Los Angeles..
I also own the companion book for the recent exhibit of Jacob Lawrence's beautiful, striking and unique sequence of paintings, having seen the exhibit at MoMa.
Twice or three times a year I view the video of Martin Luther King's eternally fresh "I Have a Dream" speech. When I re-hear his refrain of "one hundred years later", I think--plus another 50 years and much of what he righteously demanded has not come to pass....how much longer will it take?
And yet, I am not convinced by Ms. Wilkerson's views as expressed in this article. Much, much remains to be done--great injustice and suffering continue, yet her verge towards despair here is inconsistent with the stories told in her book and Lawrence's paintings. Some gains have come. There will be more.
I also own the companion book for the recent exhibit of Jacob Lawrence's beautiful, striking and unique sequence of paintings, having seen the exhibit at MoMa.
Twice or three times a year I view the video of Martin Luther King's eternally fresh "I Have a Dream" speech. When I re-hear his refrain of "one hundred years later", I think--plus another 50 years and much of what he righteously demanded has not come to pass....how much longer will it take?
And yet, I am not convinced by Ms. Wilkerson's views as expressed in this article. Much, much remains to be done--great injustice and suffering continue, yet her verge towards despair here is inconsistent with the stories told in her book and Lawrence's paintings. Some gains have come. There will be more.
8
Every American needs to vote in every election not just the presidential races. Your local races are just as important because it is the state and local races where the republicans have been gaining ground and making decisions that starve local economies. Too many people stayed home in 2010 and 2014 and that loss of the congress and senate cost Obama the ability to negotiate change. Now he doesn't engage or even try - hopefully our next president will call them on the mat but this intransigence is terrible for everyone.
vote vote vote in every election -
vote vote vote in every election -
12
President Obama is by no stretch of the imagination the lame duck described in your comment.
2
The two cases have in common dead adolescents whose families grieve the loss of children who they miss and who never got a chance to live out their natural lives. That pain is never going to go away.
Till was murdered by vicious human beings whose criminal acts were condoned by a town of racist whites whose attitudes of disrespect for the lives of black people was condoned by law both local and national. It was a final straw for African American citizens across the country and contributed to the growth of the Civil Rights movement which finally brought an end to segregation and legalized racial discrimination.
Tamir Rice was a silly child who brandished a gun wearing clothes that covered him up so that nobody could tell it was a dumb kid and not some crazy person threatening people in public with a real gun. Since it was the former millions of people are certain had they been the responding police they would have had a good laugh and let the kid play, instead of thinking that they were about half a second from having real bullets rip through their bodies leaving them bleeding to death and looking at the sky. If you want to live in fair country, you have to be fair to everybody not just those with who you are affiliated.
Till was murdered by vicious human beings whose criminal acts were condoned by a town of racist whites whose attitudes of disrespect for the lives of black people was condoned by law both local and national. It was a final straw for African American citizens across the country and contributed to the growth of the Civil Rights movement which finally brought an end to segregation and legalized racial discrimination.
Tamir Rice was a silly child who brandished a gun wearing clothes that covered him up so that nobody could tell it was a dumb kid and not some crazy person threatening people in public with a real gun. Since it was the former millions of people are certain had they been the responding police they would have had a good laugh and let the kid play, instead of thinking that they were about half a second from having real bullets rip through their bodies leaving them bleeding to death and looking at the sky. If you want to live in fair country, you have to be fair to everybody not just those with who you are affiliated.
6
Till was also no angel. He arrived from Chicago bragging about a white girl back home with whom he had a romantic relationship, which his mother said was a big lie. He then took the bet of his cousin and several other teen boys that Sunday morning they skipped church, daring Till to prove what a Romeo he was with white females by flirting with the 21-year-old married white woman who was alone that morning working in the family-owned grocery store that served most of the Money, MS black community. Accounts differ as to what Till said and did in the grocery store. The young woman said he got verbally ugly, threatening her sexually. One of his cousins entered the store after Till and later claimed nothing happened. Nonetheless, the 21-year-old woman immediately went to her car and got a pistol to take back with her into the store until a male family member could join her in the store. Something happened in the store, since one of the teens immediately ran across the street to tell someone what Till did.
5
There are laws against threatening people in every town, city and village across this land, punishable with jail time and fines. In that Southern town, a complaint to law enforcement would have resulted in a lot of trouble for Till and his family, a lot more than the fear from a an overly forward and rude adolescent. Not only was Till murdered over that incident, he had been tortured before he was killed, and his body mutilated.
1
@Mary: All I can conclude from your comments here and elsewhere on this thread is that in your opinion Emmett Till got what he deserved.
Repulsive.
Repulsive.
2
Ms Wilkerson's opinion piece underscores why she is such a good writer. She gives life and meaning to these events. Perhaps most importantly, she makes you think about fundamental issues of moral right and wrong.
I rail too often about dysfunctional black urban culture. Having grown up on the block adjacent to the biggest housing project in Hartford, I had both black friends and enemies. It wasn't hard to tell the difference between the two. Oddly enough, back then and in our neighborhoods, the police were not considered a threat unless you actually broke the law.
We marched during the MLK days and we fought on other days. We understood Simon & Garfunkel's words about their metaphorical brother, the freedom rider shot dead because he hated what was wrong. In those days, we knew what was wrong was the southern redneck culture and the use of the justice system to enforce segregation and oppression.
I confess to great disappointment as to the returns of the Civil Rights movement since Reagan, who did a lot to undermine the racial progress of the era. I am turned off to the misogynistic, parentless and violent culture of too much of today's black urban culture.
But the real problem is that people like me have ignored the reality of today's out of control biased policing that preys on blacks by virtue of the presumption of guilt and the expectation of violence. I didn't think it real 2 years ago.
Today, I do. Ms Wilkerson's writing is helpful.
I rail too often about dysfunctional black urban culture. Having grown up on the block adjacent to the biggest housing project in Hartford, I had both black friends and enemies. It wasn't hard to tell the difference between the two. Oddly enough, back then and in our neighborhoods, the police were not considered a threat unless you actually broke the law.
We marched during the MLK days and we fought on other days. We understood Simon & Garfunkel's words about their metaphorical brother, the freedom rider shot dead because he hated what was wrong. In those days, we knew what was wrong was the southern redneck culture and the use of the justice system to enforce segregation and oppression.
I confess to great disappointment as to the returns of the Civil Rights movement since Reagan, who did a lot to undermine the racial progress of the era. I am turned off to the misogynistic, parentless and violent culture of too much of today's black urban culture.
But the real problem is that people like me have ignored the reality of today's out of control biased policing that preys on blacks by virtue of the presumption of guilt and the expectation of violence. I didn't think it real 2 years ago.
Today, I do. Ms Wilkerson's writing is helpful.
7
I don't know much about the Emmett Till tragedy. But here is part of my take on the Tamir Rice tragedy. Do not let your children play with toy guns, or life-like looking guns out in public. I think his parents were very remiss. The cop probably reacted too quickly, but that does not bring the young man back.
