Today, the Karmelo Anthony case is still in the news, and even before the trial, you wouldn’t have thought that it would be a particularly controversial case.
Welfare killed black independence. Then came the influence of gang culture and the rise of racial hate and jealousy of anyone that is non-black. It is all part of Western decay. Blacks got fooled first.
before LBJ they were assimilating into America - after that they ( not all but in general) went the opposite direction ( Africa good all things whitey bad)and it has devastated them - Jason Riley (WSJ) lays it all out in his book - Please Stop Helping Us as well as Thomas Sowell
Not a joke... the segregated 50s were objectively better for the black community in so many ways--lower out of wedlock births, higher rates of business ownership, vastly lower crime rates, etc--than is the case today... You can LOL all you want, but facts don't lie...
W.E.B. Dubois noted, in the 1930s, that even back then, there was a tacit acceptance/approval of the anti-social antics of young African-American males by a significant %/silent majority of the black community. Not encouragement or participation, but a tacit message of community understanding/support for young black men who engaged in anti-social behavior. If there was a line to be drawn by supporting deviant members of one’s community vs. the good of the local community as a whole, plenty of delinquents in the black community knew what side their own community would fall on-and it wasn’t the overall community as a whole.
Wow, even the sort of-commie DuBois (who I admire in spite of his commie associations) saw what was going on. There would be some good work to be done on this, if the "Black Studies" crowd allowed free and open inquiry. But they don't. Sigh.
So, just to be clear…are you really blaming an utterly senseless murder in 2026, possibly pre-meditated (as a deadly weapon was knowingly brought to a HIGH SCHOOL TRACK MEET) in cold blood by one teenaged boy of another teenaged boy on…Jim Crow laws??
Okay. Cool. That totally explains the situation, completely absolves anyone of guilt and shamelessly provides cover to any and all future crimes committed by a black person. Thank you for the clarification.
Ah, the ‘ol “out of wedlock” means that there is no father in the house, shared custody agreement, etc. instead of “parents not married.” If only we could find accurate data about that.
Yeah....what has tended to happen to "black businesses" and "successful black communities" throughout American history?
Yes....no jobs...no families....no homes....all walking around nursing gunshot wounds....
Nah. I'll take being a full, equal citizen. Thanks, though!
False. Black folks were trending upward in almost every category in the post-war era. And BTW: we have the accurate data about absentee black fathers, and it isn't good... you really disagree about that? And to think that every black business and every successful black community has been a victim of white attacks is false and misleading. Quite the exception, actually. There is a great history there to celebrate, let's remember that next Black History Month.
Yes, you are a "full, equal citizen." But much of the black community has gone backward during the last 60 years, and it ain't whitey's fault. But that can change, although it first will take race hustlers like yourself to find a new line of work.
Dr. Thomas Sowell has written a great deal on this matter.
1) "In 1940, 17% of Black children were raised in single-parent homes. I forget the exact date in the 20th century, but after these wonderful reforms were put in (in the 1960s), that quadrupled to 68% of Black children being raised in single-parent homes. Now, there's a whole literature on all the bad things that happen to kids who are raised by single parents. Whether they are Black or White, American, or British, the studies show the same things. One study said that fatherlessness has a bigger effect than even race and poverty."
2) There are various counties in the United States which are among the poorest counties in the country. And six of those counties have a population that ranges from 90% White to 100% White and these are people who have faced zero racism.
3) For more than a quarter of a century, in no year has the annual poverty rate of Black married-couple families been as high as 10%. This is lower than the poverty rate of Americans as a whole. If Black poverty is caused by systemic racism, do racists make an exception for Blacks who are married?
4) Why is it that people of color come here and within one generation their children are accepted at some of the most prestigious universities in the country? Systemic racism would preclude this.
5) In 1940, the Black poverty rate was 87%. By 1960, it was down to 47%. From 1960 to 1970, it went down to 30%. And in 1970, affirmative action was now in place. It went down to 29%. So, in the 20 years prior to the 1960s, the Black poverty rate went down by 40 points and in the 20 years after 1960, it went down by only 18 points.
Senator Tim Scott summed up the problem: "Black families survived slavery. We survived poll taxes and literacy tests. We survived discrimination being woven into the laws of our country. What was hard to survive was Johnson’s Great Society, where they decided to take the Black father out of the household to get a check in the mail, and you can now measure that in unemployment, in crime, in devastation." Dr. Sowell also noted that behaviors have consequences whether one is Black or White.
I grew up in the Black neighborhood of Springfield Gardens, Queens in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The Black families I knew consisted of married couples with children. Those kids were the same as me. Their fathers were mostly blue-collar workers while the mothers were homemakers. Their parents expected them to work hard and do well in school. They expected their children to do better in life than they had done. This is the same type of neighborhood in which Dr. Sowell grew up in 1940s and 1950s Harlem. There was a great deal of promise for the future. It was sad to see that promise dashed by the expansion of the welfare state in the 1960s. So much was lost.
Many of the "facts" you give are just not true or need to be footnoted. Especially delusional are the education claims.
Standards of education have been continually lowered to produce higher college graduate numbers even in graduate programs. Along with affirmative action and allowing 18 y.o. to sign for educational loans, the huge growth of small colleges and on line courses has boomed the "education". Proof is obvious when you look at the numbers in engineering, mathmatics, chemistry, medical doctors, etc. Thank you Democrats for producing the lowest black standards ever and cheating the best of the black race of the respect they deserve.
I'll agree that the present state of American blacks isn't their fault, but the ghettos, the DEI run inner city schools, allowing criminal actions , liberal attitude towards drugs and throwing money into "programs" where the black administrators are incompetent and thieves are all purposely planned and installed by Democrats who reap the black votes.
Those "ghettos" you describe are fewer than 30% of the group and yet many speak of this subset as if they are the majority when they are not. Check the data.
Sort of correct - the problem is that when you have a majority white district the violent crime is very low, majority black communities (think areas where the entire political apparatus is controlled by black politicians) have astronomically higher rates of violent crime). So it is 100% silly to just say "black = bad", it is also silly to deny a deeper cultural problem that exists and needs to be addressed.
First of all, that's not what he said. Second of all, these sorts of things can be confirmed by statistical data and factual evidence. Keep working on you're stupidly dismissive put downs until you can back them up.
Exactly! For anyone old enough you remember what LBJ said? We're 50+ years into the 200 years he predicted. I do however see a trend away from the Ds since Trump got involved.
You do realize that LBJ had nothing to do with the civil Rights act if it weren't for the Republicans it would have never passed I hate it with people that don't know histories think they do sometimes as the old adage goes better to keep your mouth shut and have everyone think you're a fool rather than open it and remove all doubt
Well then it didn't work out so well LOL in fact it seems to be the Democrats pushing planned Parenthood and if you look at the facts all it did was enforce the fact that if blacks had more children out of wedlock they could get more money through social programs like welfare etc so what's your point
Yep. And the single parenthood is now at something close to 79%. I've heard this is based on racism, too. The story is that they got so used to being pulled apart from their spouses and children, yadayada. Look at the success rate and the marriage rate in the 2 decades before Welfare reforms. This is not a thing they don't know how to do. They've been convinced not to by White Democrats. Here's another: In 1979 if a black couple and a white couple went to work in a grocery store and a factory, wage parity was the same. The reason that white couple has more now? They stayed together and bought a home. No matter where they bought it they built equity. Choices and brainwashing that this is who they are.
LBJ's Great Society (1964-1965) effectively removed the black male wage earner from the black family. The black family used to be an extremely solid unit, understandably so. LBJ felt compelled to change things. It was not a positive change.
If single parenthood alone explains Black outcomes, then Appalachia, rural white poverty, and communities devastated by meth and opioid addiction should be proof that white culture is uniquely dysfunctional.
The dysfunctional communities you speak about in Appalachia have the highest rates of single-motherhood among whites, so you're not really saying much.
Yes, the so-called "racial wage gap" is mostly a "racial divorce disparity gap"... you never see that brought up when the topic turns to the persistence of black poverty.
The irony is that you’re making the same argument I am: outcomes are multifactorial. Family structure matters. Culture matters. Economics matter. Public policy matters. History matters. My objection is to people who acknowledge complexity for struggling white communities but insist on monocausal explanations when discussing Black communities.
