Culture — Not Race — Determines Many Crime Stats
Gentle readers, we are about to sail into dangerous waters, on the rocky shoals of which John Derbyshire recently ran aground and got himself sacked from National Review. So we must do our best to steer carefully through the many hazards lest we come to a similar fate. Yes, I say “we” because while I, in opining as I am about to on race and crime, may risk losing commercial opportunities as a writer, you the reader face risks as well. If you travel in those circles in which discussions of race are limited to extolling the many glories of “diversity,” and if after reading what follows below you are found by your peers to be insufficiently condemnatory of me and what I’ve written, you are in jeopardy of being ostracized to a life of social exile among the wretched and unenlightened.
You’ve been warned, so here we go.
I’ve been with the Los Angeles Police Department for somewhere in the neighborhood of thirty years. (I keep the details of my tenure and assignment vague so as to foil the efforts of those seeking to unmask me, the number of whom may soon increase.) I’ve spent the better part of my career working in neighborhoods in South and South Central Los Angeles, i.e. those most bedeviled by violent crime. I have also spent time working in some of L.A.’s most affluent neighborhoods, so I feel qualified to comment on the differences I’ve observed over the course of a long career combating crime and villainy in America’s second-largest city.
For the record, I concur with Mark Steyn, who in his discussion of the Taki’s Magazine piece that got John Derbyshire expelled from National Review, pointed to culture rather than racial determinism as explaining socioeconomic differences between groups of people. “Why is Haiti Haiti and Barbados Barbados?” Steyn asks. “Why is India India and Pakistan Pakistan? Skin color and biological determinism don’t get you very far on that.”
A similar comparison – with similarly stark results – can be made in Los Angeles. The Los Angeles Times maintains a database of statistical information on cities and neighborhoods across L.A. County. The communities of View Park-Windsor Hills and Baldwin Hills-Crenshaw are adjacent to one another in an area four to five miles northeast of Los Angeles International Airport. The concentration of black residents in View Park-Windsor Hills, at 86.5 percent, is the highest of any area measured in the L.A. Times database. The Baldwin Hills-Crenshaw neighborhood, just to the north, is home to the county’s fifth-highest concentration of blacks, at 71.3 percent.
One subscribing to the notion that any such solidly black neighborhoods must perforce be plagued by violent crime would be surprised to learn that since January 1, 2007, there has been but one homicide in View Park-Windsor Hills, this occurring on the very fringe of the neighborhood where it abuts one known for higher crime. By contrast, over the same period there have been 32 homicides in Baldwin Hills-Crenshaw. How to explain the difference?
Looking further at the L.A. Times’s data, we can see that median income is $81,214 in View Park-Windsor Hills but just $37,948 in Baldwin Hills-Crenshaw. Forty-five percent of the residents in View Park-Windsor Hills have at least a four-year college degree compared to 24.1 percent in Baldwin Hills-Crenshaw. And the statistic that goes a long way in explaining the disparities in crime, income, and education between the two neighborhoods is just as stark: In View Park-Windsor Hills, just 9.6 percent of families are headed by a single parent, compared with 31.9 percent in Baldwin Hills-Crenshaw.
These neighborhoods are almost exactly alike in ethnicity, yet, like Haiti and Barbados, they reflect differences in culture, i.e. the collective choices made by the individuals who inhabit them, with the culture of one neighborhood doing a better job than the other’s at fostering practices that lead to better education, higher income, and lower crime.
All of which brings me to a recent crime story here in Los Angeles, the murders of Ming Qu and Ying Wu, both of whom were graduate students from China attending the University of Southern California. Qu and Wu were seated in a car outside Qu’s home less than a mile from the USC campus when they were shot to death at about 1 a.m. on April 11. The killer remains at large, but if experience has taught me anything, when he is caught he will almost certainly turn out to be black or Latino. Acknowledging this does not make me a racist; it makes me a seasoned observer of crime in Los Angeles, where blacks and Latinos are responsible for about 90 percent of all violent crime. (In the neighborhood where Qu and Wu were killed the figure is close to 100 percent.)
The murders occurred during a week when prospective USC students and their parents were touring the school and weighing offers to attend. What conclusions should those high school seniors and their parents draw from these murders? Are they a true reflection of the culture in the neighborhoods near the campus or an aberration? Police and USC officials were quick to point out that crime on campus and in the immediate vicinity is low, especially when compared to past years. The USC campus lies within the LAPD’s Southwest Division, which in 2011 recorded 22 homicides. This was an increase from 16 in 2010 but still a far cry from the 63 recorded in 2004.
Still and all, comparisons must be made not only across time but across regions, and while those prospective students might be relieved to know that the area around the USC campus is safer today than it was when they were in fourth grade, what should concern them is how safe the area is today when compared to the area surrounding some other school they might consider attending. According to the L.A. Times, the University Park neighborhood, which includes the USC campus, and Westwood, where UCLA is located, have each recorded just four homicides since Jan. 1, 2007. (The Qu and Wu murders occurred a few blocks outside University Park.) But in taking a wider look at the numbers, we see that in the same period there have been 117 homicides within two miles of the USC campus but only seven near UCLA.
The area immediately surrounding the USC campus is heavily patrolled by university police as well as the LAPD, providing an enclave of security amid areas of higher crime, areas whose cultures in most respects have far more in common with that of Baldwin Hills-Crenshaw than with that of View Park-Windsor Hills. Not that this information should be determinative in choosing which college to attend, but any prospective USC student and his parents would be foolish to ignore it. And even if one is sanguine about his personal safety while strolling the USC campus – or that of Columbia, Yale, the University of Chicago, or any other college in or near a troubled neighborhood – it would be madness to disregard the very real risks of straying too far from the campus itself.
So, bearing in mind that John Derbyshire found himself in the soup for imputing too much into racial distinctions and for encouraging others to do so, what advice on personal safety as it relates to ethnic groups should parents offer their children as they send them off next fall to USC (or Columbia, or Yale, or the University of Chicago)?
I look forward to your comments. But beware: excessive candor can be hazardous to your career.
Derb was right. You are right.
And Steyn is right.
India is India; Pakistan is Pakistan, Haiti is Haiti, and Barbados is Barbados. Culture, more than race, determines behavior.
For the sake of contrast, 20 minutes northwest of south central LA in Monrovia CA I work for an engineering firm filled with people from China, India, Korea, Mexico, Africa, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Indonesia, Europe, Australia and many other places. White Americans are in the minority here. We all work together with no friction at all. I really mean no cultural conflict whatsoever. We’re all here to work on projects, such as upgrading a refinery to low sulfur in my case, a mix of talented people all working together. We have no training on getting along with our co-workers. It is a wonderful example of the Nash Equilibrium in game theory. Common constructive goals, everyone knows the rules and what everybody else is here for. This all somehow transends culture. If there is some magical philosopher’s stone for people getting along, this is it.
But you do have a common culture – one that says hard work will be rewarded, and then ill behavior will be punished. This is compounded by you all having something to loose that is more valuable to you than any gain from ill behavior. Granted the explict of ill behavior, hard work and something to loose all are generalized and each of you feels slightly different about the definitions of these, but that is the basis of your common culture/community.
Am I hearing that Indian Hindus and Pakistani Mohammedans are identical people? I don’t think they are. As to Haiti and Barbados, Haiti is totally run by blacks and has been for 200 years. Barbados is a British Crown Colony, run by Britain (at least until recently) and home to many racial groups. The larger point is that culture is merely a projection of the collective personality of a specific people. There are various cultures, but not among similar peoples. Blacks have lived in the US for over 200 years. For most of that time, they adapted to the prevailing white culture, more or less. Humans are social animals and can adapt when necessary. The point is, that when blacks gained control over some cities, they abandoned the prevailing culture and re-established their own (i.e., they quit ‘acting white’). See, Detroit.
“The larger point is that culture is merely a projection of the collective personality of a specific people.”
BINGO. Right there, in that one sentence, you have surpassed the whole article.
Please tell me how one “acts white”.
I live within a few miles of a white ghetto in Missouri. Section 8 housing and a plethora of meth-heads makes it a frightening place to drive through, much less visit.
Is that “acting white”?
When Bill Maher spouts is vile brand of Marxism, or any number of white people on MSNBC, is that “acting white”? I wonder if black people watch MSNBC and say to their friends, “White people are all moronic douches!”
Is that the “white behavior” you model for society? Or is your “white behavior” closer to goose-stepping around with your Nazi buddies when you’re keying swastikas into your neighbors paint jobs in the middle of the night?
Let me ask about Jews. Do Jews “act white”, or do they act “Jewish”? If a Jew doesn’t have curly hair, a large nose, or a name that ends in “-berg”, how would I tell if he wasn’t “acting white”?
Tell me, do you consider yourself an American, or do you hate “what America has become”? Aren’t you really more of a Progressive Socialist? Perhaps looking for inspiration from to the great, Margaret Sanger – you know, that lovely eugenicist?
I’ll take a stab at it though my experience in splainin’ a cognitive to progressive trolls has been unsuccessful to date because of the dissonance in a progressives thought processes which are all discombobulated by intolerance, hatred, repudiation of logic, empathy, charity and morals.
“acting white” starts early in life. In primary school it’s arriving to school on time, every day and in class: being quiet, listening to the teacher, performing all assigned work with enthusiasm and treating all the other children with respect most of the time. In secondary school repeat all of the primary school behaviors with additional time spent studying in honors classes and participating in either vocational (after school work) or artsy extra curricular activities (band or choir) to; let’s say, broaden one’s horizons, graduate or GED out of HS. For College, repeat behaviors learned in primary and secondary school and learn one’s way around bureaucracies in registration and financial aid so one leaves college with no debt (could even join the service for 4 years to mature out and get some GI bill). Then, enter the work world where the learned behaviors of the past 16 or so years will enable you to present one’s self to an employer as a person that is productive and will contribute to the “profit” of an enterprise in such a manner that will enable the employer to pay you a portion of the additional profits earned by your labor so that you might participate in what those of us who have followed these paths call; Civilization. Got it. Those that don’t have this discipline belong to the barbarian tribe and will soon be at our gates. Will we follow the path of previous civilizations and fall to the savages or continue as a civilization; “acting white”. Hope this helps you, it seems to have worked for about 85 to 95% of the Anglo races.
PJMedia.com sure has a particular kind of culture. It’s the place where Progressives are constantly calling Constitutional Conservatives “Progressive Trolls”.
All you’d need to do to know everything about my political philosophy is to click through on my name to my website and any misunderstandings would be cleared right up. Of course, Progressive Socialists don’t need to view evidence for themselves. They already know the outcome. They know everything.
The most hypocritical part of GHall’s comment is his immediate assumption that if I’m not a racist like him, I must be a Progressive. It’s the other way around, buddy. Progressives are typically racist.
Conservatism is a philosophy that demands that individuals take responsibility for their own actions. A Conservative would NEVER blame race for someone else’s behavior. It’s simply not possible. Behavior is the result of free will, not pigmentation.
So, the nice thing is I don’t need to bother to respond to any of your “points”, because you don’t have any. All you have is blame and racism.
Regards.
“Please tell me how one “acts white”.”
Easy, but you have to do the work. Just take a survey among black children who have been called “oreos” by other black children, and find out what they were doing immediately previous. Then add it all together. Or, you could just watch a “Leave it to Beaver / Father Knows Best / Bonanza” marathon.
The “acting white” story caught my attention. How do you “act white”? By working and raising a family with good morals. By Going to church and not breaking the laws of the land? ummm I have black friends that do the same thing. They are hard working and they have raised there children to respect the law, God and each other. I also know some white people who do nothing but cause problems, They are always trying to start trouble, live off the Government (don’t have a job or want one).There kids are horrible, they do not mind, they back talk and would steal you blind if they got a chance. How are they acting? Or better yet, who are they acting like.It’s not the color of your skin,It’s what’s in your heart, how you are raised and how much you respect yourselves.
“Acting white” is what many black racists call being a civil and industrious individual. GHall and I are well aware that it is not an accurate term, but it is the one society has chosen. Similarly, “acting black” has become the colloquialism for acting like a thug, and “homophobic” can mean anything from fearing gays, to despising them, to simply desiring a traditional and natural definition of marriage. The reason for such terms is that no one wants to insult someone by calling them respectable, similarly, children in private schools don’t want to say they are acting like thugs and idiots, so they say acting white and black. Unfortunate semantics, but that’s the common vernacular.
Haiti and the Dominican Republic share the same island. Comparatively speaking, one is heaven the other is hell. Culture is the determining factor.
“Why is India India and Pakistan Pakistan?”
Because of the secret of evolution: Time and Death.
When the law says that every TIME someone does something agreed by a majority to be worthy of DEATH, you not only get less of the behavior, but less of the people with the genes that make them susceptible to the behavior. The refusal of the white majority in America to put black criminals to DEATH when they comminted obvious crimes while we had the money and means to do so means that the black population has a much greater than average number of people genetically predisposed to criminality while still looking much like the other members of that community.
(Not to mention the fact that we spend money to incarcerate them, which neither reproductivelys isolate them from their community nor removes them from malign influence on their progeny, thanks to the recording industry.)
Culture and race are two sides of a civilizational ratchet, not two contradictory explanations for the same thing. A good culture, harshly but fairly imposed, will have a salutary effect on the race of the people within it. Similarly, a good race can resist a toxic culture just by being genetically non-disposed to its various temptations.
The above paragraph is also why Booker T. Washington was right and WEB DuBois was wrong.
There it is…the old eugenicist argument trotted out by another Progressive Socialist. So quick to simplisticly blame problems on someone else, rather than take responsibility, or require others to take responsibility.
The problem is we just haven’t killed enough of the wrong kind of person? Are you self-aware? Can you conceive of a number of people reading your comment and thinking – “Yep, and your comment proves that point perfectly.”
Would Travon have been shot dead if he had been walking down that street in a shirt and tie?
He wasn’t shot because he was black. He was shot because he looked like a hoodlum. He embraced hood culture, and he walked the walk.
And until blacks and latinos come to the realization that they will NEVER advance in a society by being ganster – not black or brown, but ghetto. Black people can be successful. Ghetto people, only .0001% that make it in rap, can be successful.
You are correct when you assert culture makes all the difference. But please answer this question then: why do so many blacks and Latinos embrace destructive culture? Culture is a choice. Race is not. But does one have something to do with the other? Why do so many countries which are predominantly black have terrible living conditions? Will I be banned for simply pointing out the facts? Like Derbyshire?
Wrong, albeit a common mistake. Culture is not a choice in the sense you intended. Individuals can change or even switch cultures, but only based on critical assessment of the shared assumptions that generate a specific culture and differentiate it from others. Otherwise, cultures simply force you to follow their norms. The topic is more complex, of course, but all of the complexities rest on the preceding findings.
People first learn the cultures they grew up in. To learn a second one is nontrivial. Think of how much you learned at your father’s knee.
Welfare broke the poor family unit; having the father around and working cost you money. And, when the system was ramping up welfare recruiters heavy targeted black poor for recruitment.
Hollywood glorified gangster culture, and made it a “black thing”.
Multiculturalism, and the idea that all cultures are created equal and should be respected and revered enforces tolerance for the gangster culture, by those that don’t practice it. Indeed, anyone who gets out of gangsterville is now branded a “traitor to their race”.
And, of course, even if you do try to get out, AA cuts you off at the knees by obligating people to place you far above your competence level where, unless your pretty exceptional, you aren’t going to do a good job anyways.
And if you get through all that, and you’re now happily successful in the non face-stabity culture, where most of your children can expect to reach grey-haired old age, nobody can actually socialize with you, because you’re a portable social landmine. Everybody not of your initial racial group is afraid that they’ll get accused of a hate crime if they stick their foot in their mouth.
Everywhere you turn, somebody is cutting you off at the knees, or stabbing you in the back, with the best of intentions. It is the most dehumanizing compassion I have ever seen, and yet it goes on.
“…why do so many blacks and Latinos embrace destructive culture?”
When any positive behavior, activity or attitude is rewarded, you get more of it. The opposite is also true. Rewarding negative behaviors and activities – rewarding those things people choose NOT to engage in – is just as powerful a reinforcement. The Leftist government and Leftist media reward any and all negative behaviors – all in the interest of “fairnesss” of course – creating a generation of “saved” victims who owe their allegience (so the Leftists hope) to the Leftists for “saving” them from their own destructive behaviors, behaviors that are only amplified by the policies of the Left. The reality is that the politician “saved” victim groups come to regard themselves as victims first and quickly develop an attitude of aggrieved entitlement, absolutely convinced that their “fair” share of success has somehow been stolen from them and the pious, enlightened Leftists are standing in the breech, clawing back their deserved rewards from the heinous and evil successful who stole it from them, the righteous victims.
The Leftist media does its part in two ways” 1) By denigrating the existing culture of the successful in any way possible and 2) By promoting the self destructive attitudes and behaviors of the unsuccessful as truly righteous and good. Thug culture = good. Studying, learning and self-control = bad. The Leftists do their best to promote destructive behaviors and belittle and denigrate positive behaviors, all with the ignorant assumption that by doing these things they are promoting a “fairer” world.
Remember the 60′s Leftist Journo-lista creed: “Our job is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable”. The reality that their actions have exactly the opposite effect than those they claim they want is just more icing on the Leftist cake. The mayhem and chaos their actions cause in the long-term just reinforces their belief that their actions are correct and are needed now more than ever. And so the culture and society denigrate into what we are beginning to see today. Next up: Riots and endless mayhem, all in the name of “social justice!”.
This is the problem, in a nutshell. But it doesn’t go far enough to state the problem. The real problem is, “Why are certain groups so resistant to change?”
