1. The proximate cause of riots in Ferguson and Baltimore was police action...but we are regularly told that the rage has been simmering for decades.
If police-involved deaths were the match, the fuel for the explosion has been poverty, unemployment and discrimination.
Or....so we have been told.
Over and over.
The facts are very different.
2. Crime data for blacks contradicts widespread beliefs as to causes of same, e.g., poverty, unemployment and discrimination. First fact: prior to the decade of the 60’s, crime among black and white Americans was declining. It was after the historic civil rights that black riots in the urban ghettos began.
And the riots did not begin where blacks were poorest and most oppressed, the South. There were 34 deaths in Watts, and more, 43 in black riots in Detroit two years later.
a.While Detroit had the worst riots, the poverty rate among Detroit’s blacks was only half of that of blacks nationally….and its homeownership rate among blacks was the highest in the nation, - and black unemployment rate was 3.4%,- lower than among whites nationally! So the riots were hardly based on economic factors.
b. The riots following the death of Martin Luther King resulted in Chicago Mayor Daley issuing a highly publicized ‘shoot to kill’ order. Denounced by many, but the result was that deaths from riots in Chicago were a fraction of what they were in cities like Detroit where more humane and sympathetic expressions were used and the police restrained.
c. The most urban ghetto riots occurred during the Johnson administration; there was not one major urban riot during th entire eight years of the Reagan administration."
"Economic Facts and Fallacies," by Thomas Sowell, chapter six
Where, then, should we look for the instigation, the incitement, the impetus for the racial violence that is making its return?
3. The venues in which we find the violence is wholly owned and operated by Liberals, Progressives, Democrats.
And it is these elites who, sotto voce, push for the kind of anarchy we are witnessing.
From the start of his presidency, Barack Obama gave a cue as to how his 'amen corner' should view police.
"I wasn't there....but the police acted stupidly."
And so it began.
If police-involved deaths were the match, the fuel for the explosion has been poverty, unemployment and discrimination.
Or....so we have been told.
Over and over.
The facts are very different.
2. Crime data for blacks contradicts widespread beliefs as to causes of same, e.g., poverty, unemployment and discrimination. First fact: prior to the decade of the 60’s, crime among black and white Americans was declining. It was after the historic civil rights that black riots in the urban ghettos began.
And the riots did not begin where blacks were poorest and most oppressed, the South. There were 34 deaths in Watts, and more, 43 in black riots in Detroit two years later.
a.While Detroit had the worst riots, the poverty rate among Detroit’s blacks was only half of that of blacks nationally….and its homeownership rate among blacks was the highest in the nation, - and black unemployment rate was 3.4%,- lower than among whites nationally! So the riots were hardly based on economic factors.
b. The riots following the death of Martin Luther King resulted in Chicago Mayor Daley issuing a highly publicized ‘shoot to kill’ order. Denounced by many, but the result was that deaths from riots in Chicago were a fraction of what they were in cities like Detroit where more humane and sympathetic expressions were used and the police restrained.
c. The most urban ghetto riots occurred during the Johnson administration; there was not one major urban riot during th entire eight years of the Reagan administration."
"Economic Facts and Fallacies," by Thomas Sowell, chapter six
Where, then, should we look for the instigation, the incitement, the impetus for the racial violence that is making its return?
3. The venues in which we find the violence is wholly owned and operated by Liberals, Progressives, Democrats.
And it is these elites who, sotto voce, push for the kind of anarchy we are witnessing.
From the start of his presidency, Barack Obama gave a cue as to how his 'amen corner' should view police.
"I wasn't there....but the police acted stupidly."
And so it began.