Yes, of course there are multiple factors in every outcome. I don't care who thinks otherwise because that makes no sense. One can observe white communities from the trailer park to the hilltop mountain. Society and political policies that were meant for good, when viewed in hindsight, were detrimental. My issue is first with the inability or refusal to look at the outcomes and change course and with those who stubbornly refuse to admit and own up their own choices, to understand the amount of agency one has. It is confusing and frustrating to know that there is so very much animosity directed in the wrong direction. Assimilation is a bad word in some quarters but to get what others have one must be willing to do what others do. Not in all respects obviously. I am very proudly southern and if someone tried to make me into anything else, they'd not get far. That doesn't mean I have to be overweight, uneducated, or dirt poor just because that's where my southern state ranks. I can do the same work and read the same books as the state with the number one spot if I want. So yes, we are saying there are multiple factors. The point in my mind is that there very simple steps anyone with the will and the inherent ability can take and can encourage others to take to get where they want to be and those have nothing to do with anyone else. To change culture, all it takes is for each individual to start saying no and stop approving harm and eventually a mass will build.
I’m so happy law school introduced me to historical facts that I would have never engaged. School might have kept that from you, but now you have no excuse to be willfully ignorant. Where do I start?
The problem with your argument is that it assumes culture develops in isolation from institutions. Critical theory, along with mainstream sociology and history, argues the opposite: institutions shape culture just as culture shapes behavior.
Black Americans did not begin as an immigrant group free to build wealth and institutions on equal footing. They endured over 240 years of slavery, nearly a century of legalized segregation, exclusion from New Deal programs in many cases, redlining, discriminatory lending, employment discrimination, unequal schools, and mass incarceration. Those weren’t simply individual obstacles. They altered neighborhoods, family wealth, political power, and opportunity structures across generations.
History also contradicts the claim that Black culture has always been the primary problem. Before the mid-1960s, Black labor force participation was high, marriage rates were relatively strong, and children born to married parents were the norm despite legal segregation. The deterioration in many social indicators occurred alongside deindustrialization, the loss of unionized manufacturing jobs, suburbanization, punitive drug policies, and concentrated poverty AND not because Black people suddenly forgot family values.
Culture certainly matters. Personal responsibility matters. But culture is often an adaptation to material conditions. Sociologist William Julius Wilson (read his studies) argued decades ago that when stable jobs disappear from a community, family formation changes. Economist Raj Chetty has shown that neighborhood conditions significantly affect upward mobility. These aren’t excuses. They’re empirical findings.
Lastly, “just adopt another culture” ignores history. Irish, Italians, Jews, and other European ethnic groups did not succeed because they abandoned their cultures. They gained increasing access to education, housing, credit, political power, and labor markets that had previously been restricted. I WONDER WHAT ALLOWED THEM THAT ACCESS. Structural barriers changed alongside individual effort.
The evidence doesn’t support an either/or narrative. Success requires agency, but agency operates within opportunities and constraints. Ignoring institutions and focusing only on culture is just as incomplete as ignoring personal responsibility and focusing only on history. If we’re serious about explaining outcomes, we need both. MUST BE NICE TO SIT FROM THE OUTSIDE AND JUST POINT FINGERS.
You’re right about one thing: family structure matters. Children raised in stable, two-parent households, on average, have better outcomes across many measures. Social scientists have been saying that for decades.
But where your argument falls apart is treating family structure as if it exists in a historical vacuum.
First, slavery didn’t just separate families, but it legally prevented Black marriages from having any standing, sold spouses and children away, and systematically disrupted kinship structures for over two centuries. That doesn’t explain today’s family structure by itself, but pretending it had no long-term effects isn’t history; it’s wishful thinking.
Second, the claim that “White Democrats convinced Black people not to marry” has no credible empirical support. The rise in nonmarital births occurred across virtually every racial group after the 1960s. Black families experienced the trend earlier and more sharply, but economists and sociologists point to multiple causes: deindustrialization, the disappearance of stable manufacturing jobs, mass incarceration, declining marriage rates nationwide, changes in social norms, and economic inequality…not a coordinated political brainwashing campaign.
Third, the claim that Black and white workers had wage parity in 1979 ignores a mountain of data. Median earnings, wealth, homeownership, inherited assets, and access to credit all differed substantially. Even if two families earned similar hourly wages, they did not start with similar wealth, housing opportunities, or inherited capital.
Finally, saying “they just stayed together and bought homes” overlooks one inconvenient fact: for much of the twentieth century, Black Americans were systematically denied mortgages in appreciating neighborhoods through redlining, restrictive covenants, discriminatory lending, and FHA underwriting practices. Homeownership builds wealth, but you have to be allowed to buy the home in the first place.
Nonmarital births jumped after the 60s across groups, but hit Black families harder and faster—from 22% in 1960 to over 70% now. That matches welfare rules that penalized marriage plus cultural shifts, not slavery or Jim Crow which were long over. Black two-parent homes were actually more common before those changes.
Wages had real parity in entry jobs like factories back in 1979. Wealth gaps came from couples staying together and buying homes. Redlining ended decades ago and Black ownership rose after, but today's gaps track more with marriage, work hours, and savings than old rules.
The birth rate rise hit everywhere, but steeper for Black families. It ties to welfare that hurt two-parent homes plus norm changes, not some big conspiracy. Asian immigrants after '65 faced bias yet kept high marriage rates and moved up quick—history doesn't lock everything in.
Violent crime clusters in small groups, mostly young guys from shaky family spots, per FBI numbers. Most Black folks aren't in that group, same as anywhere. Media downplays some incidents with excuses while hammering others, even when the age and family patterns are obvious.
Blaming slavery or redlining forever ignores the post-60s policy shifts that actually changed the numbers. Family stability and real standards drive better outcomes across the board. That's where the focus should be instead of dodging with old history.
You’re arguing against a position I never took. I never claimed family structure doesn’t matter. It clearly does. My point was that if we’re going to use single parenthood as evidence that Black culture is uniquely dysfunctional, we must apply that same standard everywhere else. We don’t. When Appalachia struggles, we cite deindustrialization, addiction, poverty, and economic decline. When Black communities struggle, many suddenly reduce everything to “culture.” That’s an inconsistent standard. Good thing I went to law school and studied actual history and am not dependent on AI. Welfare didn’t suddenly create single parenthood. Nonmarital births increased across virtually every racial and ethnic group beginning in the 1960s. Researchers attribute that to multiple factors, ma’am, like economic restructuring, changing social norms, declining marriage rates, incarceration, education, and labor market changes. There is little evidence that welfare alone explains the trend.
Wage parity in some entry-level factory jobs in 1979 is not the same as wealth parity. Wealth is accumulated across generations through home equity, inheritances, business ownership, investments, and access to credit. Those gaps remained substantial.
Redlining may have formally ended, but its effects didn’t disappear the day it became illegal. Neighborhood wealth, school quality, property values, and inherited equity persist across generations. That doesn’t explain everything, but neither can it simply be dismissed.
Nothing like arguing with biased people with gaps in real history who attempt to make conclusions. Just be racist. Your president gives you full credo to do so. There’s no inherent differences in “races.” If there were, there wouldn’t have been the need to attack Black, wealthy cities, devise policies to oppress
The ghetto rap culture thing has got to be one of the most toxic and self destructive behaviour patterns/cultures in history. Encouraging kids to act like trash and then when they end up dead/in prison/broke/hopeless blame it on whitey. Beyond stupid and a spectacular own goal. I've seen a white trash version of it where i grew up but it's not as widespread and all pervasive amongst white people.
Jack Cashill once noted that both white and black kids listened to gangster rap, but it tended to bounce right off the white kids while too many black kids absorbed and lived it.
I think there's a lot of truth to that. When I grew up in a small, mostly white, southern town, almost all of us were listening to gangster rap, but NOBODY idealized it or thought about emulating what we were hearing the songs.
If you're a kid who listens to that music and thinks, "This is describing how I should behave and what I should be," it's going to be turn you into a garbage human being and unfortunately, I think that happens with way too many black kids.
Worth thinking about....all that gloomy alternative rock in the 90's and all that death and doom metal/goth stuff was overwhelmingly listened to by white kids but most of those white kids grew up to be more or less normal and fuctional adults. It's like white kids have enough common sense not to get carried away with things like that. Just an observation...
With rap, it may just be the kind of thing where black kids can relate to it on a level that white kids don't. Like, I listened to NWA when I was young and I went to the theater to see the movie, but I could never imagine someone like me being in NWA. I'm on the outside looking in.
If you're a black kid in Chicago, it's probably a lot easier to picture yourself in that situation, living that life.
I was at a youth baseball game just yesterday…and a spoiled little…white kids walk up song was…f the police by none other than…When I first heard that grap playing in my college dormitory in 1988…I would have never dreamed I would live in a world where “Dr” Dre would grow up to be a billionaire…let alone Don King…Trump would be President. Yes, politics is downstream from culture
You are right, but don’t leave out the disgusting black reality shows with black women dressed like ho’s and their cheating me. Or the black men tv shows on cable acting like
I am 70 and had radical cancer surgery last year (oral cancer) followed by six weeks of radiation every day. Getting the techs to order some of that obscure new wave music from my late 29s/early 30s during the 80s was the high point of that dark period. A lot of punk/new wave fans (and they are overwhelmingly white) are positively weird - I am utterly conventional and politically conservative.