Every ethnic group came to America in defense mode and formed enclaves, which eventually all-but-disappeared. Blacks have been here as long as anyone, and even the slaves were freed before most American’s ancestors. Many blacks have assimilated very well (Obama is an ass, but I’m certainly not going to cross the street to avoid him for fear). The same is true of 1960s Hispanics. You would be hard pressed to tell whither most third generation hispanics came from, although their voting records inform us why Latin America is such a craphole politically. So, the question stil is: what’s wrong with blacks?
To which I say: there are pit bulls, and there are Beagles. There are good and bad in both breeds, but one is crazy to leave a baby with a pit bull.Imagine a world where Pit Bulls have acqired the right to babysit, and , in fact, must be employed in that work at equal levels with Beagles. Would this not be nuts? Then, when the pit bull kills children, we blame it on the Beagles, who somehow caused this behavior.
How about we just let people hire pit bull nannies or Beagle nannies, whichever they want, and stop making Beagles pay for the crudeness and danger of pit bulls. And if the Pit Bull kills someone, just like the Beagle, he should be put down, immediately, not put in a pen with conjugal rights, to breed more pit bull killers, then let loose becaue there are too many pit bulls in jail.
See, Eric. This is called a “CONVERSATION ON RACE”. You know…the one you say WE don’t want to have.
“So, the question stil is: what’s wrong with blacks?”
Well, in a word, nothing.
I suspect that the view of blacks you have is primarily the result of Leftist media “reports” and infotainment popularized thuggish words and lyrics. I have quite a few black friends and they see themselves (and all blacks) as under direct assault by the Leftist media infotainment machine. The majority of blacks in this country are not what you seem to think they nor do they believe what you think they do, at least in my opinion. The Leftists endless promotion of uncivilized, thuggish attitudes, behaviors and beliefs are part of the Lefts continuing assault on society in general and they do have a great effect on the young of all races, creeds and religions. They (Leftists) believe that assigning the GOOD label to all of the worst pathologies of any of their chosen victim groups confers a societal legitimacy onto that victim group, and for the Leftists who live vicarious lives of false anger by becomming proxy members of those victim groups (Clinton was the first “black president, “I feel your pain”, ad nauseum) project their own personal feelings about how believe they THEMSELVES would think/behave under the same circumstances as their chosen victim group(s).
The proxy membership in one or more victim groups then conveys to the Leftist the “right” to give license to their most base desires, with the understanding that they, as proxy members of the victim group(s), now have a free hand to do as they wish and indulge in the most uncivilized, barbaric activities, all safe and secure in the knowledge that their actions are actually bringing about a better world. This self-delusion is woven into every strata of their lives so attacking their beliefs is in a very real way a personal attack on them. Yes, it’s crazy and demented but that is the fundamental core of Modern Liberalism.
The policies of the Left have had a devastating effect on blacks and black culture, a culture that has been co-opted and debased by the Leftists in the media in every way. Do not look for intrinsic flaws in any race as an explaination for the pathologies induced by Modern Liberalsim.
You wrote: “The majority of blacks in this country are not what you seem to think they (sic) nor do they believe what you think they do, at least in my opinion.”
Your opinion MUST be wrong. If the vast majority of Blacks feel oppressed by the Left, why is there near unanimity in their voting behavior. They affirm the Left’s shinanigans every November.
If it is so easy for you and me to see that the Left has devastated the Black population, why is it so hard for them to see it? Stockholm syndrome?
Absolutely on point. Well said. Anything else is just pseudo-intellectualizing psycho-babble. White progs and blacks have made a Faustian deal: white progs get power over all by using blacks as victims and muscle, and blacks get to degenerate to a level of incivility not seen here in the US even during slavery but over in Africa for thousands of years with impunity and cover.
Race influences culture in that people of similar background, race, and other socio-economic traits tend to congregate with each other. (birds of a feather) It is uncommon to see the very rich mingling with even the middle class in any city anywhere.
Those raised in more affluent areas, regardless of race are taught to value education and commitment to family and friends. Those in the less affluent neighborhoods are rarely instilled with these qualities by their parent(s) and are unlikely to develop them on their own.
And of course, a liberal policy once again cuts blacks off at the knees when they try to climb out of poverty. Say you have an intelligent black, who works hard in school and manages to get accepted to college. He/she doesn’t have a whole lot of good family guidance that middle class families of every shade have for their kids-financial guidance and support, ability to help the kid with paperwork, etc. So because of affirmative action, this kid gets into a college that he shouldn’t be in because all the white kids at that particular college had to get better grades and of course all the Asian kids at that college had to get much better grades. So the kid struggles and is much much more likely to drop out. At this point, his student loans bury him in poverty, because he had to finance his education with loans. If he had just gotten into the school he deserved to get into (or taken a scholarship to a school he’s overqualified for), he’d be in much better shape.
I spent 35 years owning and running targeted publishing companies. Then I retired. Then I got boared so like any sane 58 year old I became a bail bondsman and bounty hunter in West Michigan. We do 1000 bonds a year. Never Homicides but rather Burglary, Home Invasion, Criminal Sexual Conduct (rape), Carrying Concealed weapon, Assault and Battery, Possession and Sale of Drugs, DWI. etc. 65% our clients are white, 30% black, and 5% other. The vast majority are male.
Here are my day to day bullet points of what the culture I work in looks like. This is not scientific, we just see it every single day:
1. Virtually all are high school dropouts, often they just quit going and stay at home in front of the TV or go out onto the streets to hang out and apparently that is OK with mom or dad or whoever.
2. 90% smoke
3. A large proportion have an alcohol or drug issue.
4. 90% have 1 up to 6 children, almost always out of wedlock, often with mulitple partners, ususally at a very young age.
5. The majority have no job skills other than menial labor. Most wouldn’t know how to get a job if it was handed to them. Very few have a job when they are arrested.
6. Most come from working poor and non-working poor families. I respect the working poor, not so much the non-working poor as they are entrenched in the welfare state and will never get out.
7. Many come from broken families.
8. A significant portion are on some assistance from the government. In probably 20% of the cases the sole means of support for the family is the government. In these cases it is often two to three generations who have been in the system.
9. Lying is indemic. My clients lie to friends, family, authorities, me and most importantly to themselves.
10. Most have had multiple incidents with the law, often from a young age.
11. A small but sad portion of defendants obviously have mental issues and shouldn’t in my view be in the system and need help and are often treated horribly in jail.
12. 5% of the defendants are innocent and have been railroaded by a friend or a prosecutor ( multiple charges with the infamous plea bargain is mostly a joke and prosecutors have to be born without a heart or have it cut out before they can get the job). (I know of at least 5 people who are in prison, who shouldn’t be. That is my opinion, but I’m pretty confident and I’m no push over as you can’t be in this business if you are a sucker, and I don’t think they are innocent because they told me so cause you see they all lie).
13. Eveyday these individuals get up between 8 or 9 am and 6 pm and start making bad decisions as they have their entire lives.
14. In more than a few cases there is a family history of crime and prison.
15. The majority of defendants are under 30.
16. The riskiest bond in terms of skips is a 19 year old male white or black with a drug or Home Invasion charge. They probably won’t show up at court because they are either scared or more likely have a thug attitude and are smarter than the rest of us so we get collateral or don’t do the bond.
17. 40 to 50 out of a 1000 defendants we bond fail to appear at court, then we chase them. Usually 80% we can ‘talk in’ through family and friends or they are picked up by law enforcement. 20% we hunt. We have picked up in such diverse (we like diversity) areas as Florida, Texas, Vegas, Kentucky, Detroit, Chicago (these last two are fun places to go especially in the inner city) and other places. We have never lost a client.
18. I can’t imagine that very many of these defendants will get out of the life they are in.
19. There are exceptions to all of this, but not many. This is what we see every single day.
Over all this business is a sad one and I can’t even imagine what guys like Dunphy go through everyday. You couldn’t give me his job. At least the defendants are happy to see us coming to the jail to get them out and thank us profusely. Dunphy is taking them to jail and I am sure he has never gotten a thank you in his career.
Thanks
Thank you for posting a very sobering discussion of the problems that you see. I see just enough information about prison inmates in my current job to say that the situation isn’t terribly different in Idaho.
You forgot to add that most of them, whether because of nature or nurture, are below average in intelligence.
I didn’t want to get personal, but you are correct in your assessment and yes it is a combination of nature and nurture. Thanks.
Sniffing glue, drinking and doing drugs never made anyone smarter.
It has washed up many careers, broken families, and turned shining stars into mediocrities.
Fascinating background. I also come from a publishing background. Have any articles appeared on your career evolution and insights?
Mr. Wallach,
Nothing comes to mind. I was not a book publisher or regular columnist, but rather an owner and operations manager for targeted advertising publications in the U.S./Canada/Europe and Asia. This was mundane publisihing. The Atlantic Monthly, for instance, would not be found in my portfolio. Thanks for asking.
65% our clients are white, 30% black, and 5% other. The vast majority are male.
The fact that the vast majority are male certainly seems to point to some biological determinism at work.
I don’t know the demographics for Western Michigan but I see that in the state as a whole, blacks are under 15% of the population. I suspect that in Western Michigan they make up a much smaller proportion, as the large cities are in the east of the state. So they are prodigiously overrepresented among your clients. Again, this suggests that biology is involved.
I’m goiYour words are racist. I just read a great article that does a good job of laying out an issue. A bail bondsman used his personal experience to demonstrate the articles point, and you can’t help but to go back to race and how biology must be at play. Your simple solution is to assume that there is something wrong the biology of Blacks. Even when a person is able to show common cultural and societal factors that account for behavior, you go back to the biology arguement. This is dangerous and lazy reasoning
Your comment is racist because when assumptions are made that there is something intrinsically wrong with a group of people, the rights of individuals are mitigated. In Nazi Germany such assumptions were made about Jews and Gypsies and we all know what happened there. Extreme views be either conservatives or liberals can lead to the same place, particularly when said extreme. Jews involve race. If we are heading to a race war, it will be people on both sides who are responsible. I agree with the comservative idea that there are many people, and unfortunately far too many black people who silver springneed to stop blaming the “man” and understand that they have a right to the pursuit of happiness, even if they fail in the attempt. I also think that there are a number of conservative whites, a small number I hope, who need to stop atributing all of the Illin the black community to simple products of biology.
Now I will look forward to being called an idiot and hope that some people hear what I am trying to say.
To people born in poverty, their situation feels “normal.” They have a handle on it. It’s familiar. They are more or less competent in dealing with it. It may not be pleasant or fair, but to them it’s “the way things are.” Most people, rich or poor, cling to what they know. To change, even for the better, would be scary and disorienting. Change also takes work and not everyone is willing or able to make the effort.
Walter Williams said that if you want to succeed in America it’s simple, no drugs or alcohol abuse in the home, two parent family, one or both parents work (doesn’t even matter much what they do), and graduate from high school. Statistically, if a family and ergo the surrounding culture embraces these things, they will be relatively prosperous and safe.
What the greater culture does not understand is that some sub-cultures EMBRACE out of wedlock marriage, drugs or alchohol. And they do not value work or education. Those things are afterthoughts.
I prefer to take a “big picture approach” and not just look at today, but instead encompass a few thousand years. Over that time, great cultures have risen and fallen, and great accomplishments in the arts and sciences have been made. In the Western Hemisphere, we have wonders like ancient Mayan cities like Macchu Picchu, and the Mayan calendar. Moving to Europe, we have the Industrial Revolution and the Enlightenment. To the south is Greece and the Roman Empire. Go farther east and the Egyptian pyramids beckon. Then move on to the Holy Lands, from which sprung the seeds of Judeo-Christian religions and cultures. Moving on, there is India, with their contributions to philosophy, science and mathematics. Next up is a resurgent China,(and Asia Pacific in general) which was once centuries ahead of the West.
That completes my short list. I will leave it up to others to list the items I missed south of the Sahara.
Your poor understanding of history, geography and human civilization isn’t surprising, but your willingness to have an opinion on it anyway is stupifying.
You conspicuously left out American Indian tribes. They’re all but gone. Their civilization was a dismal failure. They didn’t even have the wheel. They were easily conquered by a much more advanced civilization. Why didn’t they develop faster? Why weren’t they better prepared when Europeans arrived?
They didn’t have to be. Plus, they had spent too much time waring with each other – tribes of mostly nomadic humans who had the same technology as themselves. There was no need to innovate.
Africa has been much the same. Moreover, much of the continent is brutal and harsh. Large predators still roam much of it. The jungle is difficult to beat back and farming hasn’t developed as quickly. Tribes constantly war with each other.
Europe has relatively mild weather, and no jungles. The forests in Europe are relatively mild by comparison. There aren’t a lot of natural large predators all over Europe. Europe has a larger concentration of people in a smaller area, and those geographically butt up against other cultures. There’s more competition, which fosters innovation (especially in developing new and more efficient ways to kill your enemies).
Wait a second. You’re right. It was skin pigmentation that’s to blame. I should have known that. Why did I waste all this time thinking? Skin cells are the problem and always have been. I’m so dumb.
The Hurons are gone, wiped out by Iroquois after the Hurons converted to Christianity, for example. Most of the rest intermarried with the rest of us, to make that “American Beige” look we’re all approaching.
I see in our neighborhood comparison we touched on crime and income, but not intelligence. That would have been illuminating as the independent variable, dontcha think.
thought experiment: IF Herrnstein and Murray are correct, how should our current social policy change?
Cheers-
Herrnstein & Murray were, and ARE, correct — and nothing in our policies has changed for the better. In fact, many things have changed for the worse.
“Growing up giftie” was tough enough in the 60s and 70s; I honestly pity the gifted teens I tutor and counsel today. Everything around them caters to the lowest common denominator; everyone except them gets a blue ribbon just for showing up. What THEY usually get for showing up is bullying.
The anti-intellectualism in today’s USA runs so wide and deep that I have completely lost hope that it will be eradicated (or at least mitigated) in the future. Certainly not by the Entitled Generation when it’s their turn to occupy the seats of financial/political/media power in another 20 years or so.
I don’t disagree with what you’re saying in the main, but it rises somewhat to the level of a straw man argument in this respect: the reaction from certain members of the white community to the Trayvon Martin shooting was not one that pilloried blacks for crime, but pointed to statistics to put paid to the idea that whites were in turn committing crimes against blacks. In other words, Americans seem tolerant of the ideas you suggest but when those in question try and paint me with the brush they themselves rail at I say ‘hold on a minute here.’
Did some Bell Curve morons jump on that ship? Without a doubt, but they don’t represent me or my views or in my opinion the views of most people in this country.
Secondly, congratulating a culture for not murdering each other wholesale is a long way from figuring out complex mechanisms for timekeeping at sea, building Spitfire engines or putting men on the moon. What is the difference between creating a thing from nothing and not being able to create that thing even with a blueprint shoved in your face?
While I find notions of racial supremacy despicable, at the same time I don’t find my eyes despicable. If 1500 Aztecs had marched into the heart of Spain early in the 15th century and brought the Spanish Empire crashing down, my first thought isn’t ‘oh yeah, the Spanish – fully equal, and here’s why…’
What kept the entirety of South and Central America in the 1930s from having just a few guys, a few guys mind you, build an engine that powered amazing airplanes without superior in the world – multiply that by 10,000 and forget excuses and mitigating circumstances. To tell you the truth, I don’t have an answer but I don’t need one. I don’t need to understand why, to put my life and that of America on hold until the answer is solved. I can see where success emanates from and I will not rearrange notions of what constitutes success until everyone is included. Let those not included rearrange themselves to success instead and I’ll build a statue, drive their cars and use their computers.
This isn’t about assigning success as if that is written in stone but neither should it be about denying where success has come from because that is written in stone – it’s history. Make a new history if you can – if you can you can. But talking one’s way there by blame and excuses while huddling as close as you can to success in hopes it’ll rub off won’t topple Montezuma. If one wants credit for success, create it – from nothing.
Here is the problem – I can’t see culture.
I went to USC and damn well knew not to stray off campus without my situational awareness on full. Maybe the young men I drove past as I left campus were nice cultured Barbadians, maybe not. Either way, I made damn sure I wasn’t going to be the next Reginald Denny. So I was taking at least some of Derb’s advice long before he wrote his column.
Old Soldier
Derb was doing fine with me in that column until he veered off the rails into bell-curve territory. I’ll have to go back and double-check but I don’t think he referenced any actual studies when he went on about low intelligence. Had he stayed out of Charles Murray-land this would have been one of his best and we would be singing his praises today.
Either way, “the talk” is supposed to be hard-nosed survival advice from parent to child about the way the world REALLY works. As far as that part is concerned, Derb was spot-on and that where he should have stayed.
That’s where he lost me too. The practical situational awareness stuff was fine advice, particularly if you are in unfamiliar territory.
Actually Derb cited sources for almost every assertion he made, INCLUDING the bit about intelligence. He indicated the average IQ for black people as being about 81. You can quarrel with the accuracy of the source or the relevance of it but he didn’t pull it from thin air. I think it is a fact that different ethnic groups have different average IQ’s. Certain Asians and Israelis score higher for example.
Any sane person would admit that even though Jews are probably hated more than most, they tend to do better as a group than others regardless. Obviously their culture plays a role here as well. The question becomes do people with a higher group intellect end up with a better culture? Probably. In fact over time one feeds the other in both directions.
Smart people tend to understand the consequences of their actions and have the ability to defer immediate gratification to achieve long term success. They also stress educational achievement more in the home. These are attributes sorely lacking among certain rural whites and inner city minorities. I know a good number of folks in those groups and I must admit most of them are not geniuses.
