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Here we have, without a doubt, a tragic story. A Sophomore honors students from Seton Hall University attends an off campus party at a rental house in a sketchy neighborhood of East Orange, NJ. Sometime after midnight, a young man from the neighborhood attempts to crash the party, but is turned away and physically removed. Several minutes later, he returns to the party with a gun and opens fire - amidst the panic, the young woman tries to help a friend of hers who has been wounded and is shot in the head. When it is over, several have been wounded and the young woman's wound proves to be mortal. She dies the next day. The young woman was African American, from Virginia, the daughter of a military family and wanted to use her psychology degree to work with war veterans suffering from PTSD.
The manhunt finds the alleged murderer a few days later hiding in an apartment in the neighborhood. He is a 25 year old black man with 2 children - and a short arrest record mainly related to drugs. A few days later his alleged accomplice - a 19 year old black man - is arrested in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. The human toll of the shooting is now the loss of a life full of incredible promise, the wounding and trauma of party guests, friends and family of victims - and the lives of two young men who will likely spend the next 5-7 decades in prison and the children who will grow up essentially fatherless.
Like I said - the news has been buzzing with this. Of course, it is a big story. It fits a lot of narratives about urban centers and violence and can be sensationalized easily. The victims are college students - predominantly African Americans - whose paths to success have been either destroyed or seriously marred by a blight of violence.
Some may wonder as to what degree this represents another difficult and sensitive topic - namely, so-called "black on black" violence in our cities. While the party goers were college students not from the neighborhood, the party was hosted by an historically black fraternity, the victims are predominantly African Americans and the murder suspect is a black man. Although not entirely typical, the violence has echoes of what many consider to be a serious and vexing problem in urban communities.
Talking about black on black violence is a topic that I approach delicately. First of all, it is an phenomenon born of experience far removed from my own. No amount of study is going to provide me with the experience of actually being a black man in American society. Additionally, the topic has a terrible way of bringing out unabashed racists - check out the comments sections for many news services carrying this story and you will see a horrendous exercise in Stormfront commentary. Even those not consciously racist can end up drawing upon rehashes of The Bell Curve and it never seems to matter that Stephen Jay Gould demolished that argument over a decade before it was ever published. Finally, there is some serious question about whether or not the term "black on black violence" makes any sense at all or is simply a convenient way to put a media-ready trope onto the black community.
But it is hard to escape the conclusion that there is some shocking violence suffered by black residents of urban communities that comes from other black people. When our cities were engulfed in high murder rates through the 1970s and 1980s everyone buzzed about the terrible crime problem. But, as an example, from a high of nearly 2500 murders in 1990, NYC has seen total murders fall to under 500 a year, resulting in endless praise. But even as we've stopped talking about the terrible crime problem in the inner city, the victim of murder is more likely to be a young black man killed by another young black man.
Some difficult to sort out thoughts on all of this:
First, it is very likely that the issue is seriously overplayed in the media. While it is true that most murder victims are blacks murdered by other blacks, it is also true that the split between black and white victims of murder is not enormous. Further, the vast majority of whites are killed by other whites. Given that many communities are de facto segregated, that isn't a surprise. Nevertheless, the fact that blacks make up more than half of murder victims in a society where they are less than 15% of the population should raise concern.
Second, the question of gun availability is a factor. People like to comment how people seem to reach for guns these days, and that may well be true. It is not true that violent responses to small provocations are entirely new, however. The image of the bar brawl comes to mind as an example. And the fact is that the country is quite literally awash in guns and the vast majority of them are never fired at another person. While I won't guess at the reasons of someone who responds to an insult with gunfire, it is logically not the gun that is doing the thinking - it is the person.
We also have to wonder about leadership in the urban black community. By this I don't mean there aren't leaders in cities; there are without doubt brilliant and brave African American teachers, school administrators, and church leaders who are all inspirational. For some reason, they have never gained national recognition, and I do occasionally wonder what would the country be like if Dr. King and Malcolm X had not been murdered.
And this thought is likely to spawn a lot - but I just don't think you can ignore the unique history that has kept some many African Americans in inter-generational poverty. I've read postings here that claim most poor are poor because of their "bad choices". That's hideously simplistic. If it is true that you need money to make money, then the most recent report on consumer finances by the Federal Reserve should give anyone pause. The data is clear - black families have ten cents for every dollar whites have when you calculate total wealth. Ten. Cents. That means that if TODAY African American families in urban poverty began the stereotypical "immigrant" path of working poverty in the first generation, working class in the second, middle class in the third and high status middle class in the fourth, it would be TWO MORE GENERATIONS of black families. And that would presuppose that the same opportunities for advancement are available today that were available to my great grandparents in 1910. With the loss of lower skill but well payed manufacturing jobs that propelled my grandfather's generation to the middle class, I have my doubts.
