By Alan
Caruba
The
wounding of two police officers in Ferguson, Missouri, and earlier in New York
City the assassination of two police officers are disturbing events for all
Americans as they represent a hostility that threatens a safe, secure society
wherever one lives.
Shooting
police is an invitation to anarchy. That there have been protests and parades
of late advocating this should be a matter of deep concern to all of us, no
matter our race.
Ferguson,
however, is NOT America if one looks at its population and the incredibly poor
governance they have endured. You get the government for which you vote or when
you neglect to vote.
Ferguson
is atypical of the nation. As James Langston notes in his book, “America in
Crisis”, in Ferguson “the growth of the black population relative to whites is
a recent occurrence. In 1990, blacks comprised 25 percent of the city’s
population but that percentage grew to 52 percent in 2000 and 67 percent in
2010.”
“The
demographic transition was not followed by a corresponding transition in black
access to political positions, the police force, union representation, and the
like. The recency of the demographic transition likely has altered the city in
ways that do not characterize other contemporary major cities in the United
States, especially those that are majority black like Detroit or Atlanta.”
As noted
in the Department of Justice report of an investigation occasioned by the shooting
of Michael Brown by a white police officer, local governance was a factor in
the lives of its black citizens that has invoked protest and resentment.
“Ferguson,”
notes Langston, “is unusual in the degree that the city uses the municipal
court system and the revenue it generates as a way to raise city funds. This
created a financial incentive to issue tickets and then impose excessive fees
on people who did not pay.” For the record, this occurs in other comparable
communities.
“Data
bears this out. Ferguson issued more than 1,500 warrants per 1,000 people in
2013 and this rate exceeds all other Missouri cities with a population larger
than 10,000 people. Ferguson has a population of just over 21,000 people but
issued 24,000 warrants which add up to three warrants per Ferguson household.”
This,
however, is not that unusual in Missouri. An article by Joseph Miller,
published in the March edition of The Heartland Institute’s Budget & Tax News noted that
excessive use of traffic fines is not that uncommon in Missouri. “Of the 20
cities in the county with fine collections exceeding 20% of total revenue, 13
are contiguous with one another in a 25-square-mile section” and described this
as “a daily burden for local residents.”
What the
media has reported regarding the number of blacks killed in police shootings is
a bit deceptive. There is no question that “the disproportional number of
blacks that are killed in police shootings”, says Langston. “Blacks comprise 13
percent of the U.S. population, but represent 32 percent of those killed by
police between 2003 and 2009.” That’s more than double the number of whites
killed.
One must, however, consider the greater number of criminal events that bring together blacks and the
police responding to them.
Being
black in America inherently evokes the historical fact that this nation
practiced slavery prior to and since its founding in 1788 when our Constitution
was ratified, to Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. It wasn’t until
1964 when the Civil Rights Act was passed, followed by the Voting Rights Act in
1965 that the discrimination affecting the black community was fully addressed.
Two
generations of Americans, black, white and other racial groups, have been born
since then and these new generations have no living memory of the Civil Rights
movement or the riots that occurred in cities like Los Angeles and
Philadelphia. Between 1955 and 1977 there were more than thirty race riots in
America. Younger Americans did not experience them. Older Americans recall them
and the protests in Ferguson evoked disturbing memories.
As
reported in a 2007 study released by the National Urban League,
“African-American men are more than twice as likely to be unemployed as white
males. They are nearly as likely to be incarcerated, with average jail
sentences about 10 months longer than those of white men.” Between the ages of 15 and 34, the civil
rights group noted that “black males are nine times more likely to be killed by
firearms and nearly eight times as likely to suffer from AIDS.” The
unemployment rates are comparable to those today, eight years later.
A 2007 report by the U.S. Bureau of Statistics noted that, while only 13
percent of the U.S. population, blacks “were the victims of 49 percent of all
murders and 15 percent of rapes, assaults, and other nonfatal violent crimes
nationwide.” Significantly, “Most of the black murder victims—93 percent—were
killed by other black people” while 85 percent of white victims were slain by
other white people.
One might
conclude that murder is rampant in America, but the reality is that homicides are
at a 50-year low. The peak homicide rate was in 1980. The rate began to grow in
the mid-1960s, but steadily dropped by the 1990s. Today’s murder rate is at the
lowest point in the past century.
What we
are witnessing, however, is the result of cultural issues that afflict the
black community. Juan Williams, a Fox News analyst, writing in 2007 noted that
“One hard, unforgiving fact is that 70 percent of black children are born today
to single mothers.” The school dropout rate is “about 50 percent nationwide for
black students.”
“Black
youth culture is boiling over with nihilism. It embraces failure and
frustration, including random crime and jail time,” wrote Williams.
Ferguson
is an example of far larger problems that afflict the black community. Only
blacks can solve these problems.
One might
have thought—and many did—that the election of America’s first black President
was going to make these problems go away. Many blacks have entered the middle
class, but the majority encounters the problems endemic to the black community
and, until its culture and lifestyle choices change, those problems will be
around for a long time to come.
With a
black President, a black Attorney General, black members of Congress, black
mayors and others demonstrating how different 2015 is from 1965, laying blame on white racism is no longer a valid excuse.
© Alan
Caruba, 2015
Obama and his dark regime were supposed to be the *post racial* President and ALL racial hatred was supposed to magically just go away...
ReplyDeleteObviously it didn't happen...
Everyone is on equal footing in the USA today, we all have the same opportunity for education, jobs and happiness yet racism still exists, and in MY not so humble opinion, racism runs rampant in the Black communities, being furthered along by race baiters that would lose all of the income if racism did die..