I know that sounds terrible and I don’t say that to belittle them. We are all “equal” in the eyes of God, but we are certainly *not* all the same. Outcomes will vary as much as liberals want to pretend we can even the score. The biggest factor in determining your lot in life are your decisions and actions, that will never change.
Ways for a family to increase intelligence in its future generations (no matter what shade of American Beige you are):
Don’t take drugs, go easy on alcohol, especially for women. Our bodies are our children’s food for their first year of life. Since this is when our children’s brains form, it’s more important then, than at any other time in their lives. Eat lots of vegetables, live somewhere that doesn’t have lead paint.
By the time your child is born, marry the father of your child unless he’s a complete zero. (If you can’t behave, choose “good” men as partners so that this is both possible and desirable.) This will make the odds plummet, that your child will grow up in poverty.
Limit the amount of TV your child watches, especially before the age of two. The government has made it harder to get good used children’s books but they’re around. Read, read, read. Do what you can to get him some exercise.
Look for a good school with good teachers. If you have a boy, find a teacher that knows how to teach boys (younger teachers have a tendency to think that boys are merely poorly-functioning girls).
Keep up with your child. Screen his music, television choices, wardrobe, friends. Do what drastic measures you must do to keep your teen boy off drugs and out of jail. Teens need supervision more than younger kids do so don’t let them roam free just because you’re legally allowed to.
@Jeanette: “The government has made it harder to get good used children’s books but they’re around.”
There certainly are. In fact, there’s a newfangled place you can go get them for free. It’s called YOUR LOCAL PUBLIC LIBRARY.
In trying to exculpate race as a primary indicator of crime you use demographics of two somewhat distinct populations of blacks in a comparison of each other. What you would need to do, in order to give your premise weight, is compare these areas to those of other races which share a similar demographic profile except for race.
Yes Windsor Hills is safer than Baldwin Hills, the population is older, has more income, a higher education, and is far less densely populated. As for violent crime, in the last six months you get 32 per 10,000 People for Windsor Hills and 50 per 10,000 for Baldwin Hills. Hardy the vast discrepancy in your cherry picked data.
I suspect, in fact would bet the farm, if you were to compare areas in which the only demographic difference was race you would see race as the determinate factor yet again. Your premise is false.
36% is substantial difference.
Substantial, yes. But not the vast discrepancy implied by the authors use of 1 homicide to 32 homicide ratio. What is the 3200% difference?
Once again the only valid comparison to support the authors premise is to compare like groups of different races. Not separate demographic groups of the same race.
His premise is accurate. It sure isn’t color. Proof? Spoiled-a$$ed Americans raised on the gimme-gimme gangsta rap takin from the MAN!!!
Then you have the poor African who comes gratefully to America who can’t stop smiling (we have twin young men in our grocery store that fit this discription) and KNOWS how fortunate he is to be here and only wants to contripbute to society – not take from it.
It’s cultural.
Sure we get some African immigrants who are pretty good. Nigerians for one, but are we getting the creame of the crop immigrating from there?
Likewise black violence is not a American thing. Interpol stats show the same pastern worldwide that the FBI states show here.
Nigerians? Are you kidding? They would steal the gold out of your teeth.
Doubt it, control for income, employment, marriage, out of wedlock births, drug abuse and it’s probably close to race free.
Not what the stats show.
I’m a cop in a major city in the Midwest which is associated with President Obama. You guess which one.
I also have an advanced degree in sociology. The department paid for it and it kept me out of the taverns. Once you adjust for income and education there is a difference between the black and white crime rates. My memory is that it’s a relatively small difference, but it is there. Or at least it was there in the 90′s.
My theory on that revolves around culture, policing and more culture. There’s a bit more of glorification of violence in black culture, movies, music etc. Also a black male is slightly less likely to catch a break from a cop, black or white, than a white male. Call it selectivity in enforcement. In Chicago small amounts of weed has essentially been decriminalized and can result in a ticket. However, the arresting officer can choose to make an arrest. Most don’t, but sometimes it depends on the attitude of the offender. Some cops also enjoy getting off the streets for 90 minutes to process an arrest, but that’s another issue.
Even before it was decriminalized officially many cops ignored weed. However, if you have a disproportionate share of cops in black neighborhoods, they are going to have a disproportionate chance of making an arrest of a black offender. I’m not disputing the need for more cops in black neighborhoods as generally the crime rate is higher.
Another cultural issue is what I call the “play cousin” effect. It’s not unusual at all in an middle class black family for members of the extended family to be “staying” with them. In other words cousin “G” from the ghetto is staying with his Aunt’s family in the nicer suburbs. Cousin “G” brings his ghetto ways to the suburb and may ensnare some of his cousins and neighbors in his criminal activities.
Another issue is just the lack of jobs out there for high school kids or high school graduates. Back in the seventies, when I was that age, it wasn’t unusual to find teenagers working in fast food restaurants or something similar. Today, most of the bussers I see at restaurants or people employed at fast food restaurants seem to be immigrants from south of the border. I saw a black teenager bussing tables recently in a restaurant in an overwhelmingly white neighborhood and was amazed. He was American born and lived nearby. I don’t recall the last time I saw a white kid bussing tables.
The idea that some jobs are beneath the dignity of native born Americans is BS. Our, in reality, open border immigration policy has hurt the working class in this country. Don’t fool yourselves and blame that solely on the Democrats. The big money boys in the GOP love it too as it drives down their costs. Whenever large segments of the left and right agree on something we should be fearful.
Here is something regarding teen birth rates that I ran into the other day.
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db89.pdf
The good news is that it’s down for all groups, especially black teenagers. It’s still higher in the black community, but the rate is declining faster.
If I were Emperor Spuds birth control would be put in the water in high schools and colleges and illegal immigration would be forcefully stopped. Those two things right there would be the best things we could do to help the working class of any color in this country. I’d also end the drug war. After all if the left, Obama, and the right, name your GOP’er, support it you know it has to be screwed up.
Now that you mention it, I have noticed that these past couple of years, the young people behind the counter at my local Panera (and Chipotle!) have a very good command of the English language. No matter the shade of beige, they don’t have accents. (Wendy’s is the same sad situation).
“I also have an advanced degree in sociology. The department paid for it …”
You mean tax payers paid for your advance degree in sociology. What did you contribute?
“The idea that some jobs are beneath the dignity of native born Americans is BS.”
I agree completely.
BA,
how ya doin’ buddy?
Yes, the taxpayers paid for it. I also used the GI Bill and Army College Fund to go to college. I think I contributed some money directly to the GI Bill portion of it, but I could be wrong. Maybe it was the other way around. We’re talking 1980′s and like my 32 inch waist those memories are distant. I’m thinking $100 or so a month was taken out of my GI paycheck?
As to whether I deserved either the department funding or the military funding I guess that’s open for debate. I certainly “earned” it. I also encourage young cops to take advantage of every educational opportunity they can. It does three things.
First, it may make them better cops and people. At least I think so. Some anti education cops would argue differently. They believe their most important tool is their baton/nightstick. In actuality it’s their verbal ability and on rare occasions a gun. I always encourage people to take writing classes. Learning to write well helps one to learn how to think well.
Second, it may help them develop friendships outside the department. Too many cops limit their friendships to only other cops. It’s not healthy psychologically. It’s almost incestuous in some ways. Seeing people who aren’t cops, criminals or victims is good for the soul. In a physical sense policing is much less dangerous than many other occupations. In an emotional sense I can think of few occupations that are worse. Prison guards maybe. Infantry soldiers in Afghanistan almost certainly.
I have a nephew who was an Army medic in Iraq and Afghanistan and he is certainly worse off psychologically than when he went in. It seems that with time and hanging out at the Legion hall he’s getting better. His dad and I bought a small apartment building foreclosure that needed to be gutted and let him do the work. Working to exhaustion five or six days a week seemed to be a decent form of therapy as he worked through his issues. I’m too damn old to work that hard anymore without a whirlpool bath and Aleve readily available. That reminds me I need to create a mobile whirlpool bath so I can start swinging a sledgehammer again.
Third, I can’t remember what number three was. I’m sure it was a wonderful observation. Oh, now I remember. I always encourage young people to take two classes. First, a typing class. Best class I had in high school. Second, writing classes. Learning how to write well forces one to think logically. I said that slightly differently under number one.
Toodles.
@Spuds
“how ya doin’ buddy?”
I’m grand. How are you?
“I also used the GI Bill and Army College Fund to go to college.”
Lucky schmuck. All I got was the GI Bill. What was your MOS if I may ask?
“I think I contributed some money directly to the GI Bill portion of it, but I could I’m thinking $100 or so a month was taken out of my GI paycheck?”
You’re right, it was $100 the first 12 months.
“I certainly “earned” it.”
The military portion.. absolutely. The net pay, at least in the 80′s, put soliders below the poverty line.
“I also encourage young cops to take advantage of every educational oppunity they can. It does three things.”
Point 1- Agree fully.
“Second, it may help them develop friendships outside the department. Too many cops limit their friendships to only other cops. It’s not healthy psychologically.”
Yes.
“It’s almost incestuous in some ways. Seeing people who aren’t cops, criminals or victims is good for the soul. In a physical sense policing is much less dangerous than many other occupations. In an emotional sense I can think of few occupations that are worse. Prison guards maybe. Infantry soldiers in Afghanistan almost certainly.”
My father did a tour with 25th ID in 1967, Cu Chi Province, and spent 28 years as a prison guard. Emotionally damaged doesn’t even begin to describe him.
“I have a nephew who was an Army medic in Iraq and Afghanistan and he is certainly worse off psychologically than when he went in.”
Hope it works out for your nephew. He’s young, I’m assuming, and time heals. I hang out at the VFW, when I’m home… people leave you alone there.
“I always encourage young people to take two classes. First, a typing class. Best class I had in high school.”
You’re scaring me.. it was the best class I thouht they gave me.
“Second, writing classes. Learning how to write well forces one to think logically. I said that slightly differently under number one.”
Agreed. I think the tax payers money was well spent on you
. Good luck to you & G-d bless your nephew. Times change and so will his situation.
Sociology? Was that not Richard J. Herrnstein’s field?
How about fatherless families, i.e., a single parent who could be mom, grandma or an aunt raising boys. I suspect not having a biological father in the home is responsible for at least some of the havoc lawbreaking young men create. And of course, watching the adult woman in the house keep having babies with different men is definitely a bad example for girls.
I suspect you don’t see teens working in fast food joints or sweeping floors or doing other entry level work due to the federal minimum wage laws. If I’m an employer and I have to pay federal minimum wage to a dishwasher, I’m going to hire someone I don’t have to train in getting to work on time, job performance, etc. So I’m not going to hire a black kid with baggy pants, lots of tats and so on who can’t even fill out an application correctly or get to an interview on time. This gets back to the kid not having working parents, so he never saw anyone keep a schedule or take pride in his job. And of course there’s nobody to keep him in school or tutor him at home so he’s functionally illiterate.
Yeah, lead retards intelligence.
I’m not sure I agree with your point about postponing having kids later so mom and dad can grow up more unless you’re talking about young teens. People used to get married right out of high school and most of them managed to stay married and raise the kids to be responsible citizens. Okay, that was 50 years ago and maybe that genie can’t be put back into the bottle.
My MOS was 95B military police. I only wanted a two year contract, but my memory is that I had to take a three year contract to get the Army College Fund followed by 3-5 years in an Active Reserve status. I remember some phone call being made from the processing center to reduce it to a three year contract because I scored high on the ASVAB. I did have to ship out almost immediately to get that. They had a training slot to fill and my timing was perfect. I signed up on say a Tuesday and was on a plane three or so days later. Something like that.
My nephew will be fine. He hangs out with some younger vets and that seems to help. My brother and I bought the building largely to keep him busy and give him a place to be alone for awhile. Renovate one unit at a time. He grew up with four sisters, his mom, and both grandmothers living in a small apartment building only occupied by family so he always had a strong need for privacy. His dad dealt with all the females by taking up fishing and building a soundproof room in his basement.
There was no way I was letting him go back to that female dominated lifestyle initially. He’s close enough where he can pop in to visit, but far enough where they leave him alone. One of his sisters has two toddlers so he sees them a few times a week and takes them out. I suspect there isn’t much better therapy than wrestling his nephews. The nephews live within a few blocks of where he grew up so they also live a female dominated life. He seems to enjoy the Uncle role and they certainly love him. He displaced me as their favorite relative fairly quickly.
Last month was really warm here and I found him sleeping with a book on his chest in their backyard with the kids sleeping nearby. He’ll be fine.
His military training counts for a year plus worth of college credits and he’ll be taking some classes this summer. The current educational benefits for veterans are outstanding. Much better than they were thirty years ago. Then again our wars were smaller and shorter. He was offered a job as an EMT/Paramedic at a suburban Fire Department, but turned it down partially on my advice. I think he needs some more time busting out walls and avoiding stress for awhile. His expenses are minimal and he bikes or walks nearly everywhere.
His dad taught him how to do carpentry, plumbing, electrical and painting and for the moment at least he can probably make more money doing that with less stress than being a paramedic. We lucked into buying that building and hopefully we can find another. Anyway the building we bought is slowly being filled up with college age female tenants so I suspect he enjoys that.
Hopefully, he won’t show any cultural dysfunction and knock any of them up. If he does he will be following in a long family tradition that I don’t think he is aware of. Snicker. I met the one group of girls moving into an apartment later this month and I really really wish I was younger and better looking. I also wish for a male “pill”.
@Spuds
“My MOS was 95B military police.”
Small world. Me. Ft. McClellan, Bravo 40 – Autumn 1987.
Sounds like your nephew is in good hands. Watch out for him and youself.
Go easy.
Illegal immigration did not hurt the job market for African-Americans. American blacks would not take a job on a farm. Why should they? They don’t have to. In jobs like fast food or retail service they just don’t hack it. Also, compare crime rates between San Antonio and Detroit, the latter mostly African-American and the former mostly Hispanic. Quite a revelation.
Compare attitudes toward employment between Blacks and Hispanics. The latter come here to work; the former think work is for suckers.
There are good reasons why American blacks are so vehemently opposed to illegal immigration and none of them are pretty.
Blacks do not enlist in the armed forces in numbers proportional to their position in the American population. Latinos do. They want to be Americans. Blacks will stretch into eternity their role as victims. Maybe they have a point: if their ancestors had not been abducted into slavery, they could now be living (if alive at all) in mud huts somewhere in West Africa, bereft of nutrition, health care, honest policing, judicial protection, autos, TVs, iPods, central heating, air conditioning, free education, equality before the law, food stamps, welfare, medicare, medicaid, and myriad other cultural contrivances.
I could go on, but my heart goes weary.
Stephen,
I’ve seen statistics: blacks tend to join the Army more often than their population percentage would suggest. I don’t remember what the statistics for Marines were, but it does seem that Hispanic-sounding names are pretty common (including ours, come to think of it. But it’s a Filipino name). Whites are “overrepresented” in the AF but of course it’s much smaller than the Army. From our 20+ military years in bases and posts, I think there’s probably a bigger “minority” population than the population at large but that’s just my visual memory and the Army and AF statistic from at least five years ago. Enlisted more than officer, but the GI Bill is a time-honored way for poor kids to get a college education (like my dad, who was born a white trash bastard).
@ Sam1427
Yep, stupid and violent is no way to go through life.
Genetics do matter.
In response to Fantom’s post #7, one problem with those who find Dunphy’s premise “false” is that they use the term “race” to MEAN culture.
Race is a genetic identifier. Comparisons between young male African-Americans steeped in contemporary hiphop culture who trace a more or less pure genetic lineage to Senegal, and young African men who come to American shores from Senegal today are valid because the genetics are comparable.
It is important to note the difference, they are not racial, they are cultural, and the differences are vast. As Lolly points out: ” . . .Then you have the poor African who comes gratefully to America who can’t stop smiling (we have twin young men in our grocery store that fit this discription) and KNOWS how fortunate he is to be here and only wants to contripbute to society – not take from it. It’s cultural.
“In response to Fantom’s post #7, one problem with those who find Dunphy’s premise “false” is that they use the term “race” to MEAN culture.”
Not really Jeffry, this article compares two parts of the same culture. American Black culture. just one is centered more on the violent demographics of American Black culture, age, income , education. That nearby exist a somewhat less violent older , more intelligent(education/economic successes make that evident) does not make it a separate” culture”.
Heck if that is the definition we can probably find a graveyard filled with Blacks that is totally non-violent. How about that culture.
The word and conceptualization of “culture” is just the latest intellectual P.C. “fig leaf” given to to cover what some feel is unspeakable.
So why do these people engage in a culture of violence and distruction? The answer is probably found in government. That is, because the government through its vast welfare programs makes these types of behaviors tolerable, if not profitable.
Are those programs “marketed” disproportionately to Negroes? I’m open to believing it — it would explain a great deal — but I have yet to encounter a convincing case for it.
On the other hand, our media, with assistance from governments, has successfully promulgated the idea that America’s Negroes are “victims” who should not be held personally responsible for their actions. And that, too, explains a great deal.
“Community Organizing,” as originally conceived, was all about marketing welfare services to potential clients. The idea, at least according to some, was to overload the system as a prelude to destroying it.
Thank you, PattyMore and Phantomorphan. Your comments didn’t contain any racism. After reading down this far, I have to say I’m shocked and disappointed. Maybe there were less-than-a-hand-full in the comments above yours.
I never would have thought I’d see so much of it on PJMedia.com. This has been an enlightening – if sad – experience.
PreCISELY, Mr. Dunphy! “Culture — Not Race — Determines Many Crime Stats.” This is exactly the point I have tried to make clear for years to many black and hispanic friends who cannot (actually, WILL not – i.e. refuse to) see the obvious, which you have so clearly enunciated (and, to some extent, also referenced, at least with respect to southern California).
