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I agree 100% and I'm a young Black male. Reversing the statistics is the only way to repair the collective image.
It sucks for all the black people (the vast majority) who DO NOT COMMIT CRIMES.
Of course, the negative perception comes towards individuals you do not know, nor will you have the opportunity to get to know. Your only means of assessment in a brief encounter will be those statistical facts. So........... out of common sense and the knowledge of these stats, most people will try to avoid young black males. We are talking about having a greater degree of caution and fear toward random, anonymous encounters, not your next door neighbor or a colleague at work.
On the other hand, in an environment which is controlled and there is not an environment conducive to harm (workplace for example), people are given the opportunity to get to know others and EVALUATE THEM AS AN INDIVIDUAL, RATHER THAN A STATISTIC. As noted above, when one looks at the absolute numbers of those committing crimes, it is a very small percentage of the black population. However, the consequences of "gambling" on an encounter which can result in severe harm or loss of life results in a degree of caution and fear which is applied to a cohort in general.
This is a situation of "playing the statistics" to remain free of harm and injury. It is for the same reason people prefer to vacation at Hilton Head, S.C, rather than Kabul, Afghanistan. The chances of losing your life at Hilton Head is low.
I agree 100% and I'm a young Black male. Reversing the statistics is the only way to repair the collective image.
For those of us who are law-abiding, that rings very hollow. I can only control MY behavior, not someone else's behavior. Making law abiding Black people pay for the sins of hood rats, that is disgusting to me. My mainconcern is this. What happens with people like us in the meantime? We're already doing what we should do? What more can we do?
And if someone can't differentiate between a regular Black person and some hood rat, I wouldn't want to be around that kind of person.
Charles Murray dealt with the lowest classes of U.S. society in his magnum opus "The Bell Curve," which I have not read in full yet. His line, "the custodial state," was both apt and prophetic.
Without the state, these people would literally die of hunger.
Now, the recent historical context, with the pandemic and job/businesses losses, ensured many people, both U.S. citizens and noncitizens who would have otherwise been employed, needed help from the state.
But putting these asides, given they were previously employed and many did return to work, the lowest classes are eaters who do not cultivate; they are consumers who do not produce; they drain tax contributions from others without paying taxes themselves.
Some thinkers all but view such people as "useless eaters." They may not be willing to label them as such, but they will go as far as to call them the "unworking class," a "useless class," and even "unemployable."
While views like this look to the future and imagine it as such due to the unstoppable progress and advancement of technology, the tragic truth is that in 2021, this scenario already exists in many countries, and this includes the United States. The underclass, and this is NOT only black people, is essentially "unemployable" because it lacks the basic skills to function with even moderate success in an ever increasingly cognitive complex world; and, very often, that lack is accompanied by a profound level of social maladjustment which compounds the unskilled status of such people.
In other words, such people are likely not to contribute because they are oftentimes nearly illiterate and because they do not know enough manners to work with an industrially advanced, developed, capitalist system which requires knowing how to deal with colleagues, managers, clients, potential clients, and subordinates. They are likely to have a very poor work ethic and cannot be relied on to work responsibly and productively.
The reasons for which there are so many such people within the world's wealthiest country and one which has offered countless opportunities and many freedoms to the extent dozens of millions of foreigners sacrificed much to come here are legion, and they can overlap into discussions about history, sociology, economics, and other topics. But as Murray's reference to "the custodial state" and as you yourself wrote ("no future"), this is a frightening situation.
We are all adults who have had our share of sobering life lessons, and at least some of those resulted from unwise decisions we made. All of us learn at some point that what we do has consequences. Doors are opened or closed based on things we do. And granted, not everyone has the same level of wealth and opportunity, but even so, the rule that what we do has consequences spares nobody.
Admittedly, a young man born to an uneducated mother in a crime-ridden area is unlikelier to end up in a high-ranking university than a young man born to college-educated parents who both make 6 figures annually, who lives in a highly safe suburb, and who attends public schools that are ranked among the top 10 of his state.
But, it goes back to the central fact about the presence of a large underclass which oftentimes as per Murray cannot support itself. This underclass (again, regardless of race) is worlds apart from college-educated/middle-class and upper-middle class America. The two cannot mix harmoniously.
Finally, the poisonous, toxic, jealousy-fraught, victimistic, resentful, bitter, and blame-oriented cultural flavor of our day, with ludicrous ideas about "oppression" and "marginalization" only feed any discontent that members of the underclass have. Very ignorant and prone to violence, endowed with little self-control or future orientation and not hesitant to blame others for its plight, the underclass is easy prey for agitators who claim that anything from law enforcement to educational standards to accountability are "racist."
I feel for members of the underclass, and not only because theirs is an already difficult set of circumstances, but because these are the people the left holds hostage as "victims" and whom the left treats as mascots; the left considers their anti-social behavior a valid and appropriate manifestation of culture which must not be criticized, even if such behavior is nothing but destructive.... and because without radical change, they will, as you said, have no future (other than a bleak one).