Toy guns now come with a bright orange colored ring around the end of the barrel, at least, give them a chance. No one wants their child to be used as part of a larger metaphor for a people.
Toy guns now come with a bright orange colored ring around the end of the barrel, at least, give them a chance. No one wants their child to be used as part of a larger metaphor for a people.
6
Read article more closely, parent of Tamir stated that he and friend knew mom would not condone such play acting.
6
The living conditions of most blacks scream out at anyone paying attention. In small and moderate sized Southern cities, where many blacks live, most neighborhoods have multiple uninhabitable homes, some of which are occupied. There are better homes, but they are the minority. Across town, there are well-maintained white neighborhoods that are free of blight. There are some mixed neighborhoods, but not many. On the whole, the contrast between the way whites and blacks live is extreme.
As for the North, the big cities where most blacks live include uninhabitable slums, most of which are occupied, and a spectrum of neighborhoods that top out at middle class. White suburbs vary from somewhat nicer to uniformly upscale.
Withholding judgment regarding the reasons for the disparities, these disparities reveal an underclass that has made only limited progress in a century. A lot of the attention goes to matters like police misconduct and voting rights. But living conditions are the most obvious disparity and probably the most important.
As for the North, the big cities where most blacks live include uninhabitable slums, most of which are occupied, and a spectrum of neighborhoods that top out at middle class. White suburbs vary from somewhat nicer to uniformly upscale.
Withholding judgment regarding the reasons for the disparities, these disparities reveal an underclass that has made only limited progress in a century. A lot of the attention goes to matters like police misconduct and voting rights. But living conditions are the most obvious disparity and probably the most important.
3
The exodus of people from the South meant moving from a place where the racial bigotry was institutionalized and designed to keep the people poor, dispossessed and in a state of serfdom to a place where their labor was needed and the racist was informal. They were not serfs as in the South but they were not free because the racism amongst whites was still the norm. But the difference meant that when Emmett Till visited relatives in the segregated South he really did not understand what was going on. He made a mistake in public which he did not understand and died as a result.
Tamir Rice did not know that he could be perceived as a threat to others, he was just a kid. He was killed because some police thought that he posed a threat. He was covered up from head to foot and brandishing what looked like a gun. The only way that the police would know the truth would have been to wait until they could determine whether the individual was an adult or a child and whether he was holding a firearm but an air gun. Had they done so, they would realize he posed no threat. Had they shot him at that point, it would have been, simply murder.
Tamir Rice did not know that he could be perceived as a threat to others, he was just a kid. He was killed because some police thought that he posed a threat. He was covered up from head to foot and brandishing what looked like a gun. The only way that the police would know the truth would have been to wait until they could determine whether the individual was an adult or a child and whether he was holding a firearm but an air gun. Had they done so, they would realize he posed no threat. Had they shot him at that point, it would have been, simply murder.
2
Could it be so many repercussions stem from the government and business policies that forced blacks to become insular culturally?
Other immigrant groups and African Americans "who could pass" were able to move on and ususally up the economic and education scale from ghettoes and housing projects that insulate ethnic in their pursuit of success.
White flight accelerated the pace of racism by "taking the ball away" and changing the game.... leading to a downward spiral we are still reeling from.
Other immigrant groups and African Americans "who could pass" were able to move on and ususally up the economic and education scale from ghettoes and housing projects that insulate ethnic in their pursuit of success.
White flight accelerated the pace of racism by "taking the ball away" and changing the game.... leading to a downward spiral we are still reeling from.
6
To compare Rice with Till is disingenuous at best. One was the size of a fully grown young man with a gun that had been altered to look like a real gun. It does not matter that it was a pellet gun. The other was an innocent young man who was brutally tortured and killed for who he was.
32
There is no other was to respond to this: what is written above is a lie.
2
I think exactly as your comment.Well put!
1
Your argument for why Tamir Rice was shot has echoes of how people justified Emmet Till's murder. We live in a world where fully-grown (actual) men can occupy government-owned territory, walk around with assault weapons and threaten law enforcement officials with violence yet weeks passed before anyone was even arrested, let alone harmed. Another fully grown-man murdered nine people in cold blood, was known to be armed and dangerous yet somehow law enforcement officials were able to arrest him without doing any bodily harm. However, Tamir Rice, visibly a minor, was shot by the police in than 10 seconds. I would argue he was killed for who he was.
32
America is becoming more and more of a nasty brutish place to live. The only difference is that now the rest of us are learning about it. We are seeing and experiencing the effects of an economic downturn that won't end. We stand more of a chance of being hurt by the police. We are the ones who cannot find good jobs. We are the ones who are being fired while our jobs are outsourced. And we still blame African Americans for what we do to them. Nice.
17
I've got a problem with this line from the article:
"He played the numbers and bet the horses at Thistledown to help make the rent on their apartment...."
Since when does anyone think that gambling is a way to assure income? We all know that gamblers lose more than they win.
"He played the numbers and bet the horses at Thistledown to help make the rent on their apartment...."
Since when does anyone think that gambling is a way to assure income? We all know that gamblers lose more than they win.
18
Well, not necessarily. I'm up about $5,000 this year. But it's not the way I make my living. It's just that despite my education and experience, I cannot make ends meet in the job I am in, and I cannot find a better one. So I do what I have to do. I'm a black man in America in 2016.
I suspect that other black men, such as Mr. Petty, had to do the same thing.
Things have not improved for black men - or all men or women for that matter - substantially since then. But black men have it the worst of all.
I suspect that other black men, such as Mr. Petty, had to do the same thing.
Things have not improved for black men - or all men or women for that matter - substantially since then. But black men have it the worst of all.
4
Well, Jim, when your prospects for work are dim, when you're turned down for work in favor of whites, when you're chronically underemployed, when the jobs you do get pay you peanuts, one of the things you might do is hope you get lucky gambling. I suppose you would have preferred a line like, "he took to robbing gas stations and old ladies to help make the rent on their apartment..." That apparently would have fit your narrative better.
Privileged much?
Privileged much?
5
So many Black children are without fathers. How is it that the story is told over and over that Black fathers disavow their own children? Many were abandoned themselves by their fathers and so it continues. But until Black fathers take their place in the lives of their children it will remain the same, tragedy after tragedy. Why wasn't Tamir Rice's father at home, helping to care for him and his sister? Why do Black men feel no responsibility for the lives they help create? I grieve for Tamir as we all do. But where was his dad?
6
I grew up white in the South shooting pellet guns with my buddies in full view of the neighbors. No one ever called the cops.
32
The great exodus from the South to escape extreme cruelty, indignity and sure deaths with hopes of a better life and future. Alas, the same fated them in their newly settled homes, a little less cruel, perhaps, but cruel all the same. Emmett Till in Alabama, Tamir Rice in Cleveland, separated by a century but meeting the same gory end. The more things change, nothing changes.
Reminds me also of the Syrians caught between a rock and a hard place. If you stay, you die. If you leave to escape atrocities, you still die.