This article has been added to the library of articles on Another Slow News Day’s page devoted to black violent crime…
http://anotherslownewsday.wordpress.com/blacks-violence/
… as well as ASND’s Crime and Punishment page, accessible from the branches of the Culture / Crime & Punishment menu tree.
All of the comments above are more indicative of the problem than the statistics. There is so much self generated, pseudo- social science rhetoric and gobble-de-gook that all attempts at rational analysis are buried in liberal gibberish….just like this post.
ta
Yep. And you’d think you’d see a lot less of it on a site that typically attracts “Conservatives”. I guess PJMedia.com has a bigger Progressive Socialist following that I imagined.
Derbyshire’s mistake was picking out skin color as the one all important statistical correlation in violent crime, when in fact the situation is more complex.
He would have been more accurate and less racist had he selected “alcohol” and warned his children, out of solid mathematical thinking, to avoid drinking, to avoid places where people drink, to leave quickly if people begin to drink or drinkers arrive, etc, etc etc.
“Looking further at the L.A. Times’s data, we can see that median income is $81,214 in View Park-Windsor Hills but just $37,948 in Baldwin Hills-Crenshaw. Forty-five percent of the residents in View Park-Windsor Hills have at least a four-year college degree compared to 24.1 percent in Baldwin Hills-Crenshaw. And the statistic that goes a long way in explaining the disparities in crime, income, and education between the two neighborhoods is just as stark: In View Park-Windsor Hills, just 9.6 percent of families are headed by a single parent, compared with 31.9 percent in Baldwin Hills-Crenshaw.”
This is the heart of it. As usual, people who stay in school, stay married and are part of a two-parent household, and people who also marry later in life rather than when they are teenagers, will probably be more successful than those who do not. Some pretty simple lessons, yet so many don’t follow them, espcially in poorer neighborhoods. If these lessons could be drilled into the heads of young people, they would have much more successful lives and better neighborhoods. Perhaps these are the lessons young people need to master, rather than how much aid they can get from the government because of all the poor choices they’ve made in life. But, as usual, you can’t legislate character. Lifestyle choices are up to the individuals and possibly up to the churches in their areas. But we should not feel sorry for those individuals who consistently make the wrong choices in life. At some point, personal responsibility has to come in. But according to people like Obama, all of these people have to be taken care of by various government agencies (Federal and State), regardless of the choices they make. And that argument is wearing thin with the American public these days. Very thin.
I believe regular attendance at church is also a statistically positive factor in avoiding poverty.
At the risk of stating the obvious it’s clear that one reason that people think in terms of race rather than culture, is that liberals and the MSM constantly talk in terms of race. It’s always about black income rates compared with whites, black this and black that, with meaningless statistics thrown in, the bread and butter of the psuedoscience of sociology. We’re constantly hearing about “people of color.” But if a conservative dares to mention race he’s called a racist. Either the liberals have to stop using race as a meaningful category ( it’s not) or stop calling people racists. Has anybody noticed: not since Nazi Germany have people anywhere in the world been so obsessed with race as contemporary liberals?
Kurt Vonnegut had a word for it: “granfaloon.” A granfaloon is an artificial grouping of people (like Hoosiers) who have nothing in common in any meaningful way and yet still are considered members of a group because of a trivial similarity, like being from Indiana. Or skin color. Sociology is nothing more than a counting of granfaloons. Statistics are generated and used to bludgeon us on the head with in order to pass expensive and useless government programs.
Race and ethnicity correlates with culture but is not sufficient alone for prediction. Which means that if I see a reasonably dressed group of latino or black kids who aren’t yelling at each other or eyeing passer-byes aggressively I worry a little less. If the black group is identifiably African immigrants, I tend to relax even more. If I encounter a group of Asian or caucasian kids dressed like punks, eyeing aggressively, and speaking loudly to one another I am put on my guard.
In other words, Dunphy is exactly right. It is primarily about culture. Just as Sowell demonstrated decades ago that without state sanctions (guys with guns coercing people) discrimination has no effect on economic status Dunphy (and life) demonstrates that race does not determine criminality.
Absolutely spot-on. If I see a group of young black men who are obviously United States Marines, even out of uniform, I feel SAFER with them around.
Conversely, a group of loutish young white men is a gaggle I’ll give a wide berth. And that said, if there is a competent-looking adult male herding them around and keeping order, I don’t worry.
Culture is important, but age is too. Once you get over about 35, your instinctive affinities are always with the older, and more respectable and self-disciplined looking people around you, regardless of race or ethnicity. If you’re on a city bus and a group of loud, obnoxious teenagers gets on, it doesn’t matter what color any of the responsible adults is. They’re all thinking the exact same thing.
Dunphy (and life) demonstrates that race does not determine criminality.
In the aggregate, race does in fact determine criminality. As does sex, but for some reason nobody soils themselves at the mention of that patently obvious truth.
Americans really are cowards when it comes to race, Holder had that much right.
When I read comments like yours, I think to myself “Sieg Heil?”
Do “race traitors” just really infuriate you?
I suppose the nice thing about these posts and the comments section is that the closet racists fall all over each other trying to out-douche the racist next to them. Makes it easier to identify you guys, and steer clear on future comments.
Regards.
When I read comments like yours, I think to myself “Sieg Heil?”
Has anyone ever suggested to you that perhaps thinking is not any activity for which you possess a natural aptitude?
Do “race traitors” just really infuriate you?
Are you sexually attracted to five-year old children?
I realize that you never actually said anything about being sexually attracted to five-year old children, but then, I never said anything about “race traitors” and you did not allow that awkward fact to slow you down.
Much of this op ed is very reasonable and data-driven. In comments on an earlier piece here at PJ, I tried to make the same point – that we have bad parts of our city that are not black or Hispanic, so I don’t see it as a racial issue.
Culture is clearly the central issue. An easy example. Notice how any time we have unrest in the U.S., there is looting; that didn’t happen in Japan after the tsunami. As we become a more secular culture, we no longer teach values and morals (because they are seen as being associated with religion). Race enters into the equation when racial hatred becomes part of the culture. Look to the rants of Jeremiah Wright, recent statements by the New Black Panthers, and the positions of La Raza for support of this notion.
Poverty is cited as a crime generating factor in this op ed, and I would caution against accepting this whole cloth. This is part of the social injustice theory of crime; that people commit crimes because they are disadvantaged. This theory has led to programs like midnight basketball, youth centers, and the like. This theory has not fared well, as considerable data contradicts it. The Manhattan Institute has published reviews on the subject.
And yes, it is hard to change cultural identity. For example, studies have looked at socioeconomic status, often using a seven level classification. While people may jump several steps financially, their values and attitudes rarely shift more than one or two steps. For example, saving money is a middle class value – rich don’t save because they don’t have to and poor don’t because they don’t have any money to save. Middle class people who become rich continue to save money; poor people who become middle class often don’t. Look at professional athletes or entertainers who come from poor neighborhoods; they often have serious issues (e.g., Dennis Rodman). Or look at lottery winners.
Name me one white tribe still living in some jungle with barely a language (if you call clicking noises a language) and I’ll believe this hype.
Please go and read “Guns, Germs, and Steel” by Jared Diamond. He does an excellent job of explaining why various parts of the world got the way that they are. The simple answer to your comment is that all of the Caucasian tribes and clans lived in Europe – and encountered A) the Greeks, B) the Roman Empire, and C) the Huns. Between the three of them it was get civilized or die, in slavery. Note, BTW, that the most civilized parts of Africa are the ones around the Mediterranean or on the east coast, where they encountered either the Romans or the Chinese, respectively.
I appreciate your input Paul…and I will look into that book…
But, are you saying that the Greeks/Romans/Huns were NOT Caucasian?
I know many Greeks and Italians who would beg to differ with you.
The Huns were likely Oriental, not Caucasian, although it is in doubt.
And the “whitest” whites, the Germans… The Romans considered them lazy, stupid, dishonorable, etc. And they had so many children that the Romans named them Germans, from the same Latin root that gives us “Germinate”, ie, “to sprout”.
Quoting Tacitus, on Germans: “When not engaged in warfare, they spend some little time in hunting, but more in idling, abandoned to sleep and gluttony. All the heroes and grim warriors dawdle their time away, while the care of house, hearth and fields is left to the women, old men and weaklings of the family. The warriors themselves lose their edge. They are so strangely inconsistent.”
So how do stupid, lazy people like that manage to become leaders in science and engineering? Other than changes in culture?
Answer: Boredom
For some people, boredom means inventing new things to make life even easier and for other people, boredom means being destructive and destroying things built by better bored people.
Just my take.
It was a fifteen hundred years later before the Germans led anything. The Dark Ages, wars large and small with each other and foreigners, the Holy Roman Empire, conversion to Christianity, the Northern Crusades, the Protestant Reformation and Renaissance – all pounded them into shape.
Then they started inventing stuff and training engineers.
It was more like 250-300 years before the Germans were leading things.
Aetius, Stilicho, Theodoric, and all the other German leaders within and without the Western Roman Empire from the 3rd century on were taking the lead from the Romans.
England took a step back when the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes invaded, and another when the Danes showed up, but that turned out to be a good thing in the long run, as those few extra centuries set the foundation for the English Common Law and democratic traditions that ultimately developed into the United States, distinct from those Germans who adopted Roman Law, and particularly those who adopted Roman Language.
It would be nice and comforting to think that merely ‘culture’ is what makes people be thugs/hoodlums/rapists but look at Africa and blacks in all other parts of the world.
They are almost as psychotically engineered as their inbred Muslim brethren from the Middle East.
Sorry, I refuse to be PC. If someone wants to call me a ‘racist’, go ahead. I’ve heard it so many times now it doesn’t even phase me.
“Faze”, not “phase”
Your correcting my grammar and spelling doesn’t ‘faze’ me. Fanks, kid!
See, it’s just that if you want people to go along with your “whites is superior human beans” premise, it doesn’t work when you use the wrong homophone.
There’s a health care financial crisis in the UK thanks to first cousin marriages among Muslims, mostly from Pakistan.
Mutants.
Jeannette, you ignorant slut! I’m not a homophobe! I think homophones should be treated equally and with justice for all. What?
Hay er hey now. I don’t think whites are superior. I think Asians are! Take that, spellcheck Nazi!
I have not read “Guns, Germs, and Steel” by Jared Diamond, but I saw his TV series based on the book. His premise is fairly simplistic: Mediterraneans and Europeans had domesticated animals and thereby had more efficient farming. More efficient farming meant more times for other things such as developing technology and civilization. Cultures, such as the natives of New Guinea, did not have farm animals and therefore remained at a very primitive level. As an added advantage close proximity to farm animals meant that the people were more immune to contagious diseases, so for example, when Europeans went to the New World they carried diseases for which the Native Americans had no immunity. Some populations in the Americas were virtually wiped out by disease when Europeans arrived.
But “Guns, Germs, and Steel” only goes so far. Diamond fails to explain why cultures which had the same advantages as Europeans, such as Asian and African cultures (domesticated animals and herd immunities to common diseases), did not develop technology on their own, and in the case of Africa and the Muslim world, still remain far behind the developed nations. This is probably because to examine those issues would be to take Jared Diamond into un-PC territory.
[...did not develop technology on their own, and in the case of Africa and the Muslim world, still remain far behind the developed nations. This is probably because to examine those issues would be to take Jared Diamond into un-PC territory.]
Getting closer.
Also, did it ever occur to anyone that a good percentage of blacks hate to work, love to steal, like to murder, enjoy rape and hate everyone (even their own race i.e. black-on-black crime)?
Could it possibly be that people with low I.Q.’s and high testosterone are a powder-keg of violent idiocy?
Now you have really done it, Delia!
While everyone else is full of excuses why blacks are the way they are, you have the audacity to bring unfettered and unapologetic truth to this very discussion.
I mean, could black under-achievement in white culture be explained in such simple terms — namely, they don’t have the intelligence, as a whole, to prosper otherwise?
Bravo, Delia, bravo.
No, Delia, all members of our species have the same IQ; there is no ‘group’ able to live that is, as a group, all made up of below average IQs. I know this is a theory but it is logically and empirically invalid.
No group can exist, in itself, and able to exist economically (producing food either by farming or hunting); able to look after its people and keep them secure and healthy – with a below average IQ.
What you are ignoring is the vital role that ecology plays in defining how people live. If, as in Africa, the ecological realities are: no plants or animals that can be domesticated – which means, your food supply is extremely limited; problems with water (it’s either seasonal with long droughts or a rainforest); problems with soil quality; problems with temperature…well, these ecological realities all combine to keep populations low and often not settled and migratory.
In Europe on the other hand, the richest ecological biome on this planet, rich in plants and animals to be domesticated, you can increase your settled populations. This always leads to the need for technological innovations to develop even more energy supplies and means of creating wealth (wind power, water power, boats for those rivers, markets, currency, trade etc).
So- it’s all about ecology and how we adapt to it. Diamond’s book is very good, although he doesn’t deal with population pressures – but, there are also books on ecology (Bernard Campbell has an easy one: Human Ecology).
Again, don’t fall for that ‘the races or groups have different IQs’ trap. It’s empirically unproven and after all, proof does have a vital role in our opinions, doesn’t it?!
Since you’re so well educated and knowledgeable, please explain how an entire race of human beings you describe as lazy and rapacious managed to survive so long? How is that possible? When they weren’t too lazy to rape and murder each other, who fed everyone? Who built shelters for them?
Have you ever been pregnant or had a child? Other than the government check that I helped to pay you, how could you have fed yourself and your child? Did black populations in Africa have U.S. Treasury checks for thousands of years to support them while their indolent mothers surfed the internet and snarked about other races?
I’m just trying to apply your logic to the reality of the situation. Can you help me out here? When all the raping and murdering was finished for the day, and they lazed around doing nothing….who was left to keep the civilization moving forward? Did anyone hunt, for instance? Wait…is hunting a lazy, rapist, or murderous activity?
Farming? Is farming pretty easy work for people, or is that closer to raping (as in raping the land?)
Seriously, do you think anything through or just vomit words into the computer?
Having read the book I can tell you that merely having animals or not is not the only issue Diamond raises.
Africa is not convenient for trade and travel the way Europe and the Mediterranean region are. There are no native transport animals, the rivers are harder to navigate because of terrain, the jungles and deserts block land travel, and the natural ocean harbors are few and far between.
By contrast, Europe has excellent rivers for travel (together, the Rhine, Rhone, Danube, and Loire systems cover most of the Roman Empire, the rest is close to the navigationally convenient Mediterranean and Black seas.), good harbors, etc. Trade and travel spread ideas and technology. These bring advances in civilization.
Africa has had plenty of white ‘culture’ to tame the feral beasts and yet once whites are taken out of the ‘control’ of said ‘culture’ the feral beasts always revert to the mean.
Delia,
Have you ever been to Africa? If not, how in the hell would you know anything about what whites have or haven’t done there? How would you know how things have turned out after whites left…or for what reason things turned out the way they did?
For someone so ignorant, your elitism is shocking.
I’ve been to South Africa. I’ve seen blacks that work harder than many whites. I’ve also seen whites screwing up their culture, just like a black president is screwing up ours….just as several white presidents worked hard to screw up our culture before him.
Both Bush’s and Clinton were Progressives. Romney is a Progressive Socialist – he’s only slightly less radical than the disgrace who is our current Commander in Chief. Does Romney make you proud to be white?
Do you think a man who proto-typed Obamacare, and who supports the new law (NDAA) that allows the President to scoop up American citizens on American soil without a warrant or grand jury and hold them indefinitely – is that man a great “white” man? Is he making our civilization better or worse, Delia?
Is he responsible for his actions, or is his skin colore responsible, Delia?
What would you say to someone in Africa talking about how whites have screwed up America? Do you think someone who’s only lived in Africa their entire life has much of a clue as to how things work here? If not, please tell me what gives you the right to judge them.
Regards.
Actually, he does explain why the Chinese didn’t develop those things.
They did. In fact they were more advanced than Europe until between then 10th and 15th centuries, when they culturally turned away from advanced technology in favor of attempts at social stability.
And he explains why the Africans didn’t develop those things.
They didn’t have the advantages of those animals, or those crops, or the ability to transmit as many of them across ecological zones.
I have long theorized that climate has something to do with progress as well. In a very mild climate, the living is too easy. Why farm when there is abundant fruit and game in the bush year-round? Why even build a real house if it never gets cold?
The early Italians and Greeks had to deal with actual seasons and soon surpassed their rivals to the south. Once the Northern European tribes got a taste of civilization – and better technology to deal with their harsher climate, they took down the Roman Empire and surpassed the Greek Empire.
In the New World it was the same thing. The mild climate and gold mines should have made the Spanish and Portuguese colonies richer. But eventually the English colonies in the harsh north became richer and more powerful.
Please go and read “Guns, Germs, and Steel” by Jared Diamond. He does an excellent job of explaining why various parts of the world got the way that they are.
It’s a dreadful and tendentious book. He cites the existence of horses, cows etc as “advantages” which Europeans had, apparently unaware that Europeans (and Middle-Easterners) bred these animals into existence.
He is quite aware they were bred into existence.
He covers the availability of animals that can be bred for such purposes quite clearly, and the consequent effects.
He covers the availability of animals that can be bred for such purposes
And who is he to opine on which animals can be bred? All animals can be bred. In India elephants are used as work animals, in Africa they are not. The difference is not in the elephants.
Elephants in India are not casually bred, they are broken and trained as wild horses are. That is quite different from fully domesticating them.
