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Well in skimming this study it seems to contradict the poverty meme. While it concludes that if Black & Hispanic communities mirrored the socioeconomic status of Whites in general that the disparity among the races would be reduced but not eliminated.
Culture does impact it but keep in mind that the culture was born out of widespread poverty and a unique violent and repressive history. When your race is defined by high rates of poverty, your race's culture is going to reflect that. One of the problems faced now is that our "black leaders" try to shame members of the race when they try to embrace attributes that allow a person to be successful, but that are associated with the culture of another race.
One year really doesn't mean much. That article says it rose in 2006 too. But the trend has been downward for a long time. We have gone through a deep recession, some high rolling times, and everything between. Millions and millions of guns have been bought. Crime goes down.
On the national average, our homicide rates are moving in the right direction and have been for quite a while, thats why I'm puzzled about all this hub ub about gun control. The majority of the statistics are criminals killing criminals. If you are not a drug dealer, a gang banger, or sucicidal, your chances of being killed by gun violence is minimal.
I don't know if this has been brought up, but the rates from the article are per capita and it is, for example, comparing Perry Co, KY (county wide) population roughly %2 of the population of Philadelphia, PA. So there is in reality not more murders in eastern KY regardless of race.
I found actual numbers in 2005 to be Perry Co., KY-0, Philadelphia, PA-375.
I don't know if this has been brought up, but the rates from the article are per capita and it is, for example, comparing Perry Co, KY (county wide) population roughly %2 of the population of Philadelphia, PA. So there is in reality not more murders in eastern KY regardless of race.
I found actual numbers in 2005 to be Perry Co., KY-0, Philadelphia, PA-375.
We know, the OP is pure spin and propaganda. Did you expect anything different?
The McCoy's were from Kentucky, in the Pikeville area (along the Big Sandy River). The Hatfield's, however, were from West Virginia. None of them probably ever saw Western Kentucky, which has a very, very different culture than Eastern Kentucky. Western Kentucky is not part of the Appalachian area.
There are very, very few non-whites in the Eastern Kentucky area, even today, so it is a not an unfair assumption to believe that any victims and perpetrators of crime in the area are white. It is also one of the most impoverished areas in the nation. Never a bastion of education or progress, things have gotten even worse as drugs have taken a hold of the area. People talk about how bad things are in the inner cities, but the despair in Eastern Kentucky is unmatched. They people just aren't rude about it and they are more likely to implode than explode. They gave up generations ago and expect to live in squalor. Any effort to lift the kids out of that lifestyle is met with polite, but very impermeable, resistance. I did my student teaching in the area, which was quite an interesting adventure on many levels. Let's just say it was a shock to all our systems and leave it at that. Regardless, I spent many an evening crying about the lack of future my students faced, the fact that no one cared, and the realization that there was probably nothing I could do to change it. Poverty is a way of life there, it just looks different than the inner city.
But.... there are a couple of things I am pretty sure the article wouldn't think to discuss but that are probably true:
1) Any murder victims and perpetrators probably knew each other very well and the murder was personal.
2) The area is so sparsely populated that all it would take is for there to be a murder/suicide domestic violence incident involving some guy walking in on his wife in the middle of cheating and the murder rate would be sky high. That creates a different feel in the community than a drive by shooting or random break in gone bad.
I know they were from Eastern KY/Western WV. One reason I mentioned those areas. Kentucky's quite a state. Appalachia on the eastern end, and the low-lying Ohio/Mississippi river valleys to the west and north.
Appalachia has been a region where making a living has always been hardscrabble. One has had to be tough to live there. Some of the first images I even saw of Eastern KY was on a Feed The Children informercial with Larry and Francis Jones. Ricky Skaggs was on it too. I saw alot of abject poverty. I never new there were people in America who lived that bad. A few families didn't even have running water. One kid had teeth rotting from malnutrition.
I think one thing I've noticed between eastern KY and the Chicago's inner city is this: In the inner city, there is alot of anger and resentment. Another thing I see is overcrowding.
Speaking of drugs, there has been violence tied to marijuana growers in parts of Appalachia. One person told me that when he was driving through Kentucky, one thing that scared him was getting near a marijuana plot because he said there had been violence from those trying to keep people from discovering the drugs.
Low expectations do not help anyone. And it can be frustrating. And this is not only in Appalachia. One can find this in the rural areas of Mississippi, where this kind of abject poverty takes place as well. I could not imagine what it would be like to teach in eastern KY. I'm trying to think about what that would be like.
Violence can be found in both areas, eastern KY vs the inner city. In rural areas, it just feels different because of the nature of it. In a rural area, with the sparse population, it is more personal. In the inner city, it is still person, but with crowded conditions, and situation involved in the shooting, it can feel quite scary.
This. It has nothing to do with "blood feuding" and everything to do with poor, uneducated people who are hooked on drugs (particularly pain killers).
Despite constant attempts to try to blame one race (or two races), the reality is that people who are out committing violent crimes are more united by poverty and hopelessness than anything else. Throw in drug abuse and you've got a recipe for disaster.
Poverty, hopelessness, and drugs are a recipe for disaster, I agree with you there. I merely brought up blood feuds to mention that part of violence is a cultural issue as well. Part of my way of saying one's race doesn't make a person violent. Cultural, social, and personal problems are major factors.\
Today, of course, you don't have blood feuds. However, this stuff has happened long ago in the past.
How am I causing the problem? How am I personally causing the problem, considering I don't even live in Chicago or New Orleans? Or is this a way for you to bash me?
I think one thing I've noticed between eastern KY and the Chicago's inner city is this: In the inner city, there is alot of anger and resentment. Another thing I see is overcrowding.
There is no 'overcrowding' in Chicago. You must live in a place with extremely low population densities, like Phoenix or Houston.
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