Reminds me also of the Syrians caught between a rock and a hard place. If you stay, you die. If you leave to escape atrocities, you still die.
9
"owned by an Eastern European woman who saw no need to keep it up"
This author indulges in a bit of ethnic stereotyping and prejudice of her own.
Is the ethnicity of the landlord relevant to the maintenance of the apartment?
This author indulges in a bit of ethnic stereotyping and prejudice of her own.
Is the ethnicity of the landlord relevant to the maintenance of the apartment?
32
Though not stated, I felt it was implied that the landlord was Jewish. Of course this was a bit of stereotyping. The article was not really much more than a different set of prejudices re-worked to make for more misunderstanding.
13
Are Eastern Europeans known to not keep apartments up? I'm unaware that that stereotype existed. Maybe it does I am just unaware. I read it as a descriptor
1
I think there's a Jewish-landlord-exploiting-the-black-tenant narrative that Ms. Wilkerson is trying to satisfy. And, it's probably true to the extent that this happens withing landlord/tenant relationships between all races and ethnicities.
4
Blacks have had an especially hard time of it in America. That is clear-as-clear can be.
Yet blacks today dominate the world of sports and entertainment and are making substantial gains nearly everywhere else.
Our inner-cities have defeated virtually all efforts at progress, largely due to the epidemic of drugs and the prevalence of single-parent families, fow which blacks must accept substantial responsibility themselves.
But this is not the end of the story.
President Obama, a black man, is currently in the seventh year of his presidency.
Dr. Ben Carson, another black man, is running for President and has waged a
campaign that has been taken seriously by millions of white voters.
And there's more.
Bernie Sanders and Michael Bloomberg, both Jews, are also regarded as top choices for the Presidency by large numbers of Americans. And there's a very high probability that Hillary Clinton will end up being our first woman president.
None of this could be happening anywhere else but in America, certainly not simultaneously. Not in England, or France, or Japan, or China, or
Germany, or Sweden, or Norway or Denmark or Holland because customs and prejudices and national feelings in those places simply wouldn’t allow it.
G-d Bless the U.S.A. There’s no place like it, and never will be.
Yet blacks today dominate the world of sports and entertainment and are making substantial gains nearly everywhere else.
Our inner-cities have defeated virtually all efforts at progress, largely due to the epidemic of drugs and the prevalence of single-parent families, fow which blacks must accept substantial responsibility themselves.
But this is not the end of the story.
President Obama, a black man, is currently in the seventh year of his presidency.
Dr. Ben Carson, another black man, is running for President and has waged a
campaign that has been taken seriously by millions of white voters.
And there's more.
Bernie Sanders and Michael Bloomberg, both Jews, are also regarded as top choices for the Presidency by large numbers of Americans. And there's a very high probability that Hillary Clinton will end up being our first woman president.
None of this could be happening anywhere else but in America, certainly not simultaneously. Not in England, or France, or Japan, or China, or
Germany, or Sweden, or Norway or Denmark or Holland because customs and prejudices and national feelings in those places simply wouldn’t allow it.
G-d Bless the U.S.A. There’s no place like it, and never will be.
24
And those that have not achieved spectacular success on the world stage will have to take their chances in a nation of deep rooted systematic bias.
16
"Yet blacks today dominate the world of sports and entertainment and are making substantial gains nearly everywhere else."
Blacks do not dominate the world of sports and entertainment - the white men who own the teams and run the leagues and TV networks do. That blacks dominate on the field in basketball, football and baseball (most of those black players being Afro-Latinos from the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Cuba and the Netherlands Antilles) only means that the owners of the teams came to a realization that having a true meritocracy on the field would best benefit their bottom line.
Blacks do not dominate the world of sports and entertainment - the white men who own the teams and run the leagues and TV networks do. That blacks dominate on the field in basketball, football and baseball (most of those black players being Afro-Latinos from the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Cuba and the Netherlands Antilles) only means that the owners of the teams came to a realization that having a true meritocracy on the field would best benefit their bottom line.
10
Your rose colored lenses are opaque. You, as many of our fellow Americans, have a distorted sense of our reality. First, "blacks must accept substantial responsibility themselves?" Yes, many say that the poor want to be poor. Structural and ideological discrimination and racism have existed throughout this nations history. When did it magically end, when Obama became POTUS? We have problems in this land that go well beyond personal responsibility.
7
This article is another example of the Left's revisionist lies to bolster their identity-politics narrative. The "Great Migration" was caused by the boll weevil beetle that decimated cotton crops in the South in the 1910s and 1920s. Without cotton or other jobs, blacks fled to the North. While there was certainly racism in the South at the time, there had also been racism since the Civil War, though blacks didn't leave en masse then. The Left should be ashamed of its Orwellian campaign to change history.
12
Free your mind of its misconceptions and read "The Great Migration:" Cotton was king in Florida and the Carolinas, too, I suppose not other crops such as citrus and rice which were of no interest to boll weevils. With the short-lived gains of post-Civil War Reconstruction, free persons and former-slaves felt no urgency to leave the South until the government and the KKK stripped all chances of inclusion and change.
Texas text books....I tell ya.
Texas text books....I tell ya.
14
What? How did this comment get published? You realize that before the Civil War Black people were enslaved--meaning they were literally not free to leave the South or even the plantations were they were forced to work? How could they leave en masse if they could be punished by death for doing so?
6
Not just Texas textbooks. Public schools in general.
1
Looking like they could have been the son of or even a young Barack Obama or Colin Powell or Jesse Jackson did not and could not save Emmett Till nor Tamir Rice. Indeed looking like he could have been the son of or have been the young black Mayor of Cleveland Frank Jackson or black Cleveland police chief Calvin Williams or Lebron James did not and could not save Tamir Rice.
Blacks from Africa were not enslaved in America denying their humanity as persons nor denied their equality as Americans during the Jim Crow discrimination era because they were lazy, ignorant, immoral or violent. The colored Africans were defined and disparaged by the physical historical socioeconomic political educational reality of American white supremacy. The "color-line" of W.E.B. DuBois' "The Souls of Black Folk" along with " The Miseducation of the Negro" of Carter G. Woodson and the "Invisible Man" of Ralph Ellison represent and express the prevailing black reality of the past, present and foreseeable future.
Blacks from Africa were not enslaved in America denying their humanity as persons nor denied their equality as Americans during the Jim Crow discrimination era because they were lazy, ignorant, immoral or violent. The colored Africans were defined and disparaged by the physical historical socioeconomic political educational reality of American white supremacy. The "color-line" of W.E.B. DuBois' "The Souls of Black Folk" along with " The Miseducation of the Negro" of Carter G. Woodson and the "Invisible Man" of Ralph Ellison represent and express the prevailing black reality of the past, present and foreseeable future.
12
Our nightly news is damning. When local news is covered, there is a consistent parade of violence, robberies and murders done by young black men.
Doubtless, their victims have heart wrenching stories about their lives and the loved ones they left behind.
There is no justification for racism in any form. Nor is there a reasonable justification for the predatory behavior of so many young men in urban communities.