Even with that, the support requirements to keep an elephant are massively greater than to support a horse. There is even a saying that if you want to destroy your enemy, give him an elephant as a gift, as he will be beggared to maintain it and humiliated if he cannot.
Elephants in India are not casually bred, they are broken and trained as wild horses are. That is quite different from fully domesticating them.
The process of domesticating wild horses begins with braking and training them.
I don’t have the foggiest idea what “causally bred” is supposed to mean, or how it differs from regular breeding.
You don’t explain why elephants in Africa are not “broken and trained as wild horses are”.
Elephants were not broken and kept in sub-Saharan Africa because they did not have the foods available to support them.
India had the seed grains like wheat that could support the population and leave enough surplus to feed elephants.
The differences in breeding are seen in the large numbers of different horse breeds compared to the non-existent number of different elephant breeds. There are the different elephant species, but no array of domesticated breeds. Letting wild elephants breed and taking the most likely young for training is vastly different from keeping a herd of hundreds, even thousands, of horses or cows, and selectively breeding them over dozens of generations for specific purposes.
There are several reasons for this, including the longer time to maturity of elephants (nearly 2 years pregnant, 5-10 years to independence, 10-20 years to training and full growth, 20-40 years for prime breeding compared to 1 year pregnant, 1 year to independence, 2-4 years to training and full growth, 5-10 years to prime breeding for horses and cows) and social structure (matriarchal herds with independent males who become highly dangerous during mating season compared to patriarchal herds for horses and cows).
Also, the differences between African and Asian elephants goes beyond the ear size. African elephants form larger female herds with stronger connections. Asian elephants form smaller female herds with weaker connections. To get an African elephant calf for training may require killing a dozen or more full grown female elephants who treat each calf as their own. To get an Asian elephant calf for training would require scaring off 2-3 other female elephants more concerned with their own calves and only having to kill the mother of the calf you want.
So in fact the difference is in the animals, not the people.
Actually, SteveM, the difference IS in the animals. The Asian elephant is completely different from the African elephant. [You can instantly see the difference; the former has small ears, the latter has large ears.]They are two different species and don’t interbreed. The Asian has long been ‘partly domesticated’ while this is not true for the African.
Again, you also have to consider the work-agenda of a domesticated animal. The terrain in Africa, where the elephants live, is not suitable for using them as work-energy. Horses or oxen are better but aren’t native to that area (southern and eastern Africa). Plus, feeding such a ‘work-horse’ is more costly than any financial benefit it could bring.
Africa is a massive continent with every terrain one can imagine. The horse in North America came further and was used faster.
Actually, SteveM, the difference IS in the animals. The Asian elephant is completely different from the African elephant. [You can instantly see the difference; the former has small ears, the latter has large ears.]
All you have illustrated there is that you are not comfortable with the English language. I have larger ears than my brother, but it does not follow that we are “completely different”.
But you have made an oddly revealing mistake there. You deny that African people are in any way different from Indian people, but you insist that African elephants are “completely different” from Indian elephants, based on their ears.
Steve,
Can a dog be “bred into an ox”? Can you think of any dog that might have a chance to plough a field? How many centuries would it take to breed cats into riding beasts?
According to you, any animal can be bred into existence. Obviously, you must be right.
You probably didn’t stop to think that some animals are probably easier to breed for certain tasks than others. You probably didn’t stop to think that no human in his right mind would consider breeding the animals above for the purposes I mentioned, because it would take an incredibly long time, amount of effort, and in both cases would probably never work out well.
You probably didn’t stop to think…
No. You didn’t.
According to you, any animal can be bred into existence.
You are a very stupid person. I did not say, or suggest, or imply, that “any animal can be bred into existence”.
Cattle, and by extension oxen, have existed in Africa for thousands of years.
No, cattle, and by extension oxen, have not existed in sub-Saharan Africa for thousands of years.
They have been there a few hundred years, but getting them past the eco-system band of the Sahara through the arid eastern areas of the Sudan and Horn of Africa was quite difficult, and delayed the introduction of cattle to the rest of Africa by centuries.
Getting them past the rainforests took even longer.
I did read Jared Diamond’s “Collapse”, I also recall seeing his TV special and I’m afraid you’ve got him wrong. The gist of his theories (biological determinism) are all about human cultures being irrevocably shaped by ecological circumstances. It was just the luck of the draw that Europe turned out the way it did (cereal crops, domesticable animals, climate, etc.)
A much better example of why cultures succeed or fail would be this essay. Cultures that stay impoverished are more dominated by envy and the fear of being envied such that people are afraid to excel.
http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/1/20/231252.shtml
Since the white tribes arose in non-jungle regions, you will never have found any in a jungle, and so could not find any today.
Since language is language regardless of the structure of the sounds used in it, clicking noises do indeed qualify as part of some languages, just as the “bar-bar-bar” babbling of the Germanic and other tribes north of the Greeks qualified as language even though the Greeks used those sounds to generate the word “barbarian”.
That established:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_indigenous_peoples_of_Russia
There is a list of more primitive, trial people in Northern Russia.
Most of them are Caucasians.
Delia, there is no society or population of humans (homo sapiens) that is without language. And the Dobe !Kung language with its clicks is most certainly a full language.
The reason that ‘whites’ developed advanced technology was not due to their skin color but to the ecological domain in which they resided – Western Europe. This ecology or biome is the richest on the planet, with plenty of plants that could be domesticated for food, and animals that could be domesticated for food and work. The soil was rich, the rainfall and moderate temperature was excellent for crops. This richness enabled large settled populations that could develop new technologies; and that, because of the size of their populations, required comprehensive legal systems, lines of authority, and so on.
Africa, on the other hand, lacks animals that can be domesticated (ever try to domesticate a lion or zebra?); lacks readily domesticated plants that can be grown for crops; has serious problems with water supply, with temperature, with soil. So, people could only live in small migratory populations.
The suggested book by Diamond is a good one.
Oh please. It’s not about skin color, it’s about I.Q. as far as intellect goes and also about violence regarding higher levels of serum testosterone levels.
Even when black children grow up in middle to upper middle class homes, they still under-perform compared to their white and Asian counterparts.
ETAB, if you’re so keen on black males between the ages of 13-27, I’d advise you to visit black majority bars, neighborhoods and other black majority venues and report back.
Kthanks
Delia, don’t be childish with your ‘if you’re so keen on black males’. Because I point out the flaws in your opinions doesn’t mean that I’m doing so out of any emotional attachment to blacks, whites or others. The flaws in your assertions are empirical. You don’t know a thing about genetics, about IQ, about societal economic and political organization, about ecology…all you ‘know’ is a bunch of pop myths which you toss out like old empty pop cans.
IQ is not a genetic trait of a group; it’s an individual trait. Therefore, your claim that IF you are black, THEN, your IQ is low, is empirically invalid.
Equally, your assumption about black people having higher levels of testosterone is empirically invalid. Some studies have said this is valid only for the pre age 40; others have come up with unreliable data. But, your assumption that IF you have high testosterone levels, THEN, you will be violent is empirically invalid.
That’s because it can be shown that many black societies (eg, hunting and gathering economies, pastoral nomadic, horticultural economies) have little violence because their societal rules and norms of behavior reject violence as a means to settle arguments or disputes. You ignore, totally, cultural habits of belief and behavior. Why?
It can be shown that many Asian societies (with supposedly the lowest testosterone levels) are based around extreme male violence. But this isn’t due to hormones; it’s cultural; just recall the Japanese at war.
And again, there’s absolutely no such thing as ‘group IQ’. You are getting trapped into empty rhetoric – with these notions about group-based genetic violence and group-based IQ.
Most males are more violent than females because of testosterone.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7Fdl9Kmhgs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmA6Kdy12jU
Haven’t we proven that testosterone is actually connected to friendliness in men? Men with low testosterone are more likely to be moody, grumpy, and listless.
That’s why old men take testosterone to make them happier people. Women who take testosterone therapy tend to become sexually agressive. Is that the same thing as violent or destructive? Pretty sure it’s not.
Delia will cast around for anything someone else tells her that supports her argument. Delia will not accept empirical data, because that data crushes her argument.
A logical person would conclude, “My argument is invalid, and I need to adjust my hypothesis.” Delia has decided, “Those facts are wrong, because my hypothesis stands on its own regardless of reality.”
You’re wasting your time trying to reason with her, because her reality exists inside a carefully protected bubble.
Jaycen has gone full on retard.
Jaycen has never heard of the term ‘roid rage’.
Major LULZ!
Delia,
Open with a personal attack, and then use “roid rage” to support your case. Good job. You won!
Sterroids aren’t what you think they are, nor is it any kind of comparison. Someone who takes a high concentration of something that’s not produced in his own body naturally, on top of his own body’s chemicals is the same thing as “testosterone makes you violent”?
Really, Delia. You’d do well to stay quiet on issues until you actually know something about it.
Haven’t we proven that testosterone is actually connected to friendliness in men?
No.
Check out Stormfront Del, I think you’ll find more kindred spirits there. Or a Nazi graveyard in Europe.
OH STFU. I’m most likely far inferior intellectually to the most intellectual black person.
I agree with you and Derbyshire. How is Derb’s article any diffferent from the U.S. State Department advising citizens not to travel to Mexico? Derb’s “The Talk” is just an expanded explanation.
Any parent who doesn’t teach reality to their children is not doing his job.
Agreed. “Poverty” is a culture, not an economic condition.
Poverty isn’t a ‘culture’. Most people in poverty who live in a ‘free society’ want to get the hell out of poverty except for the people who believe they are ‘owed something’ and therefore sit on their obese asses and refuse to work.
people who believe they are ‘owed something’
because that’s what the political class has indoctrinated them with.
Throw out the social structure of ‘responsibility’ defined by religion and one is left with a vacuum filled by the snake oil salesmen.
God bless you, Delia. You might have a chance.
Your statement is exactly spot on, and it’s true no matter what color the obese person is. If they’re paid to sit on their fat butt, they will – white, black or other.
Poverty most certainly is NOT a culture. Many people pass through poverty at some point in their lives. Poverty certainly can be a result of culture, but it can result from misfortune, poor health, death of a spouse, and many other reasons. Generational poverty is an indicator of a cultural problem, but not all or even most poverty.
Points taken. Thanks.
Maybe I should have said “There’s a culture of poverty.” People who pass through poverty or people who work hard to escape poverty are not participants in the culture of poverty. They do not passively accept their condition. They don’t believe they’re helpless to change anything, that the System is against them, that someone else must rescue them or pay them back. That’s what I meant – the culture is more than just being broke, unemployed, etc.
USC should have taken up the offer to move the campus to
Malibu, where Pepperdine is located. The owner of the property
offered it to USC back in the ’40s and USC declined. Pepperdine,
then located in a questionable neighborhood in Los Angeles,
took the offer.
USC is now a World Class university in a third world neighborhood.
It seems to me that Blacks have gone to great lengths to deliberately conflate culture and skin color. Look at the criticism directed at people like Condi Rice, Allen West, Thomas Sowell, and any black kid that tries to get good grades in school.
There really is a ‘black culture’ that is at issue here, with exceptions to the general rule and these exceptions are derided as ‘Uncle Toms’. It’s not PC to say that, but it is rather obvious.
Excellent point. Jeremiah Wright preached that blacks should avoid becoming middle class – while he himself embraced being middle class. Race hustlers warn against “acting white”. They questioned whether Obama was “black enough”. In college, Michelle Obama pondered maintaining a racial identity versus integrating into the mainstream culture.
Recall the recent lefty editorial piece where the author put the situation; you get ready to board a subway train and encounter a black youth in a hoodie and sags. You feel some trepidation – and the author concluded this was because of race?? Nope. The hoodie and sags does it for me. The way people dress is a statement of their identity and also a way of making a statement. That’s the culture some want to promote?
Who decided to conflate acting like a wild animal (my apologies to actual wild animals) with ‘culture’? Is acting like a rutting, whacked out, violent, rapist nut-job a ‘culture’ now? In Africa, they call it a ‘culture of rape’ that is almost ACCEPTED. Culture? Really?
The nihilistic ‘rap’ songs on the radio don’t speak of ‘culture’, they speak of animalistic nature at best and cannibalistic nature at worst.
Blacks have been amongst people of ‘culture’ for many years now and yet a majority of them show no ability to adapt.
The negro project is a dead-end.
The trouble with the argument for culture is that the dystopia in which many blacks live is a culture of their own creation. In the bad old days black marriage, divorce, and illigitimacy rates were essentially the same as white. “Crime” rates were somewhat higher, but in The South certainly and probably most places, blacks were much more likely to be arrested and convicted than whites, so it is hard to get a reliable comparison. A toxic mixture of an ideological drive for an “authentic” black culture and an exploitative popular culture and media has created a culture of crime, violence, sloth, and degeneracy.
Sorry, Art. I’m tired of making limp-handed excuses for bad black behavior. Yes, there are ‘good blacks’ and ‘bad whites’ but, I’ve yet to see a poor white neighborhood be unsafe to walk through. Culture? How do you cultivate a people who refuse to be cultivated? South Africa is a hotbed of violence/rape/savagery/murder now that ‘whitey’ is out of power. How is that working out for them? Starvation much? The Boer farmers are being murdered and their land given to idiot black Africans who live on the land and don’t know the first thing about farming.
Let us all see how much ‘culture’ black people have when white people stop the money flow. Let them fend for themselves even if they have to revert back to spear chucking and grub digging.
“I’ve yet to see a poor white neighborhood be unsafe to walk through.”
I have. You ever been to Appalachia? You ever been to Europe?
Poor Southerners, so-called “white trash,” who migrated to cities before WWII exhibited the exact same pathologies that black migrants did. Both groups improved their behavior and material prospects because the majority culture had certain minimal expectations and relentlessly preached bourgeois values.
After the 60′s, the demands and expectations placed on whites loosened (alas!,) but those placed on blacks utterly collapsed or went backward. You see the results.
Our “enlightened” elites breathe poison.
I have been to trailer parks in Alaska that were fear-free zones. I’ve been to many poor white neighborhoods that weren’t riddled with bullets and gangster violence.
Well, in the trailer park in Alaska some significant percentage of the residents own their trailer. That’s a very different demographic from, say, the occupants of a Section 8 apartment complex. Even in the East Anchorage trailer parks, you can find crime, but you have to look for it. In the Fairview or Mountain View Section 8s, crime looks for you. Or you can just go to Platinum Jack’s on Saturday night.
“I’m tired of making limp-handed excuses for bad black behavior” falsely implies that you have ever earnestly engaged in this behavior.
Are you a liberal troll? You’ve been at PJM for a while but I rarely read any opinions from you that don’t involve your vile beliefs about race. It’s almost as if you’re a liberal’s caricature of an uneducated conservative.
Black males are physically a little tougher than other races.
Sometimes the temptation to mess with the weaker kids can be overwhelming.
Black males are physically a little tougher than other races.
Men are physically a little tougher than females. That’s no excuse to go beating on women any more than it’s an excuse for bigger males to go beating on smaller males. GTFO.
While it is true that in general American Blacks are physically bigger and stronger that is nothing whatsoever to do with being Black. Dont believe me then visit Africa and you will see the Blacks there bear no resemblance physically to American Blacks. The American Blacks are what they are because of breeding , just like animals are bred. In the first case only the strongest survived the voyage in to slavery then only the strongest survived the back breaking work that was the lot of most slaves. Slave owners too selected the biggest strongest slaves to breed with the strongest females to produce strong children to work harder. So that now most American Black slave descendants now have virtually no physical resemblance to Black Africans whatsoever apart from pigmentation.
Also the blacks who went to the British and French colonies were from Western Africa were they factually were less evolved and ate a more protein rich (e.g. game animals) diet than in eastern and southern Africa. If American football ever became an Olympic sport, Nigeria, Cote Ivoire and other west african nations would be the US’ biggest competition. 100+ native-born Nigerians or first generation Nigerian-Americans now play in the NFL. Also anyplace the French touched in colonial times tends to be utter basketcase of a nation, whether black Hatians, berber Algerians, yellow Vietnamese, or white Quebecois.
Dunphy is being very kind. Before I retired as an LA County employee and moved 3000 miles away to get out of that hole, I worked the same streets he did. Comparatively, Crenshaw was a middle-class area. The real action was in South Central, Watts, or Compton. But then again Dunphy is attempting to be PC
Nailed it.
I say, your honesty trumps his PC.
Very well done essay. Thank you, citizen Dunphy!
Where ever YOU are, the culture around you is improved, I’d guess.
May I suggest reading Thomas Sowell’s book White Liberals and Black Rednecks. His theme was the same: culture.
It is undoubtedly true that class misbehavior is predictably cultural, but it cannot be said that culture is not to some extent driven by the genetics within race and ethnicity. That is as true within races as it is between them. Even small differences become enormous when plotted over lifetimes, and cultures are the product of lifetimes.
View-Park Windsor Hills is a beneign moon of Jupiter; has never existed without the gravity of an alien race pulling upon it. Anywhere, at any time.
You’re fired Jack.
Sure. It’s culture not race.
But the dominant culture for blacks is a criminal culture.
We all assumed that when overt racism was ended in this country, that black culture, which at the time was Christian, decent and relatively pro-American, would move even closer to the American mainstream.
But the communists had a different plan. They taught the race baiters that they could become unimaginably wealthy by fostering a criminal, anti-American culture among blacks. And of course, they were abetted by the already marxist university and media cultures.
And now we are where we are.
Back to Africa….until the marxists grab complete power, after which black culture will be just another serf community among many.
Before evil whitey came along, warring tribal blacks were eating each other (their enemies) for dinner.
Could someone please tell me where there is an actual peaceful ‘culture’ that is solely from black Africans?