Black culture is 1000% more racist than white culture. Unfortunately, the black culture is built on disrespect. Disrespect for their children, their family, their neighborhoods, work, money, etc. To really help the black community, an honest discussion will need to be had about the black community's ability to absorb education.
And that racism is being endorsed legislatively. There are states like Washington state that are formalizing reparations, and writing into legislation that new contracts issued have to be to a 51% minority or female-owned business, leaving out which group specifically? There's this assumption that having a dick and white skin has exempted you from all difficulties, poverty, etc. You don't need any help or deserve any help because you ruined the world somehow. No, white men built everything that these degenerates enjoy. Everything.
The clearest way to know that it's culture and not racism that's the root cause of the problem is the difference between black immigrants vs native born blacks on key metrics like education, income, etc. The differences are astonishing if you haven't seen the numbers.
When I lived in Chicago, I worked with African immigrants, mainly Nigerians, who were in America legally because they wanted to be Americans. You know, ACTUAL immigrants.
Those people had a good (though heavily-accented) command of English, were married, law-abiding, worked honest jobs like 15 hours a day and drove their kids to get good grades. They were also all practicing Catholics and couldn't work Sunday morning because of Mass.
I have far more respect for the African blacks I've met over the years than for most American blacks.
Words alone are insufficient to express my support for your article. I am a black man who was born and raised in SF. While my parents divorced when I was roughly 11 or 12, they had the foresight to send me to private (Catholic) middle and high schools. My mother had also attended a Catholic high school in California. I worked hard in school but eventually dropped out of college after 2 years to join a local police force. I eventually earned both a bachelor’s and master’s degree and promoted several times before becoming a police chief. America is a place where anyone from anyplace can become anything they want if they work hard, treat others well, and MAKE SOUND DECISIONS! Thank you!
Only three? I quickly scanned this article. The real problem is that the black family was destroyed by LBJ and has carried forward ever sense. Until this is resolved many within the black community will lag behind. It doesn't have to be this way but being a loser is choice.
Reality is never on the side of the angry black activists, but that has never stopped them. This is about as clear cut a murder case as there can be and they clinging to straws to cry racism. They've lost any shred of credibility they had (it wasn't much) and the black behavior accountability dodge complex has never been louder.
I teach white and black students and immigrant students. It has been over 26 years. I have never noticed anything noteworthy in decision making of black kids or their parents or their behavior patterns. Our community struggles economically, and while we have had some very challenging black students over the years, we have had plenty of white and immigrant students with huge behavioral issues too. No behaviors or decisions by the black students or their parents were different than others to where i would find a pattern. One exception being three boys who all committed the same crime after graduating high school-and those boys just hung out together and brought out the worst in each other. I even have a white kid right now in prison for attempted murder. As it stands-for years now- i am slightly more likely to NOT see behavioral issues from my black students, nor are their parents creative excuse makers. A few have been but plenty of whites or other ethnic groups will cover that ground too. Our biggest issues usually are kids who aren’t black and whose families have lived in the area for a long time, giving them some special entitlement and feeling of importance. Hovering moms are everywhere. Not sure when you drove around black kids to group homes but it might be the 90’s, and you seem to have found a special pattern from 90’s urban area to stick with. I get you have numbers to go with and i certainly won’t argue those but doesn’t seem to jibe with what i’ve seen for the last 26 years.
during phases,, yes, esp if kids come from struggling districts -kids will get used to seeing disciplinary issues all over in their old
and if a few migrate together from the same place at the same time you can see the way they act was part of habits from their old schools. Eventually that seems to subside and kids either get acclimated in our school or more rarely, kicked out (they may have been kicked out of their struggling districts too). Our school by nature though is not without behavioral struggles itself, ones that would stand out a bit more in a different area. Still overall we run a tight ship even if it starts to come apart every so often. school of choice will also show sometimes a very poorly prepared kid that would stand out in our district, even if our district scores are already not great. At times our school of choice kids would be more black. Lately they are white. Both from different industrial crumbly suburbs of detroit coming to our less crumbly looking place.
it is important to note that many of the social issues both white and black kids may be stuck with don’t necessarily translate to bad behavior. I had a well behaved brother and sister set who were both black and their father was in jail for murder. They were being raised by a loving but sickly grandmother, and instead of running rampant they did their work and behaved well and had positive relationships. A white girl i had once was worried about her mother coming in to conferences. Why? i asked, then i discovered when her mother stumbled in on my table covered in dried blood and babbling crazy things. Her mother was addict who passed away the following year. She kept up her grades even as her father had weirdos in the bathroom doing stuff during these late night parties . She too had to live with grandma. We have had some kids raised in very dark situations but behaviors would vary. You’d just as likely get a good kid from a family full of issues as a trouble maker.
There are interesting anecdotes I've read that before busing in the 1970s/1980s, there were many predominantly black-enrollment schools (middle & high) in multiple inner cities that were doing very well re: testing, gpa etc., and then forced integration broke then.
Point being: doesn't mean integration bad, but also doesn't mean integration "fixes" everything.
Dunbar, in DC, graduated athletes, politicians, and other notables. It was one of the best schools in the city. Not best “Black” school, but one of the best, period.
Interestingly, there are blacks who are advocating for just that: segregation. Just look up the Freedom, Georgia project. The YouTube videos are... Enlightening.
Scott Adams's message was extremely misunderstood, may he Rest In Peace. He clearly stated it's best for white people to stay away from black people who hate white people; not all black people, sight unseen.
His exhortation was explicit. And then the overlords punished him severely. Severed his syndication. But I don't think he cared. He was well off and knew he had terminal cancer.
If I were a black person who hasn’t been brainwashed by the Democrat party line, and isn’t wallowing in self-destruction, I’d be so ashamed and humiliated by my race I’d probably never show my face in public if I didn’t absolutely have to. Sorry to say it, but only a few black people should be allowed to stay in this country. Law-abiding, honest believers in true American values and ethics. The rest of them, and that would be most, need to be expatriated to anywhere but here. Get them out. They deserve to find out what living in their own countries is really like.
I am seeing a trend on social media of black men and women who are bravely swimming against the cultural currents. Some of the wisest writers I follow in Substack are black men. Probably simply saying such things could get me ostracized, but it’s true.
I also see wonderful things happening in the black community, including a young man who leads an afterschool boys club, with mostly black kids but a few white boys, and he teaches them to be men. There are a hundred little things they need to know, from how to unplug a toilet and clean up the mess, to how to pay bills and politely check into hotels, to how to behave during a traffic stop. The kids are well disciplined, respond to him with “Yes, sir,” and “no, sir,” when he asked them questions.
I also follow a young black man who serves as a caregiver for a retired Navy veteran, and his videos are going viral over the close and loving friendship he has developed with seniors. In fact, he was a recent keynote speaker at a national conference for caregivers.
Another black man I follow specializes in giving haircuts to boys with autism, not an easy task, but he does it with skill, gentleness, humor, and patience. I am awestruck as he works with these neurodivergent children.
And I don’t see a black cultural monolith in the same way there is no Asian monolith, no Latino monolith, and no white monolith. I have purposely spent time searching out the goodness and the cracks in the media narrative, and I have found a surprising number of reasons to be optimistic about the future.
These examples may seem insignificant in the face of the mainstream culture, but they are signs of a growing trend to escape from the racism of low expectations on the Democrat plantation. Look at the growing number of black men who voted for Trump because he takes them seriously as people, rather than as victims.
As I said earlier, I see more and more examples of people who give me reason to hope. I believe there is enough goodness in the black community to overcome the negative and I also believe they are fully capable of achieving success with the dampening effect of self appointed white saviors.
I think it can be easy for people to look at the worst, most obnoxious, most ignorant black Americans and judge all black people that way, but I don't think that's true or productive.
There are a lot of smart, successful black Americans that I respect for one reason or another -- I could have easily listed another 20 or 30, but I wanted to stick to people most readers have heard of -- and honestly, almost of the black people I interact with where I live seem just fine. Nobody is screaming at each other or getting mad, we're all just living our lives and doing what we do without hurting anyone else.
The thing is, all those people often get shoved in the background in favor of discussing Karmelo Anthony, Mike Brown, George Floyd, Joy Reid, Jasmine Crockett, the lastest rapper to get shot, and a bunch of morons mass shoplifting from a store because that's what *** REAL*** black Americans are supposed to be according to so many people on the Left. If that was what black people REALLY ARE -- racism would be the appropriate response because those people are all trash with no redeeming virtues.