Doubtless, their victims have heart wrenching stories about their lives and the loved ones they left behind.
There is no justification for racism in any form. Nor is there a reasonable justification for the predatory behavior of so many young men in urban communities.
32
Approximately 44 people are killed daily in America. 35-40% of homicides in the US are committed by African-American males (this is a conservative statistic). It is reasonable to infer that black men kill 20 people a day in the US.
In Philadelphia, 11 officers have been killed on-duty since 2007 (another officer was murdered during a robbery while he was off-duty). A recent unprovoked gun attack on an officer was nationally publicized.
Speaking as someone who hates guns, it seems to me that if you're a cop in Philly and you don't come out firing, you're just stupid.
It is not right to discriminate, and it is not right for officers to kill people unless it is in self-defense (and even then, it's a bad outcome). But isolating one element of the terrible, complicated epidemic of violence in the African-American community is simply demagoguery.
In Philadelphia, 11 officers have been killed on-duty since 2007 (another officer was murdered during a robbery while he was off-duty). A recent unprovoked gun attack on an officer was nationally publicized.
Speaking as someone who hates guns, it seems to me that if you're a cop in Philly and you don't come out firing, you're just stupid.
It is not right to discriminate, and it is not right for officers to kill people unless it is in self-defense (and even then, it's a bad outcome). But isolating one element of the terrible, complicated epidemic of violence in the African-American community is simply demagoguery.
25
And 60-65 percent of homicides are committed by people who aren't black males. Let's shoot them on sight, too.
6
One element? Police killed more than 100 unarmed black people in 2015 http://mappingpoliceviolence.org/unarmed/
August Wilson - one of America's great playwrights and probably the greatest black playwright (so far) - said the Great Migration was a strategic mistake on the part of African-Americans. If they had just stayed in the South, he speculated, eventually they would have attained large enough numbers to exercise significant political power and possibly even constitute a majority in some Southern states. Wouldn't that have been something - a hundred years after the Civil War, demographics might have turned the old Confederacy into a de facto black nation.
It was not to be. By moving north, African-Americans dissipated their power and remained a minority, spread more thinly over a wider area, in urban ghettos where they exercised little or no power. Arriving north they found they'd exchanged one form of racism for another.
And it has not helped that, although inferior schools and truncated opportunities share the blame, a subculture that scorns education and glorifies petty crime has arisen, as if to say, 'you can't reject me - I'll reject you first'.
No room to write more even if anyone would read it.
It was not to be. By moving north, African-Americans dissipated their power and remained a minority, spread more thinly over a wider area, in urban ghettos where they exercised little or no power. Arriving north they found they'd exchanged one form of racism for another.
And it has not helped that, although inferior schools and truncated opportunities share the blame, a subculture that scorns education and glorifies petty crime has arisen, as if to say, 'you can't reject me - I'll reject you first'.
No room to write more even if anyone would read it.
15
Man...want to cry now.
1
Ohio and Cincinnati have an odious history of racial bigotry and hatred. Ohio abolished slavery in 1802, but the state drove free blacks from the state and barred other free blacks from entering the state. When John Randolph of Virginia freed 518 slaves, an Ohio congressman declared “the banks of the Ohio would be lined with men with muskets on their shoulders to keep off the emancipated slaves." In 1807, Ohio enacted Black Laws that required any black entering the state to post a prohibitive $500 bond guaranteeing good behavior. Cincinnati authorities gave its black resident 30 days to comply or leave the city. Residents of the city’s “Little Africa” neighborhood asked for more time, but white lynch mobs prowled the neighborhood killing and beating blacks and burning their homes. About 2,200 of the city’s blacks fled to Canada. Ohio citizens objected to educating blacks from public funds, fearing it would cause black to settle in the state, so blacks were forced to attend private schools established by charitable organizations for black children, but school segregation wasn’t enough to stop the racial violence. White mobs attacked and destroyed black schools in Zanesville in 1837 and Troy in 1840. Today, most Ohioans think Jim Crow was only a Southern thing.
16
While the author does an excellent job in showing the difficulties of those who took part in the Great Migration, to suggest that society's attitude towards the killers of Emmet Till and Tamir Rice are the same is problematic. Till's killers were proud of what they did, and southern white society supported them (and since the jury was all white, they were set free). Rice's killer was a police officer unsuited to the demands of the job, who made a tragic mistake. While I don't know, I would venture to guess that Rice's killer would undo that mistake were he given a chance.
The police treatment of minorities that has been documented recently (and is the cause of the Black Lives Matter movement) is not new, and I'm sure it was worse in the past when most of society condoned it. What is different is that now we don't have to simply rely on the testimony of the abused (who the police were often able to discredit because they were 'criminals' and inherently untrustworthy); now the ubiquitous use of recording devices documents the abuse, and social media allows its widespread distribution. As an optimist, my hope is that this will allow us to greatly reduce this injustice. The author is right that racial injustice remainsl a big problem, but we have made progress since the 1950s.
The police treatment of minorities that has been documented recently (and is the cause of the Black Lives Matter movement) is not new, and I'm sure it was worse in the past when most of society condoned it. What is different is that now we don't have to simply rely on the testimony of the abused (who the police were often able to discredit because they were 'criminals' and inherently untrustworthy); now the ubiquitous use of recording devices documents the abuse, and social media allows its widespread distribution. As an optimist, my hope is that this will allow us to greatly reduce this injustice. The author is right that racial injustice remainsl a big problem, but we have made progress since the 1950s.
9
The history of African-Americans in this country is one long painful litany of subjugation and marginalization in the quest for the most basic of civil-rights. It's fair to think that people who aren't Black don't fully recognize this, though they might like to think they do.
It's also fair to think that Black people who didn't come up in the Jim Crow South under the banner of White supremacy, and fear of the Ku Klux Klan don't fully recognize what really drove the Great Migration. But seeing as history always repeats itself, they might get an inkling of it from current events. The Emmett Tills of yesterday just have different names today.
While the lynchings aren't from trees or lamp posts anymore, and the signs separating "White" from "Colored" have disappeared, that same mentality remains deeply entrenched in our collective American psyche. And denying it won't change it.
It's also fair to think that Black people who didn't come up in the Jim Crow South under the banner of White supremacy, and fear of the Ku Klux Klan don't fully recognize what really drove the Great Migration. But seeing as history always repeats itself, they might get an inkling of it from current events. The Emmett Tills of yesterday just have different names today.
While the lynchings aren't from trees or lamp posts anymore, and the signs separating "White" from "Colored" have disappeared, that same mentality remains deeply entrenched in our collective American psyche. And denying it won't change it.
12
In 1962 at the age of 7 my family moved from Milwaukee to Alexandria, Louisiana, as my father changed jobs. We were shocked at how black people were treated in the Deep South and were glad when we moved back to the Chicago area in 1964. Although there has been much progress, as I enter my 60s, I question whether the fundamental problems will be solved in my lifetime. Nothing seems to help.
7
Yeah, well Freedom doesn't mean freedom from working for a living. Go into Appalachia and you'll find it is no different.
