Quote:
Originally Posted by eschaton
Obviously class plays a role as well, but as I said, race plays an independent role. Poor white people have higher murder rates than middle class white people, but nowhere near as high as poor black people.
I don't mean to "whitesplain" at all, but from everything I have read there still is a disproportionate belief in a lot of poor black neighborhoods that disrespect needs to be met with physical - perhaps even deadly - force. This was a normal belief for white Americans too in the 19th century - especially in the South. Even rich white people engaged in duels after all. It filtered down to the lower classes, both black and white. The white population slowly lost the practice of "rough justice" over the 19th and early 20th century, but it was not completely expunged from the black population. This isn't due to any inferiority, or even because anything is wrong with black culture as a whole, but because black culture is different than white culture, and just because cultural norms shift in one doesn't mean they will shift in the other.
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Well, depends on what region you're in. Poor Blacks in urban areas are obviously going to have much higher murder rates than being poor and Black in rural areas today. Most poor Whites live in rural areas, and even with that broken down, a poor, predominantly White area in Kentucky/WV is likely to be more murderous than a poor, predominantly White area in Iowa or Minnesota. Different cultures among Whites varying by state.
I have done some research for myself. Alot of "frontier justice" didn't die out in the South among poor Whites. Lynching, "honor killing". In some cases, murders were never reported as such. I've read Thomas Sowell's "Black Rednecks and White Liberals". That would explain more. The whole "rough justice" thing among poor Blacks today goes back to "redneck culture" in the South. Around WWI, Blacks from states such as Ohio and Pennsylvania scored higher on mental tests than Whites from Kentucky and Alabama. Blacks living in northern cities during the late 19th century/early 20th century were less prone to violence than those living in the South. What changed? Many among Black migrants to northern cities brought the "redneck culture" they learned in the South with them. In the 1950s, Whites from Appalachia went to northern cities. Many complained about White migrants from that region being rowdy, violent, and causing problems.
Chicago
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