It isn't just poverty, though. The American narrative on civil rights often goes like this - "Once upon a time, there were some very bad people who thought blacks were inferior, but then Dr. King came along and everything is better now." That's infantile, but pervasive. Slavery may have ended over 140 year ago, but there was also a system of apartheid and abject racial terrorism for 100 years after that. Another historical fact people overlook is The Great Migration where millions of black families fled southern states to relocate to northern cities. Odds are that if you know an African American in a northern city today, his family relocated in the 1920s. And this is what they fled:
So in addition to slavery, apartheid and terrorism, millions of people were completely displaced in the 1920s and 1930s. That means being effective first generation immigrants not in 1865, but over 70 years after Emancipation.
The effects of this cannot be dismissed just because we passed some progressive laws in the mid 1960s. Laws cannot quickly erase the kinds of inequality that plagued and continue to plague urban black communities until today.
But THAT'S not explanatory enough either. There are 10s of millions of African American families in urban poverty and the vast majority of them are not criminals. There is obviously a choice that is made by some people, conscious or not, to respond to circumstances with violence. There are plenty of people who describe the killer in the Seton Hall murder as an "animal" and it is tempting to chalk up such depraved acts to a fundamental flaw in character. But we should not be willing to go there - it would mean that far too many black men in America should be simply given up upon (back to the The Bell Curve argument there).
Many of the black youth of today are angry. Angry at poverty they are born into. Angry at a society that shows them almost unbelievable wealth and almost no way to see themselves achieving it. Anger that has some legitimate roots especially as they look at a school system meant to be the way to advance from poverty but has very few examples in their lives of that happening. And this anger becomes self-sabotaging; in education, in choices, and in life. You need goals to make that anger into productive anger and those goals are not promoted by the institutions (schools, government) that should be promoting them.
You could say that this is my way of wondering what is missing from the live of some people that they cannot imagine meaningful goals for themselves and end up as the two young men in this tragedy. And what can be done for the two little children of the alleged killer who are likely to grow up without their father in a poverty-stricken community so that the anger they may grow to feel doesn't end up where he did. But I know what is missing and I already know how it got that way - and I see no way of solving it, myself, without radical changes to society.
What do you think?
The manhunt finds the alleged murderer a few days later hiding in an apartment in the neighborhood. He is a 25 year old black man with 2 children - and a short arrest record mainly related to drugs. A few days later his alleged accomplice - a 19 year old black man - is arrested in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. The human toll of the shooting is now the loss of a life full of incredible promise, the wounding and trauma of party guests, friends and family of victims - and the lives of two young men who will likely spend the next 5-7 decades in prison and the children who will grow up essentially fatherless.
Like I said - the news has been buzzing with this. Of course, it is a big story. It fits a lot of narratives about urban centers and violence and can be sensationalized easily. The victims are college students - predominantly African Americans - whose paths to success have been either destroyed or seriously marred by a blight of violence.
Some may wonder as to what degree this represents another difficult and sensitive topic - namely, so-called "black on black" violence in our cities. While the party goers were college students not from the neighborhood, the party was hosted by an historically black fraternity, the victims are predominantly African Americans and the murder suspect is a black man. Although not entirely typical, the violence has echoes of what many consider to be a serious and vexing problem in urban communities.
Talking about black on black violence is a topic that I approach delicately. First of all, it is an phenomenon born of experience far removed from my own. No amount of study is going to provide me with the experience of actually being a black man in American society. Additionally, the topic has a terrible way of bringing out unabashed racists - check out the comments sections for many news services carrying this story and you will see a horrendous exercise in Stormfront commentary. Even those not consciously racist can end up drawing upon rehashes of The Bell Curve and it never seems to matter that Stephen Jay Gould demolished that argument over a decade before it was ever published. Finally, there is some serious question about whether or not the term "black on black violence" makes any sense at all or is simply a convenient way to put a media-ready trope onto the black community.