19
If anyone has been working for free - much less freedom - it has been Blacks in America. Uncompensated and undercompensated hard labor for centuries.
4
I'm a working class white and I completely support reparations for the descendants of slaves here in the U.S..
It is appalling that people who were brought to this country in chains and had their labor stolen for hundreds of years, were then further excluded from participating in New Deal or GI Bills that were extended to white citizens.
It is appalling that people who were brought to this country in chains and had their labor stolen for hundreds of years, were then further excluded from participating in New Deal or GI Bills that were extended to white citizens.
4
Amen, Canary! Amen.
2
Heartbreaking. Such a poignant account of how the aspirations of the Great Migration remain unfulfilled.
So heartbreaking to think that so much of the changes have been superficial and much remains to be done.
So heartbreaking to think that so much of the changes have been superficial and much remains to be done.
4
This article is sanitized version of Tamir Rice's upbringing and the circumstances that led to his death. He was raised in a home with abuse and criminal activity. The way forward around these policing issues has to be grounded in the truth not embellishments. The police failed to recognize Tamir as a child and that is deeply troubling. Their poor judgment and racism resulted in his death. It is also true that he had poor parenting. No kid should be playing with a stickup gun in and waving it at people.
20
He was the height and weight of a grown man. There was no way a policeman arriving and seeing him pointing at someone a toy that looked like a real gun could have told that he was 12 years old, nor that the toy was in fact a toy.
6
Both Janet's original comment and Jonathan Katz's reply, as well as most of the other comments on this thread so far, highlight a problem that pervades every attempt to analyse the case and, in fact, pretty much any and every discussion of the issue of race: the compulsion to adopt a Procrustean narrative and simplify the specifics to fit.
It is quite possible that the police were at fault in firing too quickly and also in shooting to kill. It is also possible that they were justified in thinking Tamir Rice was a young adult, not a child, that his gun was real, and that, given his behavior, he posed a credible threat to innocent bystanders.
Granted, that doesn't fit the narrative either of evil white cops gunning down poor little black boy as he played with his toy, or hero cops taking down what they reasonably believed was an armed marauder. It's complex and based on misunderstandings and mistakes.
It's true of the Rice case, the Brown case, the Garner case, the Trayvon Martin case. We can't begin to solve intelligently a problem we are incapable of discussing intelligently but are compelled to reduce to slogans and memes.(And while we're at it, it is fair to ask why 'black lives matter,' apparently, only when white cops take them - but that's a different, if related, discussion.)
It is quite possible that the police were at fault in firing too quickly and also in shooting to kill. It is also possible that they were justified in thinking Tamir Rice was a young adult, not a child, that his gun was real, and that, given his behavior, he posed a credible threat to innocent bystanders.
Granted, that doesn't fit the narrative either of evil white cops gunning down poor little black boy as he played with his toy, or hero cops taking down what they reasonably believed was an armed marauder. It's complex and based on misunderstandings and mistakes.
It's true of the Rice case, the Brown case, the Garner case, the Trayvon Martin case. We can't begin to solve intelligently a problem we are incapable of discussing intelligently but are compelled to reduce to slogans and memes.(And while we're at it, it is fair to ask why 'black lives matter,' apparently, only when white cops take them - but that's a different, if related, discussion.)
5
The policeman didn't have time to assess the situation before he fired. Check the video of the incident: he opened the car door, jumped out and shot.
The Tamir Rice shooting is at once more tragic than Ms. Wilkerson indicates but brings up complicated issues that she, and all of us, need to face.
Tamir Rice was an extremely sweet & nice young man but he died because he was emulating the violence he saw around him in his neighborhood. The kids who knew him said Tamir had told them he'd hung around with members of one of the local gangs, a claim none of the kids believed because Tamir was, indeed, a sweet & nice kid and they just saw this as Tamir trying to look cooler & tougher than he actually was. The day Tamir died he proudly showed-off the pellet gun to a few kids. The video later shows him in the park aiming the gun in "tough guy" poses and pointing it at the head of an elderly woman who was walking on the sidewalk, obviously scaring her.
Ms. Wilkerson leaves out these facts & the violence of the neighborhood in which Tamir & his family lived. The big question we face is how do we work together to address the violence in such neighborhoods? Tamir's death was tragic but it's also tragic that Tamir thought it was cool to point a fake gun at the head of a woman, apparently oblivious to the fear he was causing her. How did a nice kid like Tamir get sucked into thinking that guns & the threat of violence was somehow a cool thing? It's hard enough raising kids in general these days, to have to raise kids in violent neighborhoods like Tamir's seems like a Herculean task. How do we work together to fix this?
Tamir Rice was an extremely sweet & nice young man but he died because he was emulating the violence he saw around him in his neighborhood. The kids who knew him said Tamir had told them he'd hung around with members of one of the local gangs, a claim none of the kids believed because Tamir was, indeed, a sweet & nice kid and they just saw this as Tamir trying to look cooler & tougher than he actually was. The day Tamir died he proudly showed-off the pellet gun to a few kids. The video later shows him in the park aiming the gun in "tough guy" poses and pointing it at the head of an elderly woman who was walking on the sidewalk, obviously scaring her.
Ms. Wilkerson leaves out these facts & the violence of the neighborhood in which Tamir & his family lived. The big question we face is how do we work together to address the violence in such neighborhoods? Tamir's death was tragic but it's also tragic that Tamir thought it was cool to point a fake gun at the head of a woman, apparently oblivious to the fear he was causing her. How did a nice kid like Tamir get sucked into thinking that guns & the threat of violence was somehow a cool thing? It's hard enough raising kids in general these days, to have to raise kids in violent neighborhoods like Tamir's seems like a Herculean task. How do we work together to fix this?
49
All of these comments were illuminating and fascinating, but that doesn't change the fact that a racist, incompetent cop killed a 12-year-old boy and got away, literally, with murder.
10
Posturing, and idolizing violence is by no means an exclusive characteristic of Black children, and I wonder if the police would have been called if Tamir had been white. It is naive, I think, to say that playing as a "tough guy" and showing off a gun is behavior specific to "violent neighborhoods." Just take a look at the current (and past) state of TV and movies; I have to imagine Tamir was influenced more by the idealistic depictions of violence in media, more than the dirty and ugly violence of poor urban neighborhoods.
What's the real issue here is how people (both the police officers and the caller) saw Tamir: as a "thug" and threat to their safety, rather than as an innocent young boy, playing around with his friends.
What's the real issue here is how people (both the police officers and the caller) saw Tamir: as a "thug" and threat to their safety, rather than as an innocent young boy, playing around with his friends.
3
@Margaret
What a whopper! I challenge you to cite a reputable news source for your claim that Tamir Rice threatened anyone. When the police shot him dead, there was nobody else around, then they allowed him to bleed to death.
"The big question we face is how do we work together to address the violence" that's part and parcel of the American culture. Twenty school children were killed at Sandy Hook. How do we address that violence in "such neighborhoods"?