But, they're not -- and more people of every race need to make that distinction because it's good for black Americans, white Americans, and the country to do it.
I agree with your first paragraph: it’s wrong to judge an entire race by its worst members. That’s exactly why discussions about George Floyd, police violence, or crime aren’t claims that those people represent Black America. You’re arguing against a position very few people actually hold. The point is that these cases reveal issues worth discussing, not that they define Black people.
Ironically, you’re making the same mistake you warn against. You criticize “the Left” by selecting a handful of politicians, commentators, and headlines while overlooking the millions of Black Americans who are teachers, engineers, business owners, parents, doctors, veterans, and public servants. Media attention follows conflict because conflict attracts viewers, not because it reflects reality. The same news cycle that gives disproportionate attention to crime also gives disproportionate attention to school shootings, political extremism, and scandals involving white Americans without anyone concluding those people represent white culture.
The existence of successful Black Americans has never been evidence that systemic barriers don’t exist. Individual achievement and structural inequality can both be true at the same time. In fact, that’s what decades of research on disparities in housing, wealth, education, lending, sentencing, and employment has consistently shown. Pointing out those disparities isn’t stereotyping Black people It’s recognizing that outcomes are shaped by more than individual character alone.
Wow you really live in Fantasyland! It must be nice to be delusional but the facts speak for themselves no matter what kind of BS you want to spread look at the amount of crimes that are committed look at the people in prison through those grants look at the percentages of each race it's exponentially higher in the black community. So all your b******* and singling out one case here in one case there means nothing
I hope you never grow tired of the kind of world you choose, but the way things are is not the way they must remain. I see signs of change. You see what you want to see. Fine, but I’m not bound to your vision of the future.
Even if all criminals were black it would not mean most blacks are criminals - for exactly the same reason that (almost) all rapists are men hardly means most men are rapists.
Most stereotypes against any group are, at bottom, based on the logical fallacy of noticing most Xs are Ys and concluding, falsely, that most Ys are Xs.
I agree. There are many wonderful black folks out there. MANY. They don't get the headlines. The worst of society gets the headlines. And then everybody lumps them all together as a group. These headlines grabbers are just bad humans doing despicable things. And they come in all colors. If bad actions had real, hard consequences, we would see less chaos in society.
“The rest of them, and that would be most, need to be expatriated to anywhere but here. Get them out. They deserve to find out what living in their own countries is really like.”
I agree with every word that Hawkins wrote in his piece.
But your bit here, especially the quoted bit, is just racist. And despicable racism at that.
For the large majority of black Americans, the U.S.A. *is* their own country!
And unless you happen to be a Native American - a fact I would be shocked by based on your comments - this is just as much their country as yours or mine.
I live in a coastal county on the Gulf of America where a report came out a few years ago that over 70% of the children in the county had never seen the Gulf. It went further and said 75% had not gone outside the county and over 80% had never gone outside the state. Those children have no concept of how big the world is.
And they are so poorly educated that they probably would think it's a good idea to accept repatriation, never even realizing that experiment ha been tried and it's called Liberia.
They would never leave, because here they receive enormous benefits from white guilt and grifting. They bring up slavery more than freedom because it pays so well.
Unfortunately, this young man was raised to be who he was. And now he will pay a very high price. It was never about race. It was teaching your children about values, respecting each other, respecting life and respecting law and order. There’s nothing racial about that. I’m white and I explained that and taught that to my children and my grandchildren. It’s called being a good parent.
If you have watched The Sopranos you saw the Italian-American community begin to distance itself from the crime ridden Mafia. When does the apparent tolerance for crime within the black community along with the acceptance by black school administrators of the disruption of classrooms by out of control individuals begin to end? When will black fathers who fail to care for and love their children and especially their boy children be openly censured by black leadership? The young Chris Rock joked about these issues but he clearly now censors himself.
On X, now without censorship thanks to Elon Musk, out of control violence has become standard fodder for ridicule with blacks typically being the most violent group depicted. Unfortunately, the stereotype of black violence is rooted in reality.
Where white people decide to live, shop, vacation and even if they are willing to use public transit (especially women) has been for decades largely based on avoiding large groups of black people because of their perceived and actual tendency to engage in violence. The term white flight has always been used as a slur when, in truth, it means white common sense.
Why do the Democrats always appear to be on their back foot on the issue of black violent crime? Why do they allow Trump to take the lead on this issue while they hem and haw? Why not make fighting murderers, car jackers and rapists a top priority of the Democratic Party and especially of Democratic mayors? There is simply no political logic to being seen as soft on crime when the majority of crime victims are the very minorities the Democrats are supposed to champion. The single most important thing Democrats could do to save the lives of young black men would be to reinstitute the police policy of “stop and frisk” in black neighborhoods to stop the carrying of illegal guns. This would stem the tide of murders of blacks that fill the nightly news in every major city in America and yet is hidden in plain sight. These kids would quickly get the message and quit carrying illegally. Young black men (15-34) are just 2% of the population and yet commit about half of the nation’s homicides. A rate an astounding 50 times higher than the average American. They are the nation’s gun violence problem. They are also the primary victims of these murders with about 6,000 killed every year. We need to save their lives in spite of the insane ACLU and its bullshit niceties.
In my view, the worst notion among Black folks is that behaviors that lead to good outcomes are "white culture" and should be avoided and that behaviors that lead to the worst outcomes are Black Culture, and praised. There is a whole world of cultures out there. Look for what works in all of them and adopt what works. Leave behind the slave mentality that was imposed; it is not authentic Black Culture.
and they were doing a lot better before LBJ's Great Society legislation
Thank you. I was hoping to find an informed, intelligent comment here.
Welfare killed black independence. Then came the influence of gang culture and the rise of racial hate and jealousy of anyone that is non-black. It is all part of Western decay. Blacks got fooled first.
before LBJ they were assimilating into America - after that they ( not all but in general) went the opposite direction ( Africa good all things whitey bad)and it has devastated them - Jason Riley (WSJ) lays it all out in his book - Please Stop Helping Us as well as Thomas Sowell
You still haven’t
Lol. The 'ol "Blacks were better off under Jim Crow" argument.
Not a joke... the segregated 50s were objectively better for the black community in so many ways--lower out of wedlock births, higher rates of business ownership, vastly lower crime rates, etc--than is the case today... You can LOL all you want, but facts don't lie...
W.E.B. Dubois noted, in the 1930s, that even back then, there was a tacit acceptance/approval of the anti-social antics of young African-American males by a significant %/silent majority of the black community. Not encouragement or participation, but a tacit message of community understanding/support for young black men who engaged in anti-social behavior. If there was a line to be drawn by supporting deviant members of one’s community vs. the good of the local community as a whole, plenty of delinquents in the black community knew what side their own community would fall on-and it wasn’t the overall community as a whole.
Wow, even the sort of-commie DuBois (who I admire in spite of his commie associations) saw what was going on. There would be some good work to be done on this, if the "Black Studies" crowd allowed free and open inquiry. But they don't. Sigh.
Thanks, Matt.
So, just to be clear…are you really blaming an utterly senseless murder in 2026, possibly pre-meditated (as a deadly weapon was knowingly brought to a HIGH SCHOOL TRACK MEET) in cold blood by one teenaged boy of another teenaged boy on…Jim Crow laws??
Okay. Cool. That totally explains the situation, completely absolves anyone of guilt and shamelessly provides cover to any and all future crimes committed by a black person. Thank you for the clarification.
No, KAB, I am not "blaming an utterly senseless murder on Jim Crow laws." Don't know how you got that idea. Thanks for your attention to this matter!
No, that is not even remotely what anyone here said. Shut up.
Ah, the ‘ol “out of wedlock” means that there is no father in the house, shared custody agreement, etc. instead of “parents not married.” If only we could find accurate data about that.
Yeah....what has tended to happen to "black businesses" and "successful black communities" throughout American history?
Yes....no jobs...no families....no homes....all walking around nursing gunshot wounds....
Nah. I'll take being a full, equal citizen. Thanks, though!
False. Black folks were trending upward in almost every category in the post-war era. And BTW: we have the accurate data about absentee black fathers, and it isn't good... you really disagree about that? And to think that every black business and every successful black community has been a victim of white attacks is false and misleading. Quite the exception, actually. There is a great history there to celebrate, let's remember that next Black History Month.
Yes, you are a "full, equal citizen." But much of the black community has gone backward during the last 60 years, and it ain't whitey's fault. But that can change, although it first will take race hustlers like yourself to find a new line of work.
Thank you for your attention to this matter!
Nope. Higher education levels, median income, higher rate of home ownership, better health outcomes, etc.
There is absolutely no way there were more black-owned businesses under Jim Crow than there are today.