Actually, Delia, you are wrong yet again. I think that rather than falling for popular myths you ought to read a few books that will tell you what other societies and peoples, eg, in Africa, are really about.
No, the African societies were not always engaged in warfare. Why not? Because they could not, population wise, afford the loss of young males in warfare. Their populations never reached the size of European societies, which could afford the loss of populations by way. So, in Africa, you had several types of ‘war’. There was the public presentation – where the two sides would engage in a ritualistic confrontation, far enough from each other to prevent harm, but close enough to hear the taunts, challenges etc. One spear thrown – and it was over.
Warfare over land and animals (cattle) came about only during times of near famine, when drought and disease decimated the cattle (Masai, Nuer, Dinka peoples) and they fought over the land base.
No, cannibalism was not a frequent occasion and is largely an ‘urban legend’. I suggest you read a book by R. Lee and Devore: Man The Hunter. You might find some insights about reality in there. You can even read about the Maasai on Wikipedia! It’s not bad, and the point is, it might help to clarify the adaptive culture to the realities of their environment.
Actually you were making the argument earlier that Africa didn’t have any animals to domesticate, so where did the cattle come from? Diamond says that in fact Africans had a lot of the same advantages as Europeans with domesticating animals for farm work and immunity to many diseases. But the larger point is that in modern times a lot of the advantages that Europeans and Middle Easterners had over other parts of the world have now been equalized–even Africa can benefit from modern farming technologies, GMOs and superior animals. Yet some cultures remain mired in poverty and backwardness.
On the other hand, African cultures were well adapted to their circumstances and relatively low population. When contact with the outside world came these cultures were not able to cope. Now if a native culture has been able to adapt to its needs I don’t see why we should look down on it, though it may be fragile. Somebody like Shaka Zulu comes along and wrecks the stability even without the Imperialists. But unfortunately sections of the world cannot be walled off from the rest and delicate cultures preserved in amber. The problem here is the populations of urban youth who are divorced from all culture. We call it culture, or ‘culture of poverty’, but it is in fact NO culture that’s the problem with the inner cities.
Liberal policies have set up a sort of filter, call it welfare, where the smartest and those who are most adaptable are able to move out and up and the dumber and most dysfunctional are left behind. After a few decades of this distillation process of course you get the hell-holes the liberals love so much. This is a totally artificial situation and has nothing to do with race except that race is one of the factors in the filter. And the fact that many blacks have bought into the racist liberal mindset of resentment and hopelessness.
Cattle, found among the pastoral nomadic cultures of Africa, are only found in East Africa and are used only for milk and blood. There are no ‘natural’ domesticated work animals (horses, oxen), no small animals (pigs, goats). The cattle herding itself could only be carried out within migratory rather than settled mode of existence. You had to move with the rains and the seasons. This is totally different from the settled farming of Europe – with its wealth of domesticated animals and plants.
Again, the African biome did not produce animals that could be domesticated for work; the soil, water and climate was not suitable for the lush productive farming found in Europe.
The fact is, these African cultures operated within small group kin based organization, called tribes – and this mode of societal organization has not disappeared. There hasn’t been enough time for such a deep infrastructural change from tribal to civic mode. Plus, what has happened is that the African economies have not industrialized – to enable them to produce enough food and goods to market. You cannot ignore the ecological realities; food production isn’t as reliable or as bountiful as in the rainfall agricultural of Europe.
Right – these African cultures were adapted to their environment but, like all tribal cultures, were focused around No-Growth, No-Change, Stability and thus, unable to adapt and change.
Your last paragraph sums up the problem very well, but wouldn’t you say that welfare enables that culture of failure to continue on?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/2661365.stm
Horses came to North America from all the way across the sea and the native Americans took to them and they became so natural I wonder how many Americans know horses are not native. Africa had more time and closer ways to do the same with any variety of animals.
Fail Burton – you are ignoring the ecology of Africa.
Where would horses and cattle, environmentally, survive? The ecological reality of the Plains of America, where horses brought from Europe did survive, is totally different from anywhere on Africa.
Are you aware of the vast rainforest terrain of Africa, where horses and cattle cannot survive because there’s no grasslands and because the heat and water will rot their hooves?
What about the savanna grasslands of Africa? Where there’s grass but severe seasonal dry periods – where the grass dies and there’s no water. The animals that live there must migrate – how do you deal with horses and cattle without water or grass? Does the farmer migrate?
And in Africa, there are, in the grasslands, packs of carnivores not found in America: lions, cheetahs, hyenas. The speed of cattle can’t match these predators.
Don’t ignore the realities of the environment; you can’t just transplant flora and fauna from one zone to another like you do your cell phone.
ETAB,
What about Zimbabwe? It was a food exporter until Mugabe went all Kim Jong on us.
And in Africa, there are, in the grasslands, packs of carnivores not found in America: lions, cheetahs, hyenas.
There used to be carnivores in America as well – wolves, bears, wildcats, etc. But in America, the people killed off the carnivores.
http://www.tigweb.org/youth-media/panorama/article.html?ContentID=26051
Great links, Bob. Thanks!
Check out R. Lee’s book on the ‘Dobe !Kung’, hunters and gatherers who live, as do all such economies, within the value of sharing.
But don’t be naive; there is no such thing as a purely peaceful human being; that’s because we are, each of us, particular or individual entities, and interact in a ‘push and pull’ manner with our environment and with others. Of course there are differences and arguments. The only beings that exist without such interactions are zombies.
we can see that median income is $81,214 in View Park-Windsor Hills but just $37,948 in Baldwin Hills-Crenshaw. Forty-five percent of the residents in View Park-Windsor Hills have at least a four-year college degree compared to 24.1 percent in Baldwin Hills-Crenshaw.
Yes, but which is more typical of black neighborhoods in general? In fact Baldwin Hills-Crenshaw is above the average for black neighborhoods in terms of income and education.
What you are doing here is basically identical to pointing to successful and law-abiding black individuals – Herman Cain, for instance – and saying “See, the existence of Herman Cain shows that the theory of biological differences is bunk”.
And it just doesn’t.
It’s not that easy to separate culture from race. I would not say that race determines culture, but it is certainly an important contributing factor to it.
I think I.Q. has a lot to do with it. If you have a bunch of feral retards running the asylum, things surely will run amok.
Go away.
No, Delia stays.
Young black males have a testosterone level some 18% higher than young white males. Couple this with a culture of single parents, drugs and an entitlement mentality fostered by fifty years of liberal propaganda and this is what you get….generations of violent, amoral predators.
Young black males have a testosterone level some 18% higher than young white males.
Doubtful. The best consensus view of studies into testosterone levels is that they do not vary much by race.
I have read several different slants on the testosterone factor, including that blacks process and react differently (release more under stimulus and re-absorb slower). I don’t know the truth. It would be nice to know the truth, but one thing I would definitely NOT rely on is the consensus.
1. We do not have enough data.
2. “We” don’t want the data.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3455741
This report gives the results of assays of circulating steroid hormone levels in white and black college students in Los Angeles, CA.
There’s the problem with that study. White college students get into college by being nerds, while black “college students” get into college by being jocks. It’s not surprising that the football and basketball teams show more testosterone than the chess club.
Studies which have looked at a broader cross section of the population have found no difference in testosterone levels.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17456570
Previous studies comparing hormone levels by race might have been limited by size, restricted age variation, or lack of representation of the general population. .. Contrary to the postulated racial difference, testosterone concentrations did not differ notably between black and white men.
The left hates cultural explanations because if you go that way, then you can attack their agendas, based on actions rather than being seen as racist.
For me anyone who hides behind group identity, claiming that are critics some sort of …ist, will get to help from me. They can call their favor baiter for help or even Obama. In the meantime, my cell is in my pocket.
And just how many Barbadoses are there? And how many Haitis? There are alot more Haitis than there are Barbadoses. Probably about 20 to one, e.g. about 1 well run black country for every 20 badly ones. That is the problem, not that there are differences among blacks as there are differences among whites. It is the big picture that is the problem, that Haiti is not unique, that it is Barbados that is unique.
Excellent point.
Much of the Muslim world is a turd world disaster too.
A lot of the differences between various former colonies depends on who colonized a particular country, and how things went during the independence process. Barbados was a British colony, wasn’t it? And of course, France’s crushing debt they imposed on Haiti (they had to buy their freedom from slavery) has had a lot to do with the way Haiti has turned out. And Spain, which had been under Moslem rule for so long, had very bad habits when it came to their own colonies. Former British colonies have mostly turned out okay, French have a mostly good record, South Africa seems to have done okay as a former Dutch colony. The Christian African countries, or countries where Christianity is tolerated, are faring better than the others I think. Brazil and I forget which other former Portuguese colonies are somewhere in the middle.
I agree with Officer Dunphy, culture is the real issue. Two important cultural factors are:
• locus of control (LOC)
• reproductive strategy
An internal LOC person believes their actions influence their outcomes, so an internal student might blame a poor test score on her lack of effort. An external LOC person believes that outside forces control their outcomes, so an external student might blame it on an unfair test.
Berry et al. (1992) point out that African Americans in the U.S. are more external (blame outside forces) than whites, even when socioeconomic status is controlled.
Reproduction. There are two basic reproductive strategies:
• have few children; invest much in them
• have many children; invest little in them
Take a look at the chart supplied by Spuds Lonigan to determine which ethnic group uses what strategy; it’s pretty obvious. Draw your own conclusions.
I attended the University of Chicago – and lived in the local neighborhood – for 8 years. Arriving as a 22 year old with virtually no prior exposure to a true urban environment, I was woefully unprepared to assess and address the very real risks to my life. Luck played a large part in my survival the first 5 years, a rottweiler the last 3.
AWM,
don’t distort the point I was trying to make. Teenage births have been going down dramatically for all groups. The rate for the black community is twice that of the white community, but is dropping at a much faster clip. Births to black teenagers have basically been halved since the 1990′s. I think any reasonable person would agree that teenagers of any ethnic background should generally not be having kids unless they are starring in a reality TV program.
Some people seem to think that social pathologies are written in concrete and can’t change. Those charts show something different.
I suspect that there’s some baseline of 10-20 births per 1000 teenage females per year that will prove difficult to reduce.
I also suspect that the reduction in crime we’ve seen nationally has something to do with those reduced rates throughout all ethnic communities. There’s also about another dozen or so major factors playing a role. Surprisingly unleaded gasoline and no lead in paint seems to be a major factor too.
If the decline in the black rate of teenage births continues at the current pace within a generation or a generation and a half the black teenage birth rate may match the white teenage birth rate. Right now the overall birth rate for black women is only slightly higher than for white women. That’s a change too. Black women do tend to have their children at an earlier age on average, but if the current trends continue that tendency will also be reduced.
I doubt the current momentum in the decline of the black teenage birth rate can me maintained. However, I do expect that birth rate to continue to decline over time just at a slower pace. I suspect that like losing weight earlier reductions are easier to achieve. That’s one prediction I won’t mind being wrong about. It would be great to live in a country where the teenage birth rate was essentially zero.
Once you get down to the dysfunctional hardcore of any group making changes is going to be extremely difficult.
I was largely celibate during my teenage years, but I was ugly and lacked social skills. Not much has changed, I know. Hard to knock up any girls when they avoid you.
Perhaps that’s the key to reducing the teen birth rate. Make teenage males as ugly and goofy as I was! Let’s get the Rand Institute and the Manhattan Institute to fund some studies!
Spuds, I get it, the trend is our friend. But year-in, year-out, the low birth groups are Whites and Asians, and the high birth groups are Blacks and Hispanics. I’m just suggesting that the chart reflects a cultural choice in reproductive strategies.
Cultural choice in birth strategies?
I think you’re placing too much emphasis on the word “strategies”. I doubt that when teenager H has his girlfriend bent over a boulder in the neighborhood park he’s thinking about anything strategic or anything regarding reproduction and preserving the “race”.
I vaguely recall having sex when I was younger and I can’t remember much more than wanting to grunt and then wait ten minutes and grunt again. And again. Ah, youth!
I don’t see group strategies coming into play as much as group pathologies and the absence of birth control. I know plenty of white girls whose mothers place them on the pill. Often they use the sometimes valid reason of reducing the pain of menstruation. In any case cultural choices and simply better economics may play a role in that.
The reduction in births among teenagers shows that positive changes can occur in reducing social pathology in a short time period. The idea that culture is immutable is BS.
I truly believe that focused educational campaigns and realistic views on birth control would greatly benefit this country. Teenagers are going to have sex. Even my ugly ass self managed to get laid when I was 19. Unlike certain members of the Secret Service I didn’t have to pay for it. Although, in fairness back in my Army days I recall some guys enjoying the services of working girls. To paraphrase General Patton “If they won’t @@@@ they won’t fight”.
If you accept that human beings are programmed by nature or the Creator to want to have sex then I think you should accept the need to plan on reducing the possibilities of unwanted pregnancies.
Abstinence education doesn’t work nearly as well as “the pill”.
I truly wonder what would happen to the birth rate if a male pill existed. I suspect that unwanted pregnancies would drop dramatically, but until that pill is available and widely used we’ll never know.
I have little doubt that a good number of women get pregnant “accidentally” on purpose. The biological urge to have children has been compared to drug addiction by many women.
I have no doubt that further drops in teen birth rates would dramatically reduce crime rates in the future. It’s better to shift childbearing to later years when young women and men are better able psychologically and financially to handle the responsibilities of child raising.
Spuds,
Birth control is widely available at low cost from Planned Parenthood. Yet Blacks and Hispanics have higher birth rates compared to Asians and Whites. Why? Because each group has a culturally accepted reproductive strategy, I’m respectfully suggesting.
Culture and attitudes toward reproduction are very intertwined — check out some African art or dance.
I grew up in the 1960′s in a liberal mixed, but mainly white, neighborhood. There was not one girl in high school who got pregnant, and back then high school girls didn’t have access to birth control like they do today. How could that happen?
It happened because a big cultural message was passed from parents to daughters: you’re going to college because you’ve got to support yourself, and if you get pregnant you’re going to ruin your life. Evidently it worked!
There were girls who got pregnant. They either disappeared to an aunt’s house or a convent, had a back alley abortion or they had a shot gun wedding. Adoption was much more common then. The social stigma of unmarried pregnancy was much greater then. Hell now the stigma has disappeared. That disappearance has good and bad effects.
As for Planned Parenthood in many areas of the country they can’t operate effectively. Try to open a Planned Parenthood in the bible belt. See what’s easier to open a strip club or a Planned Parenthood. The strip club will be allowed in some unincorporated areas and the Planned Parenthood will receive bomb threats. As for urban areas Planned Parenthoods are often located near major universities. They are seldom located in the ghettos.
For birth control to be effective it has to be convenient.
Sex was not invented in the sixties. For that matter mind altering drugs weren’t invented during that period. Well accept for LSD slightly earlier.
Years ago I did some research and was amazed at the history of mind altering drugs in this country.
Here’s a small example.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laudanum
We live in a nation of hypocrites and in many ways I have been a hypocrite and probably still am. I love the specter of Congressmen investigating the Secret Service over sex with hookers in Colombia. They should certainly begin a general investigation into Congressmen and Senators of both parties frequenting call girls when they’re done with that investigation.
It’s like being lectured on morality by Newt Gingrich or Bill Clinton. It’s both amusing and pathetic. I’m not particularly fond of Governor Romney or President Obama, but I would be amazed if either of them has any sexual indiscretions since getting married. One thing they both have in common besides ample egos is enormous self discipline.
In any case I hope that in the future teen birth rates continue to drop. I think we can agree on that.
Delia is right, I’m afraid.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/19/south-africa-alleged-rape-disabled
Why are you encouraging that lunatic?
Who has the time – and misspent energy – to comment on every single comment?
That said, many of the comments on this and other PJM blogs are very smart and contribute to the discussion…
One person’s lunatic is another person’s race realist, Jeannette.
I don’t post as Dear God. I don’t have a problem with you and Delia posting your views; you both do a wonderful job of illustrating what kind of people you are. (Except that I don’t click on your links. It’s probably just going to confirm my opinion of you.)
It is absolutely culture.
Dyscers (pronounced “disc er”) i.e. people who subscribe to a DYsfucnctional SubCulture make up a significant portion of the black community (I think it is a minority, but perhaps as high as 40%) and a growing portion of the white community. These “dysc”ers buy in to a set of faulty tools to handling life. They drink too much, use drugs, can’t speak a sentence without a cuss word word, much less speak “business” english. They favor tattoos and body piercing because they idolize gang culture as spread through rap, and music that has lyrics which denigrate women, and respect for the rule of law. They try to pull down anyone who speaks well and has a large vocabulary and grasp of proper grammar. Anyone who does well in school is a target to be bullied, ridiculed or ostracized rather than emulated. At home they do not have a dictionary nor any books extolling virtues, heroism, science or history. They often are exposed to dangerous people passing through their single parent’s life. They do not attend church. They watch cynics on tv, play violent video games and watch their parent get high and scheme to get something for nothing. They never volunteer to help anyone, but will gladly skip school to attend a protest.
Race, skin color, ancestry is irrelevant; culture is almost everything when it comes to success or failure in life.
Indeed. And exactly why the Left considers any African-American not a REAL ‘black’ if they fail to walk, talk and act like a culturally ‘black’ person.
As a black woman growing up in Detroit, I have seen full well the nightmare of having a city run by blacks in a majority black city. Even though I grew up very poor, I managed to escape Detroit and move to a majority white city where I am treated with utmost respect and dignity and I don’t have to fear for my life. I don’t believe there is such a thing as a black culture. Blacks have more of a counter culture that embraces all of the worst rather than the best traits. I am married to an Asian man because I refused to get with a black man. I am afraid black men are a complete failure in America and Africa too. The few successful black men want white women as trophies, so black women like me feel there’s really no chance to have a decent black husband and we choose men outside of our race because we don’t have much of a choice. What intelligent black woman wants to procreate with a thug idiot? The black women who get with those men and pop out babies are an embarrassment to women like me. SMDH
God bless you. I’m afraid you’re a rarity amongst black women. You probably know that though.