What a whopper! I challenge you to cite a reputable news source for your claim that Tamir Rice threatened anyone. When the police shot him dead, there was nobody else around, then they allowed him to bleed to death.
"The big question we face is how do we work together to address the violence" that's part and parcel of the American culture. Twenty school children were killed at Sandy Hook. How do we address that violence in "such neighborhoods"?
4
Someone said, “every good home library should have a few great books.”
Professor Isabel Wilkerson’s “The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration” is one of those great books.
Thank you for capturing this iconic movement of Black people (absent from American history books) fleeing the land of bondage for what many thought to be Canaan or the Promise Land.
Professor Isabel Wilkerson’s “The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration” is one of those great books.
Thank you for capturing this iconic movement of Black people (absent from American history books) fleeing the land of bondage for what many thought to be Canaan or the Promise Land.
12
I moved from California to Boston in the 1980's. I had a black classmate from Mississippi. I asked him if he must be relieved to be out of the South and living in Boston. I was surprised to hear, he was looking forward to moving home as soon as school was over. The random threats and racial taunts he experienced around Boston made him very uncomfortable.
18
I spent 4 years in Boston in the 1980s. We called it "Up South."
3
My heart is bleeding--stop writing such things. Let America proclaim its moral superiority across the world, without overcoming its darkness.
3
By what authority did the police refuse Samaria the right to be with her dying son? This is unbelievably inhumane.
22
By the authority of their perverse apathy for and indifference to Black physical and emotional life, Li'l Lil, the same reason they manhandled Tamar's sister, tackling her as she rushed to her dying little brother's side and throwing that innocent little girl into a patrol car.
6
We always need a scapegoat to blame for all of our anxieties and problems. Hitler used Jews as his scapegoat, Americans have used Blacks. Today, Trump uses Muslims. There will always be a group of people who will be blamed by many for all their problems. Humans have done great things, but this scapegoat mentality is one of our ongoing human failures.
5
Trump uses *all* minorities to whip up his fire-breathing dodo bird followers. Viewing his rallies is like watching a KKK gathering having checked their sheets at the door.
12
This country suffers from an unbelievable amount of systemic racism. The disproportionate justice system involvement of minority groups is only one example of this. In many cases, our school systems devalue certain ethnic groups. Many people are unable to find work due to their race. We have made progress over the years, but racism still permeates every sector of our society at the deepest levels.
We need to envision a country of true equality. Just working to decrease poverty among certain ethnic groups or decrease justice system involvement for some groups is not enough. Those steps are necessary if we are to be a moral society. But they are utterly insufficient.
I want to someday know that if I need to go to a cardiac surgeon, that person is as likely to be African American as to be white. If I am in a company, I want the president of the company to be as likely to be African American as to be white. If I am in school, I want my professors to be as likely to be African American as to be white. The fact that this is not the case now is enough to demonstrate the racist underpinnings of our culture. The fact that so many young African American men are in prison rather than in college or employed and raising families adds salt to the wound.
We are a country in which racism is real. We cannot change this unless we recognize it. We need to work peacefully, compassionately, purposefully and relentlessly to create a country that dignifies every single person.
We need to envision a country of true equality. Just working to decrease poverty among certain ethnic groups or decrease justice system involvement for some groups is not enough. Those steps are necessary if we are to be a moral society. But they are utterly insufficient.
I want to someday know that if I need to go to a cardiac surgeon, that person is as likely to be African American as to be white. If I am in a company, I want the president of the company to be as likely to be African American as to be white. If I am in school, I want my professors to be as likely to be African American as to be white. The fact that this is not the case now is enough to demonstrate the racist underpinnings of our culture. The fact that so many young African American men are in prison rather than in college or employed and raising families adds salt to the wound.
We are a country in which racism is real. We cannot change this unless we recognize it. We need to work peacefully, compassionately, purposefully and relentlessly to create a country that dignifies every single person.
5
The blacks moved north to get into the private economy of capitalism. Too bad leftwing unions and big government chased the jobs out of the country, and destroyed the northern cities with liberal insanity. But the blacks voted for it, so what are they crying about.
3
Thank you, Ms. Wilkerson.
I think our national motto should be: "Help ever, hurt never."
I first heard this uttered by the Avatar, Sai Baba, during his recent lifetime.
It is not to be taken lightly.
I think our national motto should be: "Help ever, hurt never."
I first heard this uttered by the Avatar, Sai Baba, during his recent lifetime.
It is not to be taken lightly.
2
Doubtless the naysayers will be saying you're comparing apples and oranges. The older example deals with overt terrorism and intimidation, while the recent example deals with systematic neglect and bias.
I'm not sure those distinctions are particularly meaningful or helpful.
"We didn't mean to" is not a solution.
I'm not sure those distinctions are particularly meaningful or helpful.
"We didn't mean to" is not a solution.
6
During Jim Crow, any white person could (and did) do anything to a black person and got away with it. Blacks could not appeal to the police, elected officials or anyone else for that matter for protection. Does that sound like life in 2016 to anyone? It does not to me, so yes, things have changed since the bad old days. Life is not perfect but there has been change to the extent black people can be educated , get jobs and live where they choose without repercussion. The problems that remain are muted by whiny people with fake cries of racism like the Princeton professor who was arrested because there was an outstanding warrant for her arrest . People like her should stop already. There are other ways to get one's 15 minutes of fame.
7
...sigh....
2
This was painful to read! No words for this summation of how far we haven't come in eradicating racism.
15
@professor: Painful to read? Try living the Black experiences shared here: man, woman, child, none is safe from the hatred of their fellow Americans who see first color and then a human body with all the emotions, intellect, free-will and dreams bestowed upon our species.
Perhaps self-mandated Burkas for Black women would put our White kindred at ease. Wait on it.
Perhaps self-mandated Burkas for Black women would put our White kindred at ease. Wait on it.
3
We haven't seen a black person hanging from an urban light pole, in a long while, but rogue cops have certainly taken up that slack, nowadays. Another reason to send Republicans sliding out of towns on a rail.
15
Now, let's see. Big cities with police violence issues:
Mayor of New York: Democrat
Mayor of Baltimore: Democrat
Mayor of Chicago: Democrat
Mayor of Cleveland: Democrat
It's amazing how the party of George Wallace is seen as a champion of racial justice and the party of Abraham Lincoln is portrayed as a bunch of foaming-at-the-mouth racists.
Mayor of New York: Democrat
Mayor of Baltimore: Democrat
Mayor of Chicago: Democrat
Mayor of Cleveland: Democrat
It's amazing how the party of George Wallace is seen as a champion of racial justice and the party of Abraham Lincoln is portrayed as a bunch of foaming-at-the-mouth racists.
9
The party of George Wallace's lineal political descendants is the Republican Party. Do you really think Jeff Sessions has anything in common with today's Democrats?