52% of black kids live with a father in the home.
Not every business/community....just "much of" ;)
America became a legitimate democracy in 1965. “Race hustlers” have nothing to do with that.
Black Americans were not better off during the Jim Crow era. This period (spanning the late 19th century to 1964) was characterized by state-sanctioned racial segregation, the stripping of voting rights, economic disenfranchisement, and constant threats of racial violence and lynching. [https://www.abhmuseum.org/voting-rights-for-blacks-and-poor-whites-in-the-jim-crow-south/, https://www.yahoo.com/news/byron-donalds-implied-black-people-154840769.html, https://lukasalthoff.com/jmp/althoff_jmp.pdf]
The impacts of Jim Crow were devastating across all facets of life:
Political Disenfranchisement: Black Americans were largely denied the right to vote through poll taxes, literacy tests, and violent intimidation. [https://www.abhmuseum.org/voting-rights-for-blacks-and-poor-whites-in-the-jim-crow-south/, https://lukasalthoff.com/jmp/althoff_jmp.pdf]
Economic Inequality: Discriminatory laws, sharecropping systems, and the destruction of prosperous Black communities (such as the Tulsa Race Massacre) systematically suppressed generational wealth. [https://blackcitizenship.nyhistory.org/the-rise-of-jim-crow/, https://momentum.medium.com/why-the-black-families-were-better-off-during-jim-crow-myth-persists-3a8c0b09a0c9, https://www.facebook.com/groups/169276150654250/posts/1577730343142150/]
Segregation and Inequality: Public facilities, transportation, and schools were legally segregated. While the doctrine of "separate but equal" existed in theory, Black facilities were consistently underfunded and inferior. [https://library.law.howard.edu/civilrightshistory/blackrights/jimcrow, https://www.yahoo.com/news/byron-donalds-implied-black-people-154840769.html]
Violence: The era saw high levels of extralegal violence and terror used to enforce white supremacy and suppress Black progress. [https://momentum.medium.com/why-the-black-families-were-better-off-during-jim-crow-myth-persists-3a8c0b09a0c9, https://www.nps.gov/articles/telling-all-americans-stories-an-overview-of-shaping-the-political-landscape.htm, https://www.abhmuseum.org/voting-rights-for-blacks-and-poor-whites-in-the-jim-crow-south/, https://lukasalthoff.com/jmp/althoff_jmp.pdf]
While some historical arguments point to statistics suggesting higher marriage rates or strong community cohesion during this period, these observations are viewed by historians and sociologists as responses to survival rather than an indicator of a higher quality of life. Sociologists note that these community patterns were deeply tied to the broader economic and social constraints of the time. [https://www.wlrn.org/government-politics/2024-06-11/politifact-florida-byron-donalds-jim-crow-donald-trump, https://www.reddit.com/r/nottheonion/comments/1d92vof/donalds_suggests_black_families_were_stronger/, https://momentum.medium.com/why-the-black-families-were-better-off-during-jim-crow-myth-persists-3a8c0b09a0c9]
Thank you for your attention to this matter!
Dr. Thomas Sowell has written a great deal on this matter.
1) "In 1940, 17% of Black children were raised in single-parent homes. I forget the exact date in the 20th century, but after these wonderful reforms were put in (in the 1960s), that quadrupled to 68% of Black children being raised in single-parent homes. Now, there's a whole literature on all the bad things that happen to kids who are raised by single parents. Whether they are Black or White, American, or British, the studies show the same things. One study said that fatherlessness has a bigger effect than even race and poverty."
2) There are various counties in the United States which are among the poorest counties in the country. And six of those counties have a population that ranges from 90% White to 100% White and these are people who have faced zero racism.
3) For more than a quarter of a century, in no year has the annual poverty rate of Black married-couple families been as high as 10%. This is lower than the poverty rate of Americans as a whole. If Black poverty is caused by systemic racism, do racists make an exception for Blacks who are married?
4) Why is it that people of color come here and within one generation their children are accepted at some of the most prestigious universities in the country? Systemic racism would preclude this.
5) In 1940, the Black poverty rate was 87%. By 1960, it was down to 47%. From 1960 to 1970, it went down to 30%. And in 1970, affirmative action was now in place. It went down to 29%. So, in the 20 years prior to the 1960s, the Black poverty rate went down by 40 points and in the 20 years after 1960, it went down by only 18 points.
Senator Tim Scott summed up the problem: "Black families survived slavery. We survived poll taxes and literacy tests. We survived discrimination being woven into the laws of our country. What was hard to survive was Johnson’s Great Society, where they decided to take the Black father out of the household to get a check in the mail, and you can now measure that in unemployment, in crime, in devastation." Dr. Sowell also noted that behaviors have consequences whether one is Black or White.
I grew up in the Black neighborhood of Springfield Gardens, Queens in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The Black families I knew consisted of married couples with children. Those kids were the same as me. Their fathers were mostly blue-collar workers while the mothers were homemakers. Their parents expected them to work hard and do well in school. They expected their children to do better in life than they had done. This is the same type of neighborhood in which Dr. Sowell grew up in 1940s and 1950s Harlem. There was a great deal of promise for the future. It was sad to see that promise dashed by the expansion of the welfare state in the 1960s. So much was lost.
Many of the "facts" you give are just not true or need to be footnoted. Especially delusional are the education claims.
Standards of education have been continually lowered to produce higher college graduate numbers even in graduate programs. Along with affirmative action and allowing 18 y.o. to sign for educational loans, the huge growth of small colleges and on line courses has boomed the "education". Proof is obvious when you look at the numbers in engineering, mathmatics, chemistry, medical doctors, etc. Thank you Democrats for producing the lowest black standards ever and cheating the best of the black race of the respect they deserve.
I'll agree that the present state of American blacks isn't their fault, but the ghettos, the DEI run inner city schools, allowing criminal actions , liberal attitude towards drugs and throwing money into "programs" where the black administrators are incompetent and thieves are all purposely planned and installed by Democrats who reap the black votes.
Those "ghettos" you describe are fewer than 30% of the group and yet many speak of this subset as if they are the majority when they are not. Check the data.
Sort of correct - the problem is that when you have a majority white district the violent crime is very low, majority black communities (think areas where the entire political apparatus is controlled by black politicians) have astronomically higher rates of violent crime). So it is 100% silly to just say "black = bad", it is also silly to deny a deeper cultural problem that exists and needs to be addressed.
Then you will no doubt agree to the responsibilities that come with that citizenship, yes?
What the hell are you even TRYING to say? This does't even make sense
First of all, that's not what he said. Second of all, these sorts of things can be confirmed by statistical data and factual evidence. Keep working on you're stupidly dismissive put downs until you can back them up.
Exactly
Exactly! For anyone old enough you remember what LBJ said? We're 50+ years into the 200 years he predicted. I do however see a trend away from the Ds since Trump got involved.
You do realize that LBJ had nothing to do with the civil Rights act if it weren't for the Republicans it would have never passed I hate it with people that don't know histories think they do sometimes as the old adage goes better to keep your mouth shut and have everyone think you're a fool rather than open it and remove all doubt
but he had everything to do with the Great Society legislation which in hindsight
Do you ever finish a sentence,?
What did he say?
“We’ll have them voting (D) for the next 200 years.”
Google it. It's offensive. You'll know when you find it
…and befire Planned Parenthood appeared in black communities with the express purpose of erasing the Negro race!
Well then it didn't work out so well LOL in fact it seems to be the Democrats pushing planned Parenthood and if you look at the facts all it did was enforce the fact that if blacks had more children out of wedlock they could get more money through social programs like welfare etc so what's your point
…and before Planned Parenthood tried to erase the black race with tethered abortion in black communities
And befire Planned Parenthood shamelessly pushed abortion in black communities
That was the beginning of the decline.
Yep. And the single parenthood is now at something close to 79%. I've heard this is based on racism, too. The story is that they got so used to being pulled apart from their spouses and children, yadayada. Look at the success rate and the marriage rate in the 2 decades before Welfare reforms. This is not a thing they don't know how to do. They've been convinced not to by White Democrats. Here's another: In 1979 if a black couple and a white couple went to work in a grocery store and a factory, wage parity was the same. The reason that white couple has more now? They stayed together and bought a home. No matter where they bought it they built equity. Choices and brainwashing that this is who they are.
LBJ's Great Society (1964-1965) effectively removed the black male wage earner from the black family. The black family used to be an extremely solid unit, understandably so. LBJ felt compelled to change things. It was not a positive change.
Single motherhood is an excellent route to poverty, regardless of race.
A better way to get on welfare Medicaid, et al
This whole thing is tragic.
It is tragic and unlike the '40s and the '50s and the early '60s it's a choice to black community made
Some pundits say that we don't have a poverty problem; we have a single parent problem.
