America has more than two million citizens behind bars, the highest absolute and per capita rate of incarceration in the world. Black Americans, a mere 13 percent of the population, constitute half of this country’s prisoners. A tenth of all black men between ages 20 and 35 are in jail or prison; blacks are incarcerated at over eight times the white rate. ...
How, after decades of undeniable racial progress, did we end up with this virtual gulag of racial incarceration?
Part of the answer is a law enforcement system that unfairly focuses on drug offenses and other crimes more likely to be committed by blacks, combined with draconian mandatory sentencing and an absurdly counterproductive retreat from rehabilitation as an integral method of dealing with offenders. An unrealistic fear of crime that is fed in part by politicians and the press, a tendency to emphasize punitive measures and old-fashioned racism are all at play here. [I THINK THIS PARAGRAPH IS TOTAL BULLSHIT; THERE IS NON UNREALISTIC FEAR OF CRIME; FEAR OF CRIME IS REALISTIC. MORE BELOW RELIAPUNDIT.]
But there is another equally important cause: the simple fact that young black men commit a disproportionate number of crimes, especially violent crimes, which cannot be attributed to judicial bias, racism or economic hardships. The rate at which blacks commit homicides is seven times that of whites.[BRAVO! SOME TRUTH! BRAVO!]
Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and other leaders of the Jena demonstration who view events there, and the racial horror of our prisons, as solely the result of white racism are living not just in the past but in a state of denial. Even after removing racial bias in our judicial and prison system — as we should and must do — disproportionate numbers of young black men will continue to be incarcerated.
Until we view this social calamity in its entirety — by also acknowledging the central role of unstable relations among the sexes and within poor families, by placing a far higher priority on moral and social reform within troubled black communities, and by greatly expanding social services for infants and children — it will persist.
I DON'T AGREE WITH EVERYTHING IN THIS OP-ED - (THE GULAG COMPARISON IS VERY BAD!), BUT HE GETS IT MOSTLY RIGHT.
AND LIBS LIKE JOHN EDWARDS JESSE JACKSON AL SHARPTON, WHO GET IT ENTIRELY WRONG.
AND LIBS LIKE JOHN EDWARDS JESSE JACKSON AL SHARPTON, WHO GET IT ENTIRELY WRONG.
11 comments:
Explain to us: Why do you consider what you wrote to be sensible, but what Edwards said to be racist?
The cover-up attempts of black violent crime continue to be covered up and the subject switched. Read in a recent blog of mine what Heather MacDonald writes: "In New York, any given violent crime is 13 times more likely to have been committed by a black person than by a white person, according to the reports of victims and witnesses. Though they are only 24 percent of the city’s population, blacks committed 68.5 percent of all murders, rapes, robberies, and assaults in New York last year. Whites, who make up 34.5 percent of New Yorkers, committed only 5.3 percent of violent crimes. These ratios are similar across the country. In Los Angeles, blacks committed 41 percent of all robberies in 2001, according to victims’ descriptions, though they constitute only 11 percent of the city’s population. Robbery victims identified whites, who make up 30 percent of the Los Angeles population, just 4 percent of the time."
DAVID CYRUS;
pandering to blacks by blaming whites fopr their problems is RACIST.
echoing what moynihan FAMOUSLY said - that the welfare state was ruining the black family - is NOT racist.
i believe that people who are black should be allowed to do as well as people of any other skin pigmentation.
and i believe that many of the programs the left put in place have actually hurt their abuility to do this. that, and leftists like edwards and jesse and sharpton who allow them to stay in DENIAL - as patterson wrote.
the black family survived slavery.
it survived the civil war.
it survived jim crow.
it survived the kkk.
and ww1 and ww2.
it did not survive the great society.
i marched with dr. mlk jr and grew up in the us civil rights movement.
dr mlk jr is a HERO of mine.
he wanted people to be treated as individuals, with no regard to the color of their skin.
that is my dream, too.
it is a dream abandoned by the left - who want to institutionalize racism via affirmative action and quotas etc.
david; please read the Patterson article.
DAVID CYRUS:
ignoring the root cause of black crime is wrong, but the root cause is neither racism or poverty.
it is the lack of social pressure within the black community against anti-social behavior. like the FACT that most blacks will not "snitch" on black crooks to the cops.
i think black is beautiful.
i think that some of the greatest things about american culture wouldn't exist without black-america.
i think that they have been ill-served by the left.
boca dave:
good point.
why not drive up to david cyrus's house and splain it to him!
he's a Floridian, too!
want his address????
And why were so many Italians in prison in the 20s?
Because they were criminals.
na make something very clear: there is no genetic reason for the black crime stats.
it's cultural.
and the culture is post-great society , and post-dr mlk jr.
it has to do more with hip-hop and anti-establishment leftist crap than traditional black-american culture - which is conservative and religious.
If the number of incarcerated Black men is such a problem..take it from a Black female attorney...the solution is simple..stop committing crimes!! I am sick and tired of the excuses. That's the problem..too many excuses!Breaking the law is a voluntary act!! We can't blame the "man" for everything..inequality exists, but we must rise above it.
Y'all got it wrong. We all claim we are in an eqaul and just society, but just how equal and just are we. Why do we have preconceived notions that blacks are bad? That blacks are criminals? That blacks are religious based people? Blacks are just like you. They get treated differently because that is how it has always been and until we all come to grips with that simple notion it will always be.Don't look at others until you look inside of you first. Our biasaes go back a lot further than their freedom. It has been sent down from generation to generation and we all know what that means.Racism is here to stay until we find the good in everyone and stop pointing to the negatives. Think on it... Much love to you all.
I believe there is such a thing as institutionalized racism. And Economics has a lot to do with it too, like it had to do with it since slavery began in the USA.
And in a sense,the slavery system has just gotten more sophisticated and secretive in this now modern and high tech world. We are dealing today with more of a psychological, mental, information warfare.
This prison is a big industry nowadays where the government PROFITS from keeping people in prison. It has become a BIG BUSINESS INDUSTRY! SO that in itself is a good motive for the courts(lawyers, judges, prisons, etc) to have more people behind bars whether they are guilty or not. Some government agencies and agents of government are very corrupt. WE need a lot of government reform. And it takes good education on the part of the people(you and me) who are the rulers of the US government(not the other way around) to change things for the better. Study the US CONSTITUTION, empower yourself with the knowledge of the rights it gives you to not take CRAP from the government which has a lot of racism in it!
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