I feel for the underclass, MI, especially rural areas are filled with them, more so than areas like Detroit and Flint, yet those areas don't have anywhere near the crime and violence. Being poor, and uneducated doesn't make one violent. My mothers family were poor Mexicans that lived on the wrong side of the tracks, out of 6 siblings raised on a janitors salary, only two graduated HS. And as far as i know, not a single one ever got arrested, and they don't go around assaulting and robbing people. I'm so tired of hearing the excuses.
My later statement that you quoted was before i got engaged in the thread, and was just a smart assed comment, due to a few posters always bringing up the underclass thing and sort of blaming it on that.
I feel for the underclass, MI, especially rural areas are filled with them, more so than areas like Detroit and Flint, yet those areas don't have anywhere near the crime and violence. Being poor, and uneducated doesn't make one violent. My mothers family were poor Mexicans that lived on the wrong side of the tracks, out of 6 siblings raised on a janitors salary, only two graduated HS. And as far as i know, not a single one ever got arrested, and they don't go around assaulting and robbing people. I'm so tired of hearing the excuses.
My later statement that you quoted was before i got engaged in the thread, and was just a smart assed comment, due to a few posters always bringing up the underclass thing and sort of blaming it on that.
I didn't write what I wrote to condemn you in any way. Smart-assed or not, it's a painfully truth assessment that people like those youths who assaulted the white people in that video are not likely to have the most promising, bright futures.
As you wrote, there are plenty of people who come from extremely humble origins but who do not end up doing criminal stuff. Choices matter.
I didn't write what I wrote to condemn you in any way. Smart-assed or not, it's a painfully truth assessment that people like those youths who assaulted the white people in that video are not likely to have the most promising, bright futures.
As you wrote, there are plenty of people who come from extremely humble origins but who do not end up doing criminal stuff. Choices matter.
This is what I see. You don't see middle class Black people behaving like that. You don't see Black people with blue collar jobs doing that crap. It's mostly the terminally unemployed, the unemployable, the individuals with no future involved with such violence. Why them and not middle class or blue collar types? That is something to consider.
After the '94 crime bill, homicides dropped among all races and in most cities. Whatever the whys and wherefores we need strong policing. Defund was the dumbest policy idea in at least decades and it's time to unwind it completely.
Excellent perspective. There's a lot of truth in this post, especially in regards to education.
There's something to be said about making it past the first rung of the ladder in Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Some people never do.
I feel that it's important to get to the root of the problem. And in this case, the roots go much deeper than many people understand. That violent culture started to die off among those who got a good education. It remains in the ghetto to this day. Many people claim that this came up after LBJ. I look at history and it tells me something different.
The last known slave ship from Africa to the United States arrived in 1860. As in, one hundred and sixty one years ago. What is the statute of limitations on using "forcibly shipped to the New World to be slaves" as an excuse for the criminality and horrible behavior we see in the black underclass?
Instead of parsing out one part of my post, I would go read the rest of the post to get a better idea of what I'm talking about.
I didn't write what I wrote to condemn you in any way. Smart-assed or not, it's a painfully truth assessment that people like those youths who assaulted the white people in that video are not likely to have the most promising, bright futures.
As you wrote, there are plenty of people who come from extremely humble origins but who do not end up doing criminal stuff. Choices matter.
It sucks for all the black people (the vast majority) who DO NOT COMMIT CRIMES.
Of course, the negative perception comes towards individuals you do not know, nor will you have the opportunity to get to know. Your only means of assessment in a brief encounter will be those statistical facts. So........... out of common sense and the knowledge of these stats, most people will try to avoid young black males. We are talking about having a greater degree of caution and fear toward random, anonymous encounters, not your next door neighbor or a colleague at work.
On the other hand, in an environment which is controlled and there is not an environment conducive to harm (workplace for example), people are given the opportunity to get to know others and EVALUATE THEM AS AN INDIVIDUAL, RATHER THAN A STATISTIC. As noted above, when one looks at the absolute numbers of those committing crimes, it is a very small percentage of the black population. However, the consequences of "gambling" on an encounter which can result in severe harm or loss of life results in a degree of caution and fear which is applied to a cohort in general.
This is a situation of "playing the statistics" to remain free of harm and injury. It is for the same reason people prefer to vacation at Hilton Head, S.C, rather than Kabul, Afghanistan. The chances of losing your life at Hilton Head is low.
Oh. I understand. It'll be avoiding reality to ignore the statistics and the visible impact on the communities.
And the sad thing is some people don't realize that presentation and lifestyle choices can fix the perception of Black people far more than begging politicians or the media to force "anti-racism" on people.
I never get followed around in stores, "profiled", or anything like that 90% of the time because my presence is casual and mundane. A group of young Black men acting loud and hostile draws far more attention than I do.
It's tough to get lumped in with those type of guys but, at the same time, it's reality. I'm doing my part with my friend trying to help some people who want get on the right track. I even helped funded my older cousin's rehab and he's been out for a year and is a contractor(the job he had before he relapsed.)
While many Black people live normal or decent lives, I don't think enough Black people have the mentality to collectively reverse the statistics that damage our image but one can only hope. I can at least say I've done my part not succumbing to recklessness.
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