But it is hard to escape the conclusion that there is some shocking violence suffered by black residents of urban communities that comes from other black people. When our cities were engulfed in high murder rates through the 1970s and 1980s everyone buzzed about the terrible crime problem. But, as an example, from a high of nearly 2500 murders in 1990, NYC has seen total murders fall to under 500 a year, resulting in endless praise. But even as we've stopped talking about the terrible crime problem in the inner city, the victim of murder is more likely to be a young black man killed by another young black man.
Some difficult to sort out thoughts on all of this:
First, it is very likely that the issue is seriously overplayed in the media. While it is true that most murder victims are blacks murdered by other blacks, it is also true that the split between black and white victims of murder is not enormous. Further, the vast majority of whites are killed by other whites. Given that many communities are de facto segregated, that isn't a surprise. Nevertheless, the fact that blacks make up more than half of murder victims in a society where they are less than 15% of the population should raise concern.
Second, the question of gun availability is a factor. People like to comment how people seem to reach for guns these days, and that may well be true. It is not true that violent responses to small provocations are entirely new, however. The image of the bar brawl comes to mind as an example. And the fact is that the country is quite literally awash in guns and the vast majority of them are never fired at another person. While I won't guess at the reasons of someone who responds to an insult with gunfire, it is logically not the gun that is doing the thinking - it is the person.
We also have to wonder about leadership in the urban black community. By this I don't mean there aren't leaders in cities; there are without doubt brilliant and brave African American teachers, school administrators, and church leaders who are all inspirational. For some reason, they have never gained national recognition, and I do occasionally wonder what would the country be like if Dr. King and Malcolm X had not been murdered.
And this thought is likely to spawn a lot - but I just don't think you can ignore the unique history that has kept some many African Americans in inter-generational poverty. I've read postings here that claim most poor are poor because of their "bad choices". That's hideously simplistic. If it is true that you need money to make money, then the most recent report on consumer finances by the Federal Reserve should give anyone pause. The data is clear - black families have ten cents for every dollar whites have when you calculate total wealth. Ten. Cents. That means that if TODAY African American families in urban poverty began the stereotypical "immigrant" path of working poverty in the first generation, working class in the second, middle class in the third and high status middle class in the fourth, it would be TWO MORE GENERATIONS of black families. And that would presuppose that the same opportunities for advancement are available today that were available to my great grandparents in 1910. With the loss of lower skill but well payed manufacturing jobs that propelled my grandfather's generation to the middle class, I have my doubts.
It isn't just poverty, though. The American narrative on civil rights often goes like this - "Once upon a time, there were some very bad people who thought blacks were inferior, but then Dr. King came along and everything is better now." That's infantile, but pervasive. Slavery may have ended over 140 year ago, but there was also a system of apartheid and abject racial terrorism for 100 years after that. Another historical fact people overlook is The Great Migration where millions of black families fled southern states to relocate to northern cities. Odds are that if you know an African American in a northern city today, his family relocated in the 1920s. And this is what they fled:
So in addition to slavery, apartheid and terrorism, millions of people were completely displaced in the 1920s and 1930s. That means being effective first generation immigrants not in 1865, but over 70 years after Emancipation.
The effects of this cannot be dismissed just because we passed some progressive laws in the mid 1960s. Laws cannot quickly erase the kinds of inequality that plagued and continue to plague urban black communities until today.
But THAT'S not explanatory enough either. There are 10s of millions of African American families in urban poverty and the vast majority of them are not criminals. There is obviously a choice that is made by some people, conscious or not, to respond to circumstances with violence. There are plenty of people who describe the killer in the Seton Hall murder as an "animal" and it is tempting to chalk up such depraved acts to a fundamental flaw in character. But we should not be willing to go there - it would mean that far too many black men in America should be simply given up upon (back to the The Bell Curve argument there).
Many of the black youth of today are angry. Angry at poverty they are born into. Angry at a society that shows them almost unbelievable wealth and almost no way to see themselves achieving it. Anger that has some legitimate roots especially as they look at a school system meant to be the way to advance from poverty but has very few examples in their lives of that happening. And this anger becomes self-sabotaging; in education, in choices, and in life. You need goals to make that anger into productive anger and those goals are not promoted by the institutions (schools, government) that should be promoting them.
You could say that this is my way of wondering what is missing from the live of some people that they cannot imagine meaningful goals for themselves and end up as the two young men in this tragedy. And what can be done for the two little children of the alleged killer who are likely to grow up without their father in a poverty-stricken community so that the anger they may grow to feel doesn't end up where he did. But I know what is missing and I already know how it got that way - and I see no way of solving it, myself, without radical changes to society.
What do you think?
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