If you look at the difference between the 1960s and today in Black America the single parent family is absolutely the biggest problem
If single parenthood alone explains Black outcomes, then Appalachia, rural white poverty, and communities devastated by meth and opioid addiction should be proof that white culture is uniquely dysfunctional.
The dysfunctional communities you speak about in Appalachia have the highest rates of single-motherhood among whites, so you're not really saying much.
Yes, the so-called "racial wage gap" is mostly a "racial divorce disparity gap"... you never see that brought up when the topic turns to the persistence of black poverty.
The irony is that you’re making the same argument I am: outcomes are multifactorial. Family structure matters. Culture matters. Economics matter. Public policy matters. History matters. My objection is to people who acknowledge complexity for struggling white communities but insist on monocausal explanations when discussing Black communities.
Yes, of course there are multiple factors in every outcome. I don't care who thinks otherwise because that makes no sense. One can observe white communities from the trailer park to the hilltop mountain. Society and political policies that were meant for good, when viewed in hindsight, were detrimental. My issue is first with the inability or refusal to look at the outcomes and change course and with those who stubbornly refuse to admit and own up their own choices, to understand the amount of agency one has. It is confusing and frustrating to know that there is so very much animosity directed in the wrong direction. Assimilation is a bad word in some quarters but to get what others have one must be willing to do what others do. Not in all respects obviously. I am very proudly southern and if someone tried to make me into anything else, they'd not get far. That doesn't mean I have to be overweight, uneducated, or dirt poor just because that's where my southern state ranks. I can do the same work and read the same books as the state with the number one spot if I want. So yes, we are saying there are multiple factors. The point in my mind is that there very simple steps anyone with the will and the inherent ability can take and can encourage others to take to get where they want to be and those have nothing to do with anyone else. To change culture, all it takes is for each individual to start saying no and stop approving harm and eventually a mass will build.
Just curious how you rationalize voting for a convicted felon. How does your logic align here?
I’m so happy law school introduced me to historical facts that I would have never engaged. School might have kept that from you, but now you have no excuse to be willfully ignorant. Where do I start?
The problem with your argument is that it assumes culture develops in isolation from institutions. Critical theory, along with mainstream sociology and history, argues the opposite: institutions shape culture just as culture shapes behavior.
Black Americans did not begin as an immigrant group free to build wealth and institutions on equal footing. They endured over 240 years of slavery, nearly a century of legalized segregation, exclusion from New Deal programs in many cases, redlining, discriminatory lending, employment discrimination, unequal schools, and mass incarceration. Those weren’t simply individual obstacles. They altered neighborhoods, family wealth, political power, and opportunity structures across generations.
History also contradicts the claim that Black culture has always been the primary problem. Before the mid-1960s, Black labor force participation was high, marriage rates were relatively strong, and children born to married parents were the norm despite legal segregation. The deterioration in many social indicators occurred alongside deindustrialization, the loss of unionized manufacturing jobs, suburbanization, punitive drug policies, and concentrated poverty AND not because Black people suddenly forgot family values.
Culture certainly matters. Personal responsibility matters. But culture is often an adaptation to material conditions. Sociologist William Julius Wilson (read his studies) argued decades ago that when stable jobs disappear from a community, family formation changes. Economist Raj Chetty has shown that neighborhood conditions significantly affect upward mobility. These aren’t excuses. They’re empirical findings.
Lastly, “just adopt another culture” ignores history. Irish, Italians, Jews, and other European ethnic groups did not succeed because they abandoned their cultures. They gained increasing access to education, housing, credit, political power, and labor markets that had previously been restricted. I WONDER WHAT ALLOWED THEM THAT ACCESS. Structural barriers changed alongside individual effort.
The evidence doesn’t support an either/or narrative. Success requires agency, but agency operates within opportunities and constraints. Ignoring institutions and focusing only on culture is just as incomplete as ignoring personal responsibility and focusing only on history. If we’re serious about explaining outcomes, we need both. MUST BE NICE TO SIT FROM THE OUTSIDE AND JUST POINT FINGERS.
You’re right about one thing: family structure matters. Children raised in stable, two-parent households, on average, have better outcomes across many measures. Social scientists have been saying that for decades.
But where your argument falls apart is treating family structure as if it exists in a historical vacuum.
First, slavery didn’t just separate families, but it legally prevented Black marriages from having any standing, sold spouses and children away, and systematically disrupted kinship structures for over two centuries. That doesn’t explain today’s family structure by itself, but pretending it had no long-term effects isn’t history; it’s wishful thinking.
Second, the claim that “White Democrats convinced Black people not to marry” has no credible empirical support. The rise in nonmarital births occurred across virtually every racial group after the 1960s. Black families experienced the trend earlier and more sharply, but economists and sociologists point to multiple causes: deindustrialization, the disappearance of stable manufacturing jobs, mass incarceration, declining marriage rates nationwide, changes in social norms, and economic inequality…not a coordinated political brainwashing campaign.
Third, the claim that Black and white workers had wage parity in 1979 ignores a mountain of data. Median earnings, wealth, homeownership, inherited assets, and access to credit all differed substantially. Even if two families earned similar hourly wages, they did not start with similar wealth, housing opportunities, or inherited capital.
Finally, saying “they just stayed together and bought homes” overlooks one inconvenient fact: for much of the twentieth century, Black Americans were systematically denied mortgages in appreciating neighborhoods through redlining, restrictive covenants, discriminatory lending, and FHA underwriting practices. Homeownership builds wealth, but you have to be allowed to buy the home in the first place.
Nonmarital births jumped after the 60s across groups, but hit Black families harder and faster—from 22% in 1960 to over 70% now. That matches welfare rules that penalized marriage plus cultural shifts, not slavery or Jim Crow which were long over. Black two-parent homes were actually more common before those changes.
Wages had real parity in entry jobs like factories back in 1979. Wealth gaps came from couples staying together and buying homes. Redlining ended decades ago and Black ownership rose after, but today's gaps track more with marriage, work hours, and savings than old rules.
The birth rate rise hit everywhere, but steeper for Black families. It ties to welfare that hurt two-parent homes plus norm changes, not some big conspiracy. Asian immigrants after '65 faced bias yet kept high marriage rates and moved up quick—history doesn't lock everything in.
Violent crime clusters in small groups, mostly young guys from shaky family spots, per FBI numbers. Most Black folks aren't in that group, same as anywhere. Media downplays some incidents with excuses while hammering others, even when the age and family patterns are obvious.
Blaming slavery or redlining forever ignores the post-60s policy shifts that actually changed the numbers. Family stability and real standards drive better outcomes across the board. That's where the focus should be instead of dodging with old history.
You’re arguing against a position I never took. I never claimed family structure doesn’t matter. It clearly does. My point was that if we’re going to use single parenthood as evidence that Black culture is uniquely dysfunctional, we must apply that same standard everywhere else. We don’t. When Appalachia struggles, we cite deindustrialization, addiction, poverty, and economic decline. When Black communities struggle, many suddenly reduce everything to “culture.” That’s an inconsistent standard. Good thing I went to law school and studied actual history and am not dependent on AI. Welfare didn’t suddenly create single parenthood. Nonmarital births increased across virtually every racial and ethnic group beginning in the 1960s. Researchers attribute that to multiple factors, ma’am, like economic restructuring, changing social norms, declining marriage rates, incarceration, education, and labor market changes. There is little evidence that welfare alone explains the trend.
Wage parity in some entry-level factory jobs in 1979 is not the same as wealth parity. Wealth is accumulated across generations through home equity, inheritances, business ownership, investments, and access to credit. Those gaps remained substantial.
Redlining may have formally ended, but its effects didn’t disappear the day it became illegal. Neighborhood wealth, school quality, property values, and inherited equity persist across generations. That doesn’t explain everything, but neither can it simply be dismissed.
Nothing like arguing with biased people with gaps in real history who attempt to make conclusions. Just be racist. Your president gives you full credo to do so. There’s no inherent differences in “races.” If there were, there wouldn’t have been the need to attack Black, wealthy cities, devise policies to oppress
Black people, etc. All the facts matter.
The ghetto rap culture thing has got to be one of the most toxic and self destructive behaviour patterns/cultures in history. Encouraging kids to act like trash and then when they end up dead/in prison/broke/hopeless blame it on whitey. Beyond stupid and a spectacular own goal. I've seen a white trash version of it where i grew up but it's not as widespread and all pervasive amongst white people.
Jack Cashill once noted that both white and black kids listened to gangster rap, but it tended to bounce right off the white kids while too many black kids absorbed and lived it.
I think there's a lot of truth to that. When I grew up in a small, mostly white, southern town, almost all of us were listening to gangster rap, but NOBODY idealized it or thought about emulating what we were hearing the songs.
