One of the paradoxes for a naturalized American is the strange dance around the astonishing rate of black on black crime. Any sane person might think that black Americans might be asking for more police and more policing to protect their lives and neighborhoods from gang shootings and violence where over 90 percent of the victimaries and victims are black.
And this is not the case in every survey taken to white and non-white Americans.
There are huge differences in trust towards police between whites and non-whites:
There are huge differences in trust towards police between whites and non-whites:
Is this difference in perception a cause or a consequence of the attitudes towards policing? It certainly seems that there are extremists -racists even- who blame each other race for the problem. Those stereotypes work on both sides: police officers and white neighbors fear unknown black people and black residents in poor neighborhoods fear police will treat them as criminals. A cycle of "self-fulfilling prophecies" escalates the problem.
But not only non-black people hesitate in crossing black neighborhoods at certain hours or at all: so do black residents and visitors as well, because they are 6 times more likely to be shot by gangs than non-blacks. Police officers usually act rougher or less respectfully with black people, and peaceful black neighbors -especially the very young- are afraid of being confused with gang members.
The mix of need and fear of policing among non-whites, and particularly black citizens compounds the root problems of of gang violence and the revenge homicides and shootings in predominantly black neighborhoods.
The mix of need and fear of policing among non-whites, and particularly black citizens compounds the root problems of of gang violence and the revenge homicides and shootings in predominantly black neighborhoods.
The most active black leaders in America, however, seem to be heading in a one-sided direction: while everyday black-on-black homicides accumulate at a frightening pace, marches and protests prioritize those cases when a white police person kills a black person, turning a much more serious problem into a simplistic -and unsolvable- "systemic racism" mantra that prevents further analysis from becoming politicized.
Black leaders certainly denounce and address very actively other frightening problems such as the racial bias, excessive use of deadly force and incarceration for minor offenses, but not the incivility and violence that suffer black communities in large cities from gangs and among community members.
Incivility towards neighbors - dumbly celebrated as "attitude" and "coolness" - is the gateway to violence, escalated and compounded by drugs and lack of trust in the basic institutions of civil life: school, work, police.
The "Ferguson effect" -as the police restraint from policing caused by that incident is called- is actually increasing the casualties. Pew polls on police members reveal the stress and internal division these clashes cause.
Police inaction, which is much more lethal and hard to detect than police abuse, compounds the systemic violence problem giving gangs and criminals the control of streets and terrorized neighborhoods.
Police inaction creates "safe zones" for crime that turns neighbors into hostages, imprisoned in invisible "red lines" violently enforced "gang districts".
Where police doesn't police, gangs do. And they have no accountability to cameras and no witnesses willing to take the risk of denouncing or protesting against them.
MacDonald -who advocates both for more policing and for police accountability with data- has been targeted by violent activists trying to prevent her from speaking on campuses.
Police inaction, which is much more lethal and hard to detect than police abuse, compounds the systemic violence problem giving gangs and criminals the control of streets and terrorized neighborhoods.
Police inaction creates "safe zones" for crime that turns neighbors into hostages, imprisoned in invisible "red lines" violently enforced "gang districts".
Where police doesn't police, gangs do. And they have no accountability to cameras and no witnesses willing to take the risk of denouncing or protesting against them.
MacDonald -who advocates both for more policing and for police accountability with data- has been targeted by violent activists trying to prevent her from speaking on campuses.
While overall violent crime has been trending down for the past 30 years in the entire US (1980-2008), black homicide rates are 6 times higher than white
The trend is also visible comparing cities with large black population
Since the famous Moynihan report issued in March 1965 -and even then received with strong resistance by a radical segment of the black leadership -the one that followed the ideas of Malcom X and radicals like Franz Fanon, and the Black Panther Party- that considered Moynihan description of the root of black problems prejudiced and even racist.
Moynihan found the disintegration of negro family as the root cause of systemic poverty and behavior deterioration. He attributed the tendency of black men to grow without their fathers to a combination of the heritage of racism and slavery -when the black families were divided to sell as slaves separately- and the cycle of crime and incarceration that was already starting with the drug trade as the main source of income in segregated and poor neighborhoods.
Since the topic of black on black crime became politicized, we could say that the Moynihan report ended having an unexpected reverse effect to the one his author sought:
While the political leadership -across the racial spectrum- continues to shut down unpleasant facts, black citizens vote with their feet to solve their problem, fleeing away ghettos for more integrated cities and neighborhoods. Given the choice, black citizens vote for integration and civility first.
But those caught in "poverty traps'" face grim options: joining gangs to escape from another gangs, get in jail -where at least survival rates are higher- and live between unemployment, violence and incarceration periods while political leaders spend billions funding "politically correct" initiatives that window-dress the problem until the neighborhood is ready for redevelopment and gentrification.
If we don't know the solution to this problem, we certainly have tried and know what doesn't work.
Some additional interesting reading:
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