4
"The brutal decades preceding the Great Migration — when a black person was lynched on average every four days"
This implies an average of over 90 lynchings a year each year for at least 20 years ("decades"). But since 1901 (before the Great Migration) there has never been a year with more than 89, and since 1929, never a year with more than 60. Any lynchings are horrible, but you lose people when you don't keep to the facts. http://www.chesnuttarchive.org/classroom/lynching_table_year.html
This implies an average of over 90 lynchings a year each year for at least 20 years ("decades"). But since 1901 (before the Great Migration) there has never been a year with more than 89, and since 1929, never a year with more than 60. Any lynchings are horrible, but you lose people when you don't keep to the facts. http://www.chesnuttarchive.org/classroom/lynching_table_year.html
14
You of course are assuming that all lynchings were recorded in some official document or at least by the press. Given the known fact that black bodies were periodically recovered from southern rivers, your assumption seems dubious at best. Ms. Wilkerson's statistic may be an estimate based on best evidence.
10
Not all lynchings were documented as such: many persons simply disappeared into the swamps and backwoods graves. We will never know the exact number of Negroes who lost their lives through "citizen justice."
8
Seriously? The Great Migration was from 1910-1970. If you use your data to calculate the average number of black people lynched from 1900-1910, the average is about 79 people a year. So that's about once every 5 days not 4. Hardly a reason for the piece to lose credibility with readers. It's a odd that you would fixate on this point.
6
I'm white and from the South, and say: yes sir, no sir. Its also considered to be polite!
19
I can only assume that you purposely decided to miss the point here.
10
@kinsey
With all due respect, there is a difference. Your life never depended on it.
With all due respect, there is a difference. Your life never depended on it.
9
That's nice for you. But if you were black and knew what other black people suffered at the hands of southern police, your yessir, nosir was rooted in fear of death. A huge difference in the reality of black lives versus white lives. That's the importance of the Black Lives Matter movement, because black lives have never mattered.
13
Ms. Wilkerson, I read 'The Warmth of Other Suns' quite recently, and it was a life-changer for me. I grew up a white kid in a predominantly black neighborhood in New York City, no doubt among many who fled the south for the promise of the north. I thought I knew a thing or two about black history and culture in this country, until I read your book.
There's no use trying to summarize my thoughts after reading the book, except to say that it obliterated any notion I had that blacks attained freedom after Emancipation or the end of Jim Crow. It certainly re-energized my interest in civil rights, and I hope it does for others too. As Professor Barbara Fields at Columbia once said, the Civil War is not yet over, and, regrettably, it could still be lost.
There's no use trying to summarize my thoughts after reading the book, except to say that it obliterated any notion I had that blacks attained freedom after Emancipation or the end of Jim Crow. It certainly re-energized my interest in civil rights, and I hope it does for others too. As Professor Barbara Fields at Columbia once said, the Civil War is not yet over, and, regrettably, it could still be lost.
59
Hammond--Voting for Republicans, in the next election will move us closer to the defeat that worries you.
3
@ Hammond - voting for Sanders, too, will move us closer to that defeat which worries you.
2
Ms. Wilkerson's moving column reminds me of Claude Brown's "Manchild in the Promised Land," a memoir of the 1960s about growing up in Harlem. Brown's work portrays the lives of that first generation of black migrants from the south who went to New York. Poverty, drug use and crime defined his existence in America's most famous ghetto. Unlike Emmett Till or Tamir Rice, however, Brown escaped that man-made hell. He eventually attended law school and lived a life of service to troubled black youth.
Critics might use Brown's experience to challenge Wilkerson's thesis about our society's abuse of young black men. In fact, however, Claude Brown, like the hero of an Horatio Alger novel, had the good fortune to encounter institutions and individuals who provided him the crucial help denied to him by society at large. His story highlights the human potential wasted by a society blinded by color, a society whose obsession with individual responsibility for poverty has encouraged it to abandon generations of black males.
The tragedies described by Ms. Wilkerson cannot even be attributed to the inevitable imperfections of capitalism. The logic behind a market economy requires the efficient use of a country's entire stock of resources. Our poverty rate measures fairly accurately the proportion of our population, of all ethnic backgrounds, which we waste. Both morally and economically, our own ideals and market system have weighed us in the scales and found us wanting.
Critics might use Brown's experience to challenge Wilkerson's thesis about our society's abuse of young black men. In fact, however, Claude Brown, like the hero of an Horatio Alger novel, had the good fortune to encounter institutions and individuals who provided him the crucial help denied to him by society at large. His story highlights the human potential wasted by a society blinded by color, a society whose obsession with individual responsibility for poverty has encouraged it to abandon generations of black males.
The tragedies described by Ms. Wilkerson cannot even be attributed to the inevitable imperfections of capitalism. The logic behind a market economy requires the efficient use of a country's entire stock of resources. Our poverty rate measures fairly accurately the proportion of our population, of all ethnic backgrounds, which we waste. Both morally and economically, our own ideals and market system have weighed us in the scales and found us wanting.
40
The southern base fought tooth and nail to discourage (often through violent means and threats to remaining family members) their Black workers from migrating north, fearing the loss of their sharecropper, slave labor base and the effect on their commerce.
7
The billionaires use divide and conquer tactics to keep the workers divided among our selves. They blame the poor people for stealing all of the money. They hire undocumented workers because they are cheap and easy to dominate, then tell whites they stole your job.
As long as we let ourselves be divided by gender, race, ethnicity, etc., the global billionaires will get away with stealing our productivity and stashing it in offshore accounts.
Fortunately, young people growing up on the internet engage in people's ideas before their identity. They understand in their bones that these classifications are not indicators of integrity or intelligence. In this century we will unite the People and create true democracy.
The revolution is love.
Viva la Evolution.
As long as we let ourselves be divided by gender, race, ethnicity, etc., the global billionaires will get away with stealing our productivity and stashing it in offshore accounts.
Fortunately, young people growing up on the internet engage in people's ideas before their identity. They understand in their bones that these classifications are not indicators of integrity or intelligence. In this century we will unite the People and create true democracy.
The revolution is love.
Viva la Evolution.
3
Your book hit me from so many different directions. You've made my walking on the streets of Manhattan a new experience. Yesterday I looked up the debate between James Baldwin and Wm.F.Buckley on youtube, thank you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFeoS41xe7w
18
May I also suggest the televised panel and one-on-one interviews of Malcolm X, Dr. King, Julian Bond, etc.
4
Great article!
I've been reading a military history of the US, starting with the Revolutionary, Civil, and Spanish American Wars, WWI-II, Korea, and VN. The author frequently cites the competency and effectiveness of Black Soldiers in all these wars, how they were discredited, mistreated, and returned to the status of 2nd class citizens (or slaves before the Civil War) after each conflict, and how they then had to prove themselves again for the next war. I love military history, but frankly I had to stop reading the book, I found myself getting more and more depressed and disgusted with us as a nation. I often see reading well-cited and accurate history as like "turning over a rock," and this was certainly the case here.
It is clear the roots of racial prejudice run exceptionally deep in the US for likely a great many reasons. Last year, I heard a presentation of a reading of Langston Hughes' "One-Way Ticket" by a fine orator accompanied by piano and cello. As a well-educated white person, I had surprisingly never heard about the Great Migration before. The presentation sparked me to read up more on the topic. Hughes was a socialist during his time, an interesting contrast then to Bernie Sanders now.