If you're a kid who listens to that music and thinks, "This is describing how I should behave and what I should be," it's going to be turn you into a garbage human being and unfortunately, I think that happens with way too many black kids.
Worth thinking about....all that gloomy alternative rock in the 90's and all that death and doom metal/goth stuff was overwhelmingly listened to by white kids but most of those white kids grew up to be more or less normal and fuctional adults. It's like white kids have enough common sense not to get carried away with things like that. Just an observation...
With rap, it may just be the kind of thing where black kids can relate to it on a level that white kids don't. Like, I listened to NWA when I was young and I went to the theater to see the movie, but I could never imagine someone like me being in NWA. I'm on the outside looking in.
If you're a black kid in Chicago, it's probably a lot easier to picture yourself in that situation, living that life.
It’s well known the Obama CIA pushed RAPP as part of a cultural revolution.
Found the MAGA!
Not in this thread, just in your head.
Hmmm.....or maybe the music didn't reflect the environment those particular white kids lived in?
Thank God! What kind of trash wants to live in that kind of disgusting neighborhood
I was at a youth baseball game just yesterday…and a spoiled little…white kids walk up song was…f the police by none other than…When I first heard that grap playing in my college dormitory in 1988…I would have never dreamed I would live in a world where “Dr” Dre would grow up to be a billionaire…let alone Don King…Trump would be President. Yes, politics is downstream from culture
The lower the intellect the easier it is to influence the mind that's a fact unfortunately
You are right, but don’t leave out the disgusting black reality shows with black women dressed like ho’s and their cheating me. Or the black men tv shows on cable acting like
Acting violently. Totally unacceptable examples for young black boys and girls.
I am 70 and had radical cancer surgery last year (oral cancer) followed by six weeks of radiation every day. Getting the techs to order some of that obscure new wave music from my late 29s/early 30s during the 80s was the high point of that dark period. A lot of punk/new wave fans (and they are overwhelmingly white) are positively weird - I am utterly conventional and politically conservative.
Did you know the CIA helped develop Rapp music! True story! Obama is implicated!
Black culture is 1000% more racist than white culture. Unfortunately, the black culture is built on disrespect. Disrespect for their children, their family, their neighborhoods, work, money, etc. To really help the black community, an honest discussion will need to be had about the black community's ability to absorb education.
I think you're a little low on your estimate it's more like 20,000 times more racist than white society
Yeah... they think it's OK to stab us 😃
And that racism is being endorsed legislatively. There are states like Washington state that are formalizing reparations, and writing into legislation that new contracts issued have to be to a 51% minority or female-owned business, leaving out which group specifically? There's this assumption that having a dick and white skin has exempted you from all difficulties, poverty, etc. You don't need any help or deserve any help because you ruined the world somehow. No, white men built everything that these degenerates enjoy. Everything.
The clearest way to know that it's culture and not racism that's the root cause of the problem is the difference between black immigrants vs native born blacks on key metrics like education, income, etc. The differences are astonishing if you haven't seen the numbers.
When I lived in Chicago, I worked with African immigrants, mainly Nigerians, who were in America legally because they wanted to be Americans. You know, ACTUAL immigrants.
Those people had a good (though heavily-accented) command of English, were married, law-abiding, worked honest jobs like 15 hours a day and drove their kids to get good grades. They were also all practicing Catholics and couldn't work Sunday morning because of Mass.
I have far more respect for the African blacks I've met over the years than for most American blacks.
Words alone are insufficient to express my support for your article. I am a black man who was born and raised in SF. While my parents divorced when I was roughly 11 or 12, they had the foresight to send me to private (Catholic) middle and high schools. My mother had also attended a Catholic high school in California. I worked hard in school but eventually dropped out of college after 2 years to join a local police force. I eventually earned both a bachelor’s and master’s degree and promoted several times before becoming a police chief. America is a place where anyone from anyplace can become anything they want if they work hard, treat others well, and MAKE SOUND DECISIONS! Thank you!
Only three? I quickly scanned this article. The real problem is that the black family was destroyed by LBJ and has carried forward ever sense. Until this is resolved many within the black community will lag behind. It doesn't have to be this way but being a loser is choice.
Reality is never on the side of the angry black activists, but that has never stopped them. This is about as clear cut a murder case as there can be and they clinging to straws to cry racism. They've lost any shred of credibility they had (it wasn't much) and the black behavior accountability dodge complex has never been louder.
Great explanation of the real situation with blacks in America.
I teach white and black students and immigrant students. It has been over 26 years. I have never noticed anything noteworthy in decision making of black kids or their parents or their behavior patterns. Our community struggles economically, and while we have had some very challenging black students over the years, we have had plenty of white and immigrant students with huge behavioral issues too. No behaviors or decisions by the black students or their parents were different than others to where i would find a pattern. One exception being three boys who all committed the same crime after graduating high school-and those boys just hung out together and brought out the worst in each other. I even have a white kid right now in prison for attempted murder. As it stands-for years now- i am slightly more likely to NOT see behavioral issues from my black students, nor are their parents creative excuse makers. A few have been but plenty of whites or other ethnic groups will cover that ground too. Our biggest issues usually are kids who aren’t black and whose families have lived in the area for a long time, giving them some special entitlement and feeling of importance. Hovering moms are everywhere. Not sure when you drove around black kids to group homes but it might be the 90’s, and you seem to have found a special pattern from 90’s urban area to stick with. I get you have numbers to go with and i certainly won’t argue those but doesn’t seem to jibe with what i’ve seen for the last 26 years.
Where do you teach? What city or town?
metro detroit
(in one of those industrial suburbs that has school of choice and is about 10 miles out)
that’s about all you’ll get from me lol
Do you think school choice makes the difference?
during phases,, yes, esp if kids come from struggling districts -kids will get used to seeing disciplinary issues all over in their old
and if a few migrate together from the same place at the same time you can see the way they act was part of habits from their old schools. Eventually that seems to subside and kids either get acclimated in our school or more rarely, kicked out (they may have been kicked out of their struggling districts too). Our school by nature though is not without behavioral struggles itself, ones that would stand out a bit more in a different area. Still overall we run a tight ship even if it starts to come apart every so often. school of choice will also show sometimes a very poorly prepared kid that would stand out in our district, even if our district scores are already not great. At times our school of choice kids would be more black. Lately they are white. Both from different industrial crumbly suburbs of detroit coming to our less crumbly looking place.
it is important to note that many of the social issues both white and black kids may be stuck with don’t necessarily translate to bad behavior. I had a well behaved brother and sister set who were both black and their father was in jail for murder. They were being raised by a loving but sickly grandmother, and instead of running rampant they did their work and behaved well and had positive relationships. A white girl i had once was worried about her mother coming in to conferences. Why? i asked, then i discovered when her mother stumbled in on my table covered in dried blood and babbling crazy things. Her mother was addict who passed away the following year. She kept up her grades even as her father had weirdos in the bathroom doing stuff during these late night parties . She too had to live with grandma. We have had some kids raised in very dark situations but behaviors would vary. You’d just as likely get a good kid from a family full of issues as a trouble maker.
thank you
Thank you. I think these details add more weight to your statement.
Democrat Party = Murder Party
Scott Adams was right; just stay away from them. We can no longer coexist.
There are interesting anecdotes I've read that before busing in the 1970s/1980s, there were many predominantly black-enrollment schools (middle & high) in multiple inner cities that were doing very well re: testing, gpa etc., and then forced integration broke then.
Point being: doesn't mean integration bad, but also doesn't mean integration "fixes" everything.
Dunbar, in DC, graduated athletes, politicians, and other notables. It was one of the best schools in the city. Not best “Black” school, but one of the best, period.
Now, US News doesn’t rank them very well.
so maybe segregation wasn't so bad after all
Interestingly, there are blacks who are advocating for just that: segregation. Just look up the Freedom, Georgia project. The YouTube videos are... Enlightening.
Scott Adams's message was extremely misunderstood, may he Rest In Peace. He clearly stated it's best for white people to stay away from black people who hate white people; not all black people, sight unseen.
His exhortation was explicit. And then the overlords punished him severely. Severed his syndication. But I don't think he cared. He was well off and knew he had terminal cancer.
No more analysis. It's all for us anyway. They don't read this shit.
If I were a black person who hasn’t been brainwashed by the Democrat party line, and isn’t wallowing in self-destruction, I’d be so ashamed and humiliated by my race I’d probably never show my face in public if I didn’t absolutely have to. Sorry to say it, but only a few black people should be allowed to stay in this country. Law-abiding, honest believers in true American values and ethics. The rest of them, and that would be most, need to be expatriated to anywhere but here. Get them out. They deserve to find out what living in their own countries is really like.