One of my programming projects just over a decad ago was developing some data-mining tools for the Long Beach PD to help them do just this kind of crime hot-spot analysis, with the aim of being able to detect shifts as early as possible and get out in front of them.
Thomas Sowell has written several volumes about the importance of cultural differences, and there are economic histories which have essentially that same focus.
I must note that, for most people, ancestry is a factor in culture. Of course, it can be disrupted, e.g. by the public school systems, illfare systems… for better or worse.
Actual abstinence works much better than “the pill”.
Retired WA state police sarge here. I can appreciate Dunphy’s delicate handling of this situation. As a black man, I can attest to the fact the feral black males are a real problem vis-à-vis crime stats and overall criminality in general. Even though most police officers don’t admit to it because of the fear of being called racists, all men in blue (no matter the color) profile and we especially profile young black males and young black Hispanics.
As a black man growing up, my mother was widowed when my brothers and I were quite young and she had to rear us the best she could without a male figure in our lives. She was courageous and did a heroic job and churning out some very decent black men. Unfortunately, I see less and less of this scenario with other black males. Most black male youths I encountered over the last twenty years have come from single mothers who are drug addicts, welfare addicts and usually have children by more than one man.
I’m not going to win any popularity contests by saying this, but I lay this squarely on the shoulders of black women who refuse to keep their legs closed and insist on marital bonds before babies.
I’ve also noticed a sharp increase in black female violence and acting out which is abhorrent and egregiously accepted by other black youths as seen on websites like WorldStarHipHop. I will never understand the ballsy braggadocio of some thugs who actually record this criminal behavior and then boldy post it online for all to see (including law enforcement). There is a certain level of stupid that just makes you shake your head in dismay.
I’m also going to say something else that is apparently unpopular here, and that is that i.q. does seem to play a role. I believe that people with lower i.q.s have a harder time with delaying gratification and thusly are more apt to have sex earlier and more frequently. It’s a vicious cycle when young black females spread for young black thugs and give birth to babies who have an EBT card as their father figure. It’s tragic to see in every day life. I’ve tried to reach out to many of these black youths only to be completely and utterly disgusted at the hopelessness of it all. These young black males and also some females do not want to better their lives. They see America as a giant handout and only a handout. They don’t have any ambition to improve.
I’m still trying to volunteer my time to black youths but I have to say, the future looks bleak for them. Without any true supervision or guidance these ignorant and dangerous kids are going to be a frightening force to be reckoned with. Many of them can’t even read. What kind of parent allows their child to be completely illiterate? What kind of teacher pushes a child through k-12 without being able to read a street sign?
I’ve grown weary of my black brethren. I tell my sons to avoid black youths in groups. How tragic is that?
Something needs to be done to improve this situation. What? I do not know any longer.
Only God can help at this point, I think. Maybe Trayvon will be a turning point because now we all know what he REALLY looked like, we know what “skittles” and “T” are, and we all know that I probably wouldn’t be afraid if I saw you at night, even if you were wearing a hoodie. Or your sons, or my nephews, because it isn’t race. My family is about as mixed-race as they come; between my husband and I and our children and nieces and nephews, we are European mutts, and Filipino, Thai, African-American, Cherokee, First People (isn’t that what they call Canadian Indians?). We’re pretty smart and we’ve mostly had kids with smart people. The kids who have done the best are from married parents (part-Asian, and part African-American). The one who’s struggling the most is from my brother’s relationship with an alcoholic, lesbian Cherokee. She’s managing a whole lot better than any of us hoped because she’s very intelligent. In between are the white kids and the youngest part-African-American nephew; he was still at home when his parents divorced, and now he’s wearing baggy pants and has two kids from two different women. Do you think his 3/4 white son will do any better than the 1/4 white one? (hint: the white mom is crazy).
One thing I suspect is a problem: Teachers, especially young ones, don’t know how to teach boys. Any parent who’s been in a parent-teacher conference for his son will tell you how much they wanted to strangle the teacher “Oh, if only he could sit still, then he’d be okay, but he won’t do our cooperative games” Look, if my son could sit still for “cooperative learning” with only the 15 minutes of (county minimum) recess, he’d be a GIRL. Boys need death-match competition learning and an hour of full contact recess. We make our white-Filipino boys suffer through it, but it’s just not working for kids on the wrong side of town
This was a far better analysis I believe than the article itself. You sir, are a Paladin.
My compliments sergeant. I would be honored to have a beer with a man like you. And to call you friend. And brother.
Hey Sarge, thanks for the post. It’s tough being an individual and resisting group-think. I’m thankful for people like you who value the truth so highly.
Anecdotal data meets bogus statistical analysis. PJM should do a better job when a hot topic meets a hack.
That’s all you got, son?
You’re gonna shout down the discussion?
Maybe it’s a “hot topic” because it’s time to have a national discussion.
Dunphy openly – and rightly – refutes Derbyshire’s racial intelligence theories.
But there’s more than enough data available to critique a Culture of Death, Prison and Failure.
He controls for NOTHING. It’s bogus crap statistics that are unworthy of PJM.
Draw ANY conclusion at your peril.
Now, now. The man must have spent a lot of time assembling those bogus crap statistics and probably needed several visits to a chiropractor at the finish, so show a little respect.
I know it’s not PC to say so but there is a correlation between race and culture.
Careful there, FeralCat…your treading in dangerous waters.
Race is a social construct, well, except for when someone has sickle cell anemia or a specific disease known only to a certain race. Then, race is no longer a construct. Shhh.
Mums the word, Bobcat.
Feral Cat – who cares about PC? What is of concern is empirical, factual reality. And, empirically, factually, there is NO correlation between ‘race’ and ‘culture’.
I suggest that you define ‘race’. My own view is that we are all one species, homo sapiens; that there is no such thing as different races; we are one race (homo sapiens) and the different variations of skin color, hair, height, body fat etc, are all irrelevant. That’s because we can interbreed and pass these genes along to our ‘mixed race’ descendants. Most certainly, populations that inbreed can develop common genes (such as hair color, height, disease tendencies etc)..but, these can be passed on within interbreeding with other groups. So ‘race’ is not a closed entity but open.
And of course, there is no correlation of any of these body types to IQ. Remember, IQ is not a group characteristic, ever, but an individual characteristic.
Culture is a social or group construct and has primarily developed out of historical adaptations to the realities of our ecological environment – that is, the environmental realities in which we must economically and socially live. You can’t grow wheat in the Arctic; you can only hunt – and that means that the size of your population will be low, your lifestyle will be based around the hunt and the animals in the area..and so on.
Culture is vital, for our species is the only one born without knowledge; we have to learn how to survive. Did you know that literacy is not a ‘sign of’ intellect but of population size? You don’t need literacy (which stores knowledge) in a society with a small population. It’s only when you get in the multiple hundred thousands that a society requires some kind of mnemonic means of storing its knowledge. Nothing to do with IQ!
All peoples, however, have language – and it is interesting that diversity of language seems to appear. How can it be that in the UK, for example, people speaking in towns 50 miles apart, have different accents? Use different words? Interesting how people merge into groups and groups move into differentiation from other groups.
Ibba temba tooba agreeba wibba da etabba. Ebonics ibba myba lingadingabubbadubb.
Like you know do be, do be, do.
Frankly, and we must be honest here, I can find little logic in all your verbosity. Shake off the bondage of the mind of political correctness and you will feel much better. It worked for me anyway.
Nope – I’m not entrapped in any ideology; either the ideology of PC or the ideology of race-as-causal. I stick to science, which means: empirical evidence.
1) You have no evidence that there is such a thing as distinct ‘races’ among the human population – distinct by virtue of genetic attributes that are unchanged by reproduction;
2) You have no evidence that the physical attributes of differentiation among the human population (skin color, body type etc) are related to intelligence;
3) You have no evidence that IQ is a group phenomenon rather than an individual attribute;
4) You have no evidence that a population can, as a collective, live if the majority are ‘below average’ in IQ.
5) You have no evidence that beliefs and behavior are genetic rather than cultural.
6) You don’t s eem to have any knowledge about history, about ecology, about different cultural practices and how they developed – and how they can become dysfunctional.
Therefore, your comments that ignore these scientific facts are pure hogwash opinion.
You have no evidence that the physical attributes of differentiation among the human population (skin color, body type etc) are related to intelligence
There is an abundance of evidence that “the physical attributes of differentiation among the human population … are related to intelligence”. In fact intelligence is just one of the “physical attributes of differentiation among the human population”.
The belief that all people come in different bodies but share identical brains is the scientifically absurd one.
“Frankly, and we must be honest here, I can find little logic in all your verbosity.” Noooooooo, really? lol
FeralCat, ETAB is trying to prove his point by playing an idiot who knows how to write well.
So lame.
As Groucho would say, he is looking for trouble, finding it everywhere and then misapplying the wrong remedies.
This link is for Delia’s nefarious detractors:
http://www.csvr.org.za/wits/papers/paplvsl.htm
The pablum of soft sell PC utter BS shall continue henceforth…
Gud ‘n, Slappy!
This is not a scientific paper. Sheesh – look at the definition of rape (sexual coercion) – which is a sloppy and ambiguous and subjective term. Look at the lack of verifiable statistics, look at the premise that rape is endemic everywhere (not just among ‘blacks’); look at the references, which include newspapers, which don’t supply hard data and definitions.
You are entrapped within ideology, the haven of the left, and refuse to deal with real hard scientific facts.
And, empirically, factually, there is NO correlation between ‘race’ and ‘culture’.
I can only conclude that you do not know what the words “empirically” and “factually” mean.
Based on observation of the world we live in (which is to say, empirically) we can say that race and culture are connected. The culture of black populations in Africa and the culture of black populations in America is remarkably similar to one another and distinct from the culture of non-black’s.
Jaycen, Etab & Jeannette need to form a 12-step group for people who are addicted to twelve step groups.
Jaycen, don’t roid rage on me, brah!
Delia, you are slipping into the typical default mode of the left: personal insults.
Stick to the issues and deal only with empirical evidence and logical analysis. Don’t move into personal attacks against those with whom you disagree. Counter their views with empirical evidence and analysis – not personal insults.
So far, you have failed to define ‘race’; your definition of IQ as group based is false; your claim of beliefs and behavior as genetically determined is not supported by evidence. All you’ve given us are your opinions and insults. That’s not an argument!
Did you actually view the youtube links I provided about I.Q. and race?
No?
Well, all I have to say to you from now on is:
*RASPBERRIES!*
I don’t think the number of murders reflects what we’re interested in. More like assaults on strangers, say. There may be southern areas where people are hot-headed, get in family feuds, and sometimes let it lead to murder, but wouldn’t bother a stranger walking down the street. Part of that Derbyshire story was estimating how hostile people are to you who have never seen you before, and I’ll bet this murder of the Chinese students is in that category. I’ll bet their wallets weren’t taken. So even a neighborhood that in the past had dealers killing each other with a profit motive, might have more aimless menace now.
People didn’t seem to take into account, in that original article, that those crime statistics reflect the fact that a lot of white people are ALREADY avoiding those neighborhoods, and the numbers would be way up if they didn’t.
Brilliant observation!
Just imagine if white people were really, really stupid beyond belief and dared to walk into an all black neighborhood unprepared for the…’black youths’?
I completely concur with you that if whites were prone to be self-defeating idiots who wandered into bad black/Hispanic ‘hoods’ more often, the black/Hispanic on white crime would be through the roof.
Of course, white people are racist for not wanting to die by a bullet or a knife or be raped by a black thug.
Uh huh.
Delia, your simplistic reduction of crime to skin color or ethnicity ignores some basic facts.
First, you are totally ignoring the cultural infrastructure of neighborhoods, which can be closed ghettoes, with their own sets of beliefs, behavior. Any person who enters, even as a new resident, must conform or be ‘outed’. This includes anyone of any skin color/ethnicity. A black youth who tries to counter the prevailing culture of ‘no school, no work’ will get beaten up.
Second, you are ignoring that people ‘cluster’ in groups and will reject any individualism within the group (where a young black boy won’t dare to counter the prevailing culture in his area). This is valid within any community; bullies and peer pressure is found everywhere. What about white gangs, hispanic gangs, asian gangs?
Please provide us with some empirical evidence (not opinion pieces from self-published articles without hard data or newspapers) that defines behavior and beliefs as genetically determined.
In the debate about nature vs. nurture it may be best to accept a degree of ambiguity if for nothing else except common decency and a shared metaphysical belief in the notion that “All men are created equal.” I believe we must take that position to honor the black people who contribute so much to our culture and have contributed in the past; and to my personal friends who are black.
I can understand Delia’s point of view however. There are very disturbing statistics about comparative crime rates, academic achievement and other factors which cause concern and which just cannot be resolved in a calm scientific manner. It may be better not to try. For example, black kids raised in households where parents are successful professionals appear to do more poorly than whites in school. You might expect poor performance from kids raised in inner cities by single parents who may be drug addicts, but for kids raised in homes where both parents are college graduates to do consistently worse is mysterious and troubling.
At the same time there’s the weight of emotional experience, which though not data, is a factor that cannot be ignored. When I lived in an urban area almost every crime that I witnessed or that occurred in proximity to where I lived was committed by a black person. One begins to to notice those things. One learns to avoid black neighborhoods, not only because of the statistics, but because of the vibe. Now I don’t really care about whether genetics has anything to do with it or not. I believe that a principled position is that does not. There are probably other explanations. I don’t care. I learned long ago that reason is not the only survival tool, that common sense and intuition are vital to staying alive, and if race factors in, so be it.
Basil – thanks for your very thoughtful post.
The problems I have with such an argument, and it is a constructive argument, is in the definitions and the link of these definitions to causality.
That is, how can we genetically, define a ‘race’? We know there are multiple variations of the physical attributes of all of those with a reasonably similar skin color. Now, can we find a genetic determinism among all those with a skin color that is ‘reasonably black’ (acknowledging that there are many, many variations of this skin color even before intermarriage with whites)…that relates to anti-social behavior, that relates to inability to exist as a people?
The problem is – I don’t think we can do this. All black skinned peoples have been able to survive, as societies, in their original terrain. They made highly effective adaptations to the ecological terrain, and became skilled hunters, or gatherers, or basic horticulturalists (without the plough), or pastoral nomads. They lived and survived, in a healthy state, for centuries. This means that they did NOT have to deal with excessive anti-social or criminal behavior within their societies.
So- can we conclude that there is no ‘racially determined gene for anti-social behavior’?
I certainly agree with you about the predominance of blacks in crime in the US and the West, and it of course has nothing to do with the police targeting blacks; it’s real and carried out by blacks. And the reality of low academic skills, the reality of the collapse of the black family. All of these are not opinions but can be shown within statistical evidence.
My point is that I don’t think it’s genetic, I think it’s social- and these normative beliefs and behavior can be as embedded within a community as can a gene. It takes at least three generations to change a mode of life.
After all, the many thousands of convicts shipped off from the UK to Australia did not result in Australia being the crime nation of the world.
And by the way, common sense and even intuition are critical aspects of ‘reasoning’.
Again, thanks for your post.
I think where Derbyshire crossed the line was in opining based on his collected facts.
There is a Bible verse that, in effect, says, “if you see trouble coming on the road, cross to the other side.”
No need to be more specific than that.
Trouble can come in all colors.
There are plenty of cues that a situation is trouble.
I really appreciate this officer’s personal experiences that he shares along with all those dry facts.
In answer to Jack’s question – what would I tell an entering freshman? Look at the houses on the streets where you want to live and in the neighborhoods you need to walk/drive through to get to class, the market or laundromat. If it looks like the people who live there have pride in their neighborhoods, it is probably a good place to settle.
I worked in the very neighborhoods Jack worked (So. LA, Downtown and the Valley) for 35 years. There is a visible difference between neighborhoods – I used it when I worked and when I was looking for a new home (I am one of the rare breed who worked and lived in The City). I didn’t look at the color of a person’s skin – heck I had not even seen the person yet. But I had a pretty good idea about his/her culture as evidenced by what they and their neighbors told the visiting public about their neighborhood.
When I drive into a neighborhood I look at the streets, sidewalks and front yards. If the streets are lined with parked cars (in addition to those in the driveways and maybe on the front lawn); the gutters and sidewalks are strewn with litter; and, the front yards are unkempt, the people living in that area (regardless of race) have no concern for the value of their property and no “civic pride.” On the other hand, clean yards, sidewalks and cars parked in garages or driveways, indicates a neighborhood that cares about its property and how they “look” to the rest of the world. They have pride in themselves and their community. Not surprisingly, this positive attitude, or lack thereof, is evident in the residents’ dealings with the police and in all their affairs.
I recall, as a young patrol officer, a small residential area in my basic car area. This neighborhood was bounded east and west by Figueroa and Vermont, north and south by 74th and 82nd streets. It was a pride-filled neighborhood surrounded by growing urban decay. The residents owned and maintained their property. We rarely had a call in the area, other than when they were victims of a burglary or vehicle theft. Unlike other neighborhoods in my car’s area, when we arrived we were welcomed and thanked for our service. We were regularly invited to and attended neighborhood block parties and other community events. As one resident told me, this was his home and neighborhood and he was not going to let the thugs nearby win. I’m sad to say, he was wrong. Over the years, the owner-occupied homes became rentals and those rentals soon became rent-subsidized properties. The properties were not maintained by the new residents and the distant landlords stopped caring as long as the government checks kept rolling in.