I find the notion of American Exceptionalism to be increasingly repugnant, especially after recently living in Europe. The US is really not that different from most any other country, both in its blessings, innovations, and what you find when you turn over that rock.
I've been reading a military history of the US, starting with the Revolutionary, Civil, and Spanish American Wars, WWI-II, Korea, and VN. The author frequently cites the competency and effectiveness of Black Soldiers in all these wars, how they were discredited, mistreated, and returned to the status of 2nd class citizens (or slaves before the Civil War) after each conflict, and how they then had to prove themselves again for the next war. I love military history, but frankly I had to stop reading the book, I found myself getting more and more depressed and disgusted with us as a nation. I often see reading well-cited and accurate history as like "turning over a rock," and this was certainly the case here.
It is clear the roots of racial prejudice run exceptionally deep in the US for likely a great many reasons. Last year, I heard a presentation of a reading of Langston Hughes' "One-Way Ticket" by a fine orator accompanied by piano and cello. As a well-educated white person, I had surprisingly never heard about the Great Migration before. The presentation sparked me to read up more on the topic. Hughes was a socialist during his time, an interesting contrast then to Bernie Sanders now.
I find the notion of American Exceptionalism to be increasingly repugnant, especially after recently living in Europe. The US is really not that different from most any other country, both in its blessings, innovations, and what you find when you turn over that rock.
37
Thanks so much, Ms Wilkerson. We need another book from you.
11
The author and others like her have no trouble understanding within the black community, that people have all the normal human limitations. They are impulsive, they make mistakes, they cannot always follow the long path needed to succeed in this world and to stay out of trouble. But when they look at other racial groups, like the white majority, they assume a sort of patience, persistence, and forbearance they would never allow anyone to demand from their own community. Social policy cannot assume the least of black Americans while assuming that the much larger mass of white Americans, and Americans of other racial groups, will make a multigenerational sacrifice of tax dollars, personal security, and opportunity to favor the black community so that its sense of past grievance will pass.
34
In response to Amanda,
I don't know what you are reading but I do not assume that white people are any less or any more human than any other race. I do think that despite systemic discrimination, black people are expected to overcome and in the instances when they don't they are blamed for their failures fairly or not.
Regarding what you call "sense of past grievance" this article highlights not "past grievance' if the word 'grievance' is even appropriate. It highlights the continuing violence that is visited on black people because they are black.
If by "multigenerational sacrifice of tax dollars" you are referring to arguments for reparations, the fact is that labor and much more was stolen from black families because of their race. Those thefts and the resulting harms continued through generations. How hypocritical that in the "one nation under God with liberty and justice for all" we should say "get over it already!"
I don't know what you are reading but I do not assume that white people are any less or any more human than any other race. I do think that despite systemic discrimination, black people are expected to overcome and in the instances when they don't they are blamed for their failures fairly or not.
Regarding what you call "sense of past grievance" this article highlights not "past grievance' if the word 'grievance' is even appropriate. It highlights the continuing violence that is visited on black people because they are black.
If by "multigenerational sacrifice of tax dollars" you are referring to arguments for reparations, the fact is that labor and much more was stolen from black families because of their race. Those thefts and the resulting harms continued through generations. How hypocritical that in the "one nation under God with liberty and justice for all" we should say "get over it already!"
13
What does this mean? What are you saying?
8
I wish I could "like" your comment a million times. Black activists and "community leaders" scrutinize every other groups behavior under a microscope to look for wrongdoing or hypocrisy. They judge themselves through a telescope while wearing rose colored glasses with distortion lens.
3
Another racist polemic? Edmund Phelps, Nobel Prize winning economist, states that there is one factor, by far, that accounts for the horrendous economic state of blacks in inner cities. This one factor, if eliminated, would do more to eliminate poverty in this community than any other, by far. And it is easy to achieve. That is to reduce illegitimate births in the inner cities. Currently about 2/3 of all births in this demographic are illegitimate.
The NY Times and most of the national press really need to write more about this one factor. Black leadership needs to do more to combat it (or, at the very least, to acknowledge it). Yet all refuse. Disgraceful.
The NY Times and most of the national press really need to write more about this one factor. Black leadership needs to do more to combat it (or, at the very least, to acknowledge it). Yet all refuse. Disgraceful.
61
yoda--Funny moniker for one so ill informed. A woman's right to choose would further your goal, but let me point out, there really is no such thing, anymore, as an illegitimate child. Universal health care, and world class education for All, would also help. Get with the times.
9
the one thing that would make a difference is if young, black men had an opportunity to get a job - one that paid a living wage. Marrying your babies mamma means less money for the child. All people will continue to have children... those able to secure jobs will be better able emotionally and physically to provide for their needs.
2
We have an entire political party that is fighting against birth control. How do you expect us to do that???
4
This whole citing incarceration as a form of discrimination towards blacks I do not understand. Why don't we see massive female blacks in prison? Or elderly blacks sent to prison?
Isn't the obvious solution is for young black males to commit less crimes across the spectrum(from none violent crimes such as selling drugs to muggins all the way to murder)? Why is that never mentioned?
Isn't the obvious solution is for young black males to commit less crimes across the spectrum(from none violent crimes such as selling drugs to muggins all the way to murder)? Why is that never mentioned?
49
With regards to your comments about drugs. Young white males sell and use drugs as well and are treated with kids' gloves.
3
Commit less crimes. You are right John, and I think it has been mentioned many, many times (And your point is well taken). You don't see many females and elderly in prison because of course mostly young males of all races commit crimes. I think the issue here is longer prison terms for blacks than white for crimes which are roughly equivalent. Even think of the 17y.o. black male caught with crack coke in his pocket in the 1980's and a 17 y.o. white male caught with regular cocaine (or for that matter driving drunk and killing four people in Arizona) . It is the job of individuals to not commit crimes. But it is also the job of society to apply punishment uniformly and fairly. We have a history of not doing that, and at the very least it contributes to the problem. Individuals need to tend to themselves and their families. And a society needs to tend to its rules.
6
@ John - Recent studies indicate the incarceration rates among Black women (many among them mothers of young children) have been escalating and are at this point reaching epidemic proportions.
5
The work of the historian is to lay before us the patterns of our times and lives. Isabel Wilkerson has done so here with two boys --- Emmett and Tamir and their mothers Mamie and Samaria. Whose work is it to mend the broken souls?
18
@ Riley: the society, we the people, share the responsibility of healing each other and, in turn, ourselves.
8
In Henrico County, right outside of Richmond,Virginia, the school board has just banned the showing of a video that attempts to demonstrate the hurdles that Blacks still face in the U.S. While it has been viewed many times in American schools and led to meaningful discussions, some Henrico parents claimed it promoted "white racism." The school board immediately caved to this pressure. Having lived in Richmond for thirty years, prior to a move to SF several years ago, I can attest to the fact that racism is alive and well there.
48