I am seeing a trend on social media of black men and women who are bravely swimming against the cultural currents. Some of the wisest writers I follow in Substack are black men. Probably simply saying such things could get me ostracized, but it’s true.
I also see wonderful things happening in the black community, including a young man who leads an afterschool boys club, with mostly black kids but a few white boys, and he teaches them to be men. There are a hundred little things they need to know, from how to unplug a toilet and clean up the mess, to how to pay bills and politely check into hotels, to how to behave during a traffic stop. The kids are well disciplined, respond to him with “Yes, sir,” and “no, sir,” when he asked them questions.
I also follow a young black man who serves as a caregiver for a retired Navy veteran, and his videos are going viral over the close and loving friendship he has developed with seniors. In fact, he was a recent keynote speaker at a national conference for caregivers.
Another black man I follow specializes in giving haircuts to boys with autism, not an easy task, but he does it with skill, gentleness, humor, and patience. I am awestruck as he works with these neurodivergent children.
And I don’t see a black cultural monolith in the same way there is no Asian monolith, no Latino monolith, and no white monolith. I have purposely spent time searching out the goodness and the cracks in the media narrative, and I have found a surprising number of reasons to be optimistic about the future.
These examples may seem insignificant in the face of the mainstream culture, but they are signs of a growing trend to escape from the racism of low expectations on the Democrat plantation. Look at the growing number of black men who voted for Trump because he takes them seriously as people, rather than as victims.
As I said earlier, I see more and more examples of people who give me reason to hope. I believe there is enough goodness in the black community to overcome the negative and I also believe they are fully capable of achieving success with the dampening effect of self appointed white saviors.
I think it can be easy for people to look at the worst, most obnoxious, most ignorant black Americans and judge all black people that way, but I don't think that's true or productive.
There are a lot of smart, successful black Americans that I respect for one reason or another -- I could have easily listed another 20 or 30, but I wanted to stick to people most readers have heard of -- and honestly, almost of the black people I interact with where I live seem just fine. Nobody is screaming at each other or getting mad, we're all just living our lives and doing what we do without hurting anyone else.
The thing is, all those people often get shoved in the background in favor of discussing Karmelo Anthony, Mike Brown, George Floyd, Joy Reid, Jasmine Crockett, the lastest rapper to get shot, and a bunch of morons mass shoplifting from a store because that's what *** REAL*** black Americans are supposed to be according to so many people on the Left. If that was what black people REALLY ARE -- racism would be the appropriate response because those people are all trash with no redeeming virtues.
But, they're not -- and more people of every race need to make that distinction because it's good for black Americans, white Americans, and the country to do it.
What???
I agree with your first paragraph: it’s wrong to judge an entire race by its worst members. That’s exactly why discussions about George Floyd, police violence, or crime aren’t claims that those people represent Black America. You’re arguing against a position very few people actually hold. The point is that these cases reveal issues worth discussing, not that they define Black people.
Ironically, you’re making the same mistake you warn against. You criticize “the Left” by selecting a handful of politicians, commentators, and headlines while overlooking the millions of Black Americans who are teachers, engineers, business owners, parents, doctors, veterans, and public servants. Media attention follows conflict because conflict attracts viewers, not because it reflects reality. The same news cycle that gives disproportionate attention to crime also gives disproportionate attention to school shootings, political extremism, and scandals involving white Americans without anyone concluding those people represent white culture.
The existence of successful Black Americans has never been evidence that systemic barriers don’t exist. Individual achievement and structural inequality can both be true at the same time. In fact, that’s what decades of research on disparities in housing, wealth, education, lending, sentencing, and employment has consistently shown. Pointing out those disparities isn’t stereotyping Black people It’s recognizing that outcomes are shaped by more than individual character alone.
Wow you really live in Fantasyland! It must be nice to be delusional but the facts speak for themselves no matter what kind of BS you want to spread look at the amount of crimes that are committed look at the people in prison through those grants look at the percentages of each race it's exponentially higher in the black community. So all your b******* and singling out one case here in one case there means nothing
I hope you never grow tired of the kind of world you choose, but the way things are is not the way they must remain. I see signs of change. You see what you want to see. Fine, but I’m not bound to your vision of the future.
Even if all criminals were black it would not mean most blacks are criminals - for exactly the same reason that (almost) all rapists are men hardly means most men are rapists.
Most stereotypes against any group are, at bottom, based on the logical fallacy of noticing most Xs are Ys and concluding, falsely, that most Ys are Xs.
Although, crime statistics exist. And then of course most of us have eyes as well. We live in the world.
And I hope you grow tired of living in fantasyland. Because nothing you say mirrors reality
Your reality, not mine.
I agree. There are many wonderful black folks out there. MANY. They don't get the headlines. The worst of society gets the headlines. And then everybody lumps them all together as a group. These headlines grabbers are just bad humans doing despicable things. And they come in all colors. If bad actions had real, hard consequences, we would see less chaos in society.
Re: Substack - Jeffrey Mead and Kaizen Asiedo (a/k/a Clear Thinker) are two voices I believe are worth listening to.
Kaizen Asiedu (ClearThinker) is a recommendation.
Thanks.
And how is it living in Fantasyland
A lot better than living in your Fantasyland.
“The rest of them, and that would be most, need to be expatriated to anywhere but here. Get them out. They deserve to find out what living in their own countries is really like.”
I agree with every word that Hawkins wrote in his piece.
But your bit here, especially the quoted bit, is just racist. And despicable racism at that.
For the large majority of black Americans, the U.S.A. *is* their own country!
And unless you happen to be a Native American - a fact I would be shocked by based on your comments - this is just as much their country as yours or mine.
I live in a coastal county on the Gulf of America where a report came out a few years ago that over 70% of the children in the county had never seen the Gulf. It went further and said 75% had not gone outside the county and over 80% had never gone outside the state. Those children have no concept of how big the world is.
And they are so poorly educated that they probably would think it's a good idea to accept repatriation, never even realizing that experiment ha been tried and it's called Liberia.
They would never leave, because here they receive enormous benefits from white guilt and grifting. They bring up slavery more than freedom because it pays so well.
Unfortunately, this young man was raised to be who he was. And now he will pay a very high price. It was never about race. It was teaching your children about values, respecting each other, respecting life and respecting law and order. There’s nothing racial about that. I’m white and I explained that and taught that to my children and my grandchildren. It’s called being a good parent.
If you have watched The Sopranos you saw the Italian-American community begin to distance itself from the crime ridden Mafia. When does the apparent tolerance for crime within the black community along with the acceptance by black school administrators of the disruption of classrooms by out of control individuals begin to end? When will black fathers who fail to care for and love their children and especially their boy children be openly censured by black leadership? The young Chris Rock joked about these issues but he clearly now censors himself.
On X, now without censorship thanks to Elon Musk, out of control violence has become standard fodder for ridicule with blacks typically being the most violent group depicted. Unfortunately, the stereotype of black violence is rooted in reality.
Where white people decide to live, shop, vacation and even if they are willing to use public transit (especially women) has been for decades largely based on avoiding large groups of black people because of their perceived and actual tendency to engage in violence. The term white flight has always been used as a slur when, in truth, it means white common sense.
Why do the Democrats always appear to be on their back foot on the issue of black violent crime? Why do they allow Trump to take the lead on this issue while they hem and haw? Why not make fighting murderers, car jackers and rapists a top priority of the Democratic Party and especially of Democratic mayors? There is simply no political logic to being seen as soft on crime when the majority of crime victims are the very minorities the Democrats are supposed to champion. The single most important thing Democrats could do to save the lives of young black men would be to reinstitute the police policy of “stop and frisk” in black neighborhoods to stop the carrying of illegal guns. This would stem the tide of murders of blacks that fill the nightly news in every major city in America and yet is hidden in plain sight. These kids would quickly get the message and quit carrying illegally. Young black men (15-34) are just 2% of the population and yet commit about half of the nation’s homicides. A rate an astounding 50 times higher than the average American. They are the nation’s gun violence problem. They are also the primary victims of these murders with about 6,000 killed every year. We need to save their lives in spite of the insane ACLU and its bullshit niceties.
In my view, the worst notion among Black folks is that behaviors that lead to good outcomes are "white culture" and should be avoided and that behaviors that lead to the worst outcomes are Black Culture, and praised. There is a whole world of cultures out there. Look for what works in all of them and adopt what works. Leave behind the slave mentality that was imposed; it is not authentic Black Culture.
Really? And where are you getting this from?
https://www.newsweek.com/smithsonian-race-guidelines-rational-thinking-hard-work-are-white-values-1518333
Using this list as a reference, it appears that the black culture at large has chosen to reject most of these things.