When it comes to culture – those who own or have a personal stake in the community (renters who pay their own bills) will have a positive attitude toward life and proudly display it in the way they maintain themselves and their belongings. Those to whom everything is given and nothing is earned, only care about when the next hand-out is coming. This has nothing to do with race and has everything to do with a culture of pride and accomplishment. The sooner government embraces a culture shift — ending the practice of providing subsistence living and getting into the business of demanding those in need “earn” their keep while receiving assistance and working toward self-sufficiency — the sooner you will see a positive culture shift in neighborhoods, communities and cities.
That people only appreciate that which they earn versus what is simply given to them is a fundamental element of human nature that most everyone is aware of, including these blasted libtard policymakers who have been instrumental in breaking down the nuclear family, particularly that of the black community. One can pretty safely assume, IMO, that this has been deliberate on their part. All they care about is power. The fact that most in the black community has yet to wake up to this doesn’t serve to give me much faith that, generally speaking, they are too bright. Empirical evidence be damned.
…
hashave…..Excellent post. Sage advice.
When people don’t have to earn their keep or take care of and work to pay for their own dwellings, the housing crumbles.
My husband witnessed this on Indian Reservations, where the Indians were given free housing and it would be trashed within a few years and the government would rescue and rebuild the homes with state tax dollars. They literally turned their new homes into slums in a matter of a few years to the point where they in such ‘condemned’ shape that they needed to be razed and rebuilt on the same foundations! It’s the same deal with a lot of Section-8 housing.
The welfare spigot needs to be shut off except for the truly needy. The cargo cult of the EBT and free housing is ruining entire generations of people from all races.
Excellent post, Retired D3, and in my view, absolutely accurate analysis of the problem in black (and native) communities.
The socialist leftist tactic of insisting that these people are ‘victims’ (of evil western white men); and must be maintained, kept, subsidized, has effectively removed the self-respect, the individual will to succeed, to sustain themselves and their families from these communities. Subsidizing single parent ‘families’, effectively enabling people to live as a lifestyle by having multiple children from multiple absentee fathers, breaking down the ethics of the nuclear family – all of this is a basic cause of the dysfunctional black culture in America.
Frankly, the people who can stop this denigration of these communities (black, natives) – is the inhabitants themselves. They have to reject the label of ‘we are victims’, reject welfare, subsidies, and the constant demand for ‘payback’. People like Sharpton, Jackson and the rest of that Black Caucus and gang are destructive. People like Sowell, West – they are speaking out against this culture, only to be rebutted and denigrated by the Black Liberal Theology set followed by Obama.
As Delia points out (and for once I agree with her), it’s exactly the same on native reservations.
Therefore, hem, it’s not genetic, it’s cultural. And the govt has to stop the welfare culture – and the black and native communities have to reject this welfare culture.
ETAB. Did you go to either junior high (now called middle school) or high school with blacks? Have you for any reason ever visited inner-city black neighborhoods? Why do I ask? It puzzles me as to why it is you seem to rely so much on “empirical evidence” to back up your position here rather than going by what one’s eyes & ears tell them.
*crickets*
ETAB is a mystery wrapped in a riddle popping out of a clown car honking his red nose and squirting people in the eye with his trick lapel flower.
There you go yet again, Delia, moving into personal insults. Are you unable to develop an argument, unable to provide anything other than your own personal subjective opinions and insults? That’s the default position of the left – no facts, no logic, just insults. Very immature.
What? I’m not afraid of clowns!
BTW, watch the archived c-span video I just posted below if you have the guts.
No, Delia, videos and assertions aren’t evidence. Insults aren’t an argument.
You refuse to engage in any kind of valid debate, and just ‘preach’. Heh, this is just like those ‘on the other side’ who preach their Black Liberation Theology, who preach the victimization of blacks and natives – you ‘talk the same talk’ as they do…without evidence, without analysis, just your opinions.
I’ve asked, and you don’t answer>
-What is the definition of ‘race’?
-Can you provide statistical evidence that links beliefs to genetic causes?
-Can you provide statistical evidence that links behavior to genetic causes?
After all, the famous warning that ‘correlation does not equal causation’ is relevant here. Because a black community is filled with crime does not mean that it’s genetically caused.
Why don’t you move out of the default position of personal insults and anecdotal and video ‘support’, and critically examine your claims? Be accountable for your assertions. Anyone can attempt to ‘win’ an argument by cherry picking videos and by insulting anyone who disagrees – but that’s just juvenile. That’s exactly how ‘these people’, the permanent victims, behave. They too reject accountability; they too simply resort to insults.
If you watched the VIDEO, I would be more apt to engage you in a conversation about race and criminality.
I’m done with you. Argue with someone else out of your clown arse.
ETAB. Why did you not answer my questions?
bobbcat – yes to both of your questions. In fact, I now live about two blocks from a ‘govt housing project’ on one side (including a few veiled women) and about three blocks from a large low rental project on the other – noted for its drugs and crime. I see ‘them’ all the time, with the slouch, and the pants around the knees and ..etc. My own little neighborhood is in the midst of this, and all domains somehow keep themselves separate.
But I never, ever, rely on only my own strictly personal anecdotal experience. I’m only one person, with my limited experience (even if ‘they’ are all around me), and if I don’t want to be biased, I have to expand my knowledge base beyond myself and what I see.
That’s why I insist, for myself, on more evidence from more people – and not just anecdotal, but statistical evidence. Statistical evidence includes: family structure, number of children, work history, criminal history, educational history, income, rent or own and so on and so on. Anecdotal evidence doesn’t provide me – or anyone – with that perspective.
I also work only from accurate definitions, ie, what does one mean by ‘race’? Can you link a belief/behavior to a genetic cause? etc..
Oops. Your response, NTS, was not there when I posted above. Thank you for your response. I am not sure it’s all that useful in a practical sense to know whether or not a given set of behavior patterns are genetically linked. I do prefer the use of the term “culture” over that of “race” in reference to these behavior patterns whether or not they predominate among a particular race of people or not, as it really is “culture” we are discussing. I recall learning in a world history course that African blacks do not care, generally speaking, for American blacks. Surely this points to cultural differences (yes, that was pointed out in the course as well).
Bottome line? It’s disturbing to me that the black community has yet to devise a way to solve its problems on its own. It’s disturbing to me that anyone who calls attention to this is labelled either a “racist” or an “uncle Tom,” depending of course on skin color. I am not at all sure sorting out what the empirical evidence shows or what the genetic factors indicate is of any particular value in the quest to solve the black community’s problems. One certainly cannot blame anyone for losing patience with all the BS that surrounds the issue of race relations in this country. Frankly, I’d love to see them herd all these thug types up & put them into a tent city somewhere & let them sort it all out. Meantime, I long for black leaders to emerge who want to help the black community expunge these losers from their midst despite knowing it’s not about to happen. Methinks some things cannot happen until things change in people’s minds & hearts & I don’t know what it will take to bring something like that about.
bobbcat – thanks for your reply. I think that it’s vital to consider whether a belief or behavior is genetically determined.
For example, Delia considers that IQ is group based and is genetically determined within the group; this is entirely without scientific evidence, but, such a view, if accepted by a govt, guides legislative decisions. That was certainly the case in Europe, when farmers and people in manual labor were considered genetically unable to analyze, think, be doctors, lawyers, etc.
And so, were not allowed to vote. Same with the women’s vote; women were considered, genetically, unable to think as well as men…
Delia also considers that beliefs and behavior are considered genetic; this was also the mindset of many in the 17th and earlier centuries, and so, people were considered ‘conquerable’ because they were ‘uncivilized’. I consider such opinions ignorant and unfounded.
‘Race’ means that your beliefs and behavior are genetically determined. They can’t be changed.
‘Culture’ means that your beliefs and behavior are culturally or socially determined. They can be changed; it’s difficult to change culturally embedded beliefs because we all live within ‘normative patterns of what is right and wrong’ and we don’t change these easily. It takes decades and even generations.
I fully agree with your being fed up with the failure and refusal of the black community leaders to move out of the Victim Culture (as expounded by such as the ‘Rev’ Wright, and Sharpton and Jackson and etc)..and insist on the black communities ‘growing up’ and out of the welfare lifestyle. I’m sure you’ve heard what Allan West has said about this, and he’s great.
At the moment, the black welfare lifestyle and community is a huge govt business, a political empire, with its own elitist leaders living off the victim economy. It’s disgraceful, it’s a waste of money and lives – and I agree with your views on this.
Heritability of IQ will always be a contentious hotbed because of political correctness.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9242404
If some people are born stupid and violent and of a certain color more consistently than other races, that is an untouchable subject.
Why? You can’t fix stupid.
By GOD, America has tried though (and failed).
“I think that it’s vital to consider whether a belief or behavior is genetically determined.”
Suppose for the sake of argument, several groups launch studies that show a particular group of people, based on race, is genetically less intelligent than other races. I cannot think of a better means than that to concoct rationales to support the practice of bigotry. In a scenario such as this, not only do such studies have little practical value but are downright dangerous. Just imagine what sorts of things people would be suggesting. How about “stop having kids.” Genocide perhaps?
Genetic studies within the realm of physiology & pathology make sense, as they serve to help us better deal with health maintenance & the proper handling of & treatment for diseases. Wandering into the realm of psychology (which of course includes what governs behavior patterns) to a large degree is virgin territory, as psychology is a very inexact science.
NTS, I don’t think any of the above should be the focus in any effort to help the black community turn itself around.
Actually, Delia, GROUP-BASED inheritance of IQ, which is what you support, is a contentious subject not because of political correctness but because there is absolutely no scientific proof of such a thing.
IQ is individual and never group-based. What is interesting is that it always tends to ‘revert’ to the medium, the average (100). You can get a high IQ parent and the children may or may not have high IQs and are more statistically found to be somewhere in the mid range.
Genetic causality of various physical attributes in populations is an extremely difficult scientific research area. The genes may be recessive for generations; they may be triggered only by links with other genes; and, it is difficult to isolate a population from genetic drift from other populations.
Genetic causality of beliefs and behavior is totally and absolutely without any scientific evidence. You have, by the way, been asked to provide this and have failed to do so – and anecdotes and videos are not science.
bobbcat – in reply to your hypothetical study of several groups studying and concluding that race IS related to intelligence, my problem with this is, well, yes the result (genocide? selective culling?) but really, my problem is with several of the assumptions.
1) Assumption 1 – that there IS such a thing as ‘distinct races’. I reject this because we are all one species (homo sapiens), with various heritable physiological differences (height, weight, body mass, skin color etc). Since these variations can intermarry, then, I reject the notion of distinct races.
2) Assumption 2 – that our species, homo sapiens, has an inherited intelligence. The problem I have with this – apart from the lack of proof – is that our species uniquely develops its knowledge base within its culture. That is, each ‘peoples’ or societies develop ‘how to live’. These are all basically functional lifestyles – whether in a hunting and gathering, a horticultural, a pastoral nomadic or industrial economy. All peoples develop language and each language is fully functional.
There is no such thing, as Delia believes, of a people living with a below standard intelligence; they’d simply never be able to have survived.
AND, all peoples, because they develop their knowledge, thereby have the capacity to change this knowledge base.
So, I simply cannot be persuaded that there is such a thing as ‘distinct races’ and such a thing as intelligence linked to group-based ‘race’. There is no scientific evidence for such a conclusion.
I certainly support all the conclusions that the black community has established itself in a victim culture, a welfare culture, and that the political and social worker bureaucracy that feeds off this mindset is enormous, parasitic and focused only on their own wealth and power. This is a cultural development; not a genetic trait.
“I reject this because we are all one species (homo sapiens), with various heritable physiological differences (height, weight, body mass, skin color etc). Since these variations can intermarry, then, I reject the notion of distinct races.”
This is like rejecting the concept that there are different breeds of dog. They are all the same species. Any breed can be bred with any other & puppies will be produced. To my knowledge, no one has suggested that we refer to the different races of people as “breeds;” however, to do away with the custom of referring to the different types of dog as “breeds” would be absurd. Sorry, ETAB, but you’re stuck with the term “race,” as legitimate & credible in the lexicon as a means to discern people based on their skin color or other race-specific features.
Great post, bobbcat.
The ‘black leaders’ of the ‘black community’ are the worst of the worst race-baiting scuzzballs. The few decent black men are usually called “Uncle Toms” for bringing a stern voice to black folks about the bad behavior. Most of them refuse a stoic black father figure who sets them straight. It’s as if black males as father figures are some sort of mythological creature at best or considered some non-existent bogeyman at worst. Since when was a father figure something to be reviled? Look what the fatherless children of all races suffer from? Is this not tragic?
I used to be a very libtarded woman. I opened my doors to two strapping, young, strange black men, I let them inside my home and wrote them a check for magazines that ‘never came’. I’m thankful I only got ripped-off and not raped or murdered. I was quite the fool back then. Never again.
Reading both this article and the paean to “In Living Color” in the same week has me wanting to ask you: did you get magazines for the entire block? (Think of the Black Lucy/White Ethyl I Love Lucy riff)
ROTFL!!!!!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMNimHhPl5I
Classics!
The Perils of Diversity
Dick E. Normous? Really? LOL!
Good link though. Thanks. I read it.
From C-Span archives:
http://www.c-spanarchives.org/program/ID/128178
that link be rayciss. i knows for a fakt that all blaks be gentle an non vilent. da wite mens be keppin a blak man down. we be owde rappa rations.
Oh c’mon. That was bad. Funny but poorly executed. lol
I had this friend, when he’d see a flashy pimpmobile tooling down the street with speakers booming he’s say, “It’s only racism that’s keeping them down.”
Very informative video. I hope ETAB watches it & weighs in. It really is too bad the civil rights legislation was accompanied by LBJ’s horrid “great society” policies. If it were not for that, we’d probably not be having this discussion. But those wicked libs looked at all those blacks & saw “votes.” The rest of course is history.
The ‘great society’ [i.e. gub'ment as DADDY] has been horrible for all races but especially so for minorities.
If the culture is causal of crime, and not race, that’s a good thing, because culture can be changed, but race can’t, right?
But two generations of indoctrinating everyone that all cultures are to be accorded the same level of respect, and no culture is to be accorded any criticism, makes changing culture as impossible as changing race.
America does have a terrible racism problem, but it’s not the George Wallace style of “segregation now, segregation forever”. Rather, it’s those whose power and livelihood depend on “protecting” certain races and punishing, which is euphemistically called “fair share”, other races. That problem begins at the top, with the President and his “my people” Attorney General and filters down to the lesser race hustlers Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson.
Dunphy’s analysis is right, but changes nothing.
Exactly right analysis. Many thanks.
The multiculturalist, PC, view that ‘all cultures are equal’ and all must be accepted as they are and treated with respect is garbage – and is the foundation of the refusal and inability and rejection by the black community to move out of Being-A-Victim Who is Entitled..and into self-responsibility.
And the top-down parasites who have developed this mindset, who maintain it as a ‘distinct culture’ and this does indeed include Obama and Holder..and Wright and Sharpton and etc…they are heavily politically involved in keeping black communities hapless and dependent – and voting for Them.
Just so it’s clear that it’s not only the culture that Dunphy points at as causal of crime that’s a problem, there are numerous other examples. Why does present day illegal immigration have very obvious direction vectors? The answer is because one culture is an economic failure, and another culture is an economic success.
Go back even further. Look at my last name. My great-grandparents left Palermo a century ago because it was a failed culture, and America was the great cultural success.
Go back more centuries. Why is it called the “Protestant work ethic” and not any other? It’s because all the Catholic countries of southern Europe, including that of my ancestors, were content with unrelenting poverty. It suited all the authorities, temporal and spiritual, just fine. But English Protestants came up with a formula of praising God and generating wealth. And all of us, from all points on the globe, continue to benefit from that culture today, even though many of us are doing everything possible to destroy it.
If the culture is causal of crime, and not race, that’s a good thing, because culture can be changed, but race can’t, right?
But two generations of indoctrinating everyone that all cultures are to be accorded the same level of respect, and no culture is to be accorded any criticism, makes changing culture as impossible as changing race.
AMEN.
Thanks Dunphy…I sure hope when you retire that your identity will become known..I want to come to your retirement party and buy you and Irish Whiskey.
The author gives us data showing that race alone cannot account for the difference in homicide rates between two adjacent, racially similar communities. He suggests that differences in culture explain the differences in homicide rates, and shows that the low homicide group has higher incomes and a lower rate of single parent families.
I suggest that the psychological concept of locus of control explains the thought process that result in these cultural differences:
• The low homicide group believes that individual effort and choice improve one’s life (internal locus of control), therefore, they make choices that will increase their income, including having two-parent families.
• The high homicide group believes that outside forces (racism, poverty) dominates their lives, and that they personally have little influence over their lives (external locus of control). Since they have little influence over their own lives, personal effort and choice are meaningless.
Berry (1992) points out that African Americans in the U.S. are more external than whites, even when socioeconomic status is controlled. This may explain why a successful black person who attributes their success to their own effort and choices is considered not really black or “acting white” by other African Americans.
Underdevelopment Is a State of Mind by Lawrence Harrison a democrat diplomat studied the subject: Haiti vs Dominican Republic, Nicaragua vs Costa Rica. Gallegos and Basques vs the rest of spaniards
You should stick to police work as you obviously have no knowledge of psephology.
In order to prepare a statistical anbalysis, you have to pick a representative sample. Obviously, blacks in Baldwin Hills are not a representative sample just as whites in Ozark mountains are not a representative sample.
Stick to what you know.
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