LOIE
Gold Member
- May 11, 2017
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I just finished reading "American Apartheid," which explains segregation and the making of the underclass. I think it's appropriate now because I've once again seen remarks about blacks being criminals. Some folks today have called BLM criminals.
Here are some book excerpts:
"Segregation is created by a process of racial turnover fueled by the persistence of significant anti-black prejudice. The black ghetto was created and maintained by racially biased practices of real estate agents and financial institutions.
The end result is that blacks remain the most spatially isolated population in the U.S. Racial segregation makes neighborhoods where blacks live particularly vulnerable to disinvestment and decay. Poor blacks are more likely to be trapped in neighborhoods caught in the grip of downward spirals, because segregation acts to concentrate poverty and all things associated with it,(like crime.) Racism is the most basic cause of the underclass condition.
Ghetto culture is rooted in the structural conditions of poverty, dependency and joblessness, over which the residents have little control. Over time, as intense racial isolation and concentrated poverty have continued, ghetto attitudes, values and ideals have become progressively less connected to those prevailing elsewhere in the U.S. The culture has become an entity unto itself. The proliferation of the drug culture has exacerbated the problems caused by segregation and its concentration of poverty.
The culture of segregation arises from the coincidence of racial isolation and high poverty, which inevitably occurs when a poor minority group is segregated. By concentrating poverty, segregation simultaneously concentrates male joblessness, teenage motherhood, single parenthood, alcoholism and drug use, thus creating an entirely black social world in which these OPPOSITIONAL STATES are normative.
It requires a great deal of concentrated effort by committed parents and no small amount of luck to raise children successfully within the ghetto. Given the burden of "acting white," the pressures to speak Black English, the social stigma attached to "brainiacs," the allure of drug taking, the quick money to be had from drug dealing, it is not surprising that black achievement has stagnated.(and black crime has not).
As a by-product of the drug culture, crime and violent death among black men has skyrocketed. The social order and oppositional culture is dramatically different from that prevailing in the rest of American society."
I say to all of this that we are so quick to blame the victims and criticize their lives and decisions. We have not, however, lived their lives and I believe we would do well to try to educate ourselves and try to understand the forces that have shaped their lives.
Here's another portion I can't leave out. "Given the clear evidence of segregation's ill effects on American society, why wasn't something done about it? Why didn't political leaders and policymakers take forceful steps to dismantle the ghetto, especially after 1960, when violent riots and the unmistakable spread of social disorder within the black community made clear the price the nation was paying for the persistence of segregation? Why did the country tolerate, for two decades, a fair housing law that was so obviously defective? The simple answer to these questions, sadly, is that most people wanted blacks confined to ghettos and were content to work around the unpleasant social consequences. Ultimate responsibility for the persistence of racial segregation rests with white America. On issues of race and residence, white America continues to be fundamentally hypocritical and self-deceiving."
I believe white Americans ARE being basically hypocritical when we point to other folks as criminals. We are primarily responsible for creating living conditions that are criminal. Maybe not all of us are guilty of sins of commission, but certainly we are responsible for sins of omission when we say and do nothing while such things go on.
Here are some book excerpts:
"Segregation is created by a process of racial turnover fueled by the persistence of significant anti-black prejudice. The black ghetto was created and maintained by racially biased practices of real estate agents and financial institutions.
The end result is that blacks remain the most spatially isolated population in the U.S. Racial segregation makes neighborhoods where blacks live particularly vulnerable to disinvestment and decay. Poor blacks are more likely to be trapped in neighborhoods caught in the grip of downward spirals, because segregation acts to concentrate poverty and all things associated with it,(like crime.) Racism is the most basic cause of the underclass condition.
Ghetto culture is rooted in the structural conditions of poverty, dependency and joblessness, over which the residents have little control. Over time, as intense racial isolation and concentrated poverty have continued, ghetto attitudes, values and ideals have become progressively less connected to those prevailing elsewhere in the U.S. The culture has become an entity unto itself. The proliferation of the drug culture has exacerbated the problems caused by segregation and its concentration of poverty.
The culture of segregation arises from the coincidence of racial isolation and high poverty, which inevitably occurs when a poor minority group is segregated. By concentrating poverty, segregation simultaneously concentrates male joblessness, teenage motherhood, single parenthood, alcoholism and drug use, thus creating an entirely black social world in which these OPPOSITIONAL STATES are normative.
It requires a great deal of concentrated effort by committed parents and no small amount of luck to raise children successfully within the ghetto. Given the burden of "acting white," the pressures to speak Black English, the social stigma attached to "brainiacs," the allure of drug taking, the quick money to be had from drug dealing, it is not surprising that black achievement has stagnated.(and black crime has not).
As a by-product of the drug culture, crime and violent death among black men has skyrocketed. The social order and oppositional culture is dramatically different from that prevailing in the rest of American society."
I say to all of this that we are so quick to blame the victims and criticize their lives and decisions. We have not, however, lived their lives and I believe we would do well to try to educate ourselves and try to understand the forces that have shaped their lives.
Here's another portion I can't leave out. "Given the clear evidence of segregation's ill effects on American society, why wasn't something done about it? Why didn't political leaders and policymakers take forceful steps to dismantle the ghetto, especially after 1960, when violent riots and the unmistakable spread of social disorder within the black community made clear the price the nation was paying for the persistence of segregation? Why did the country tolerate, for two decades, a fair housing law that was so obviously defective? The simple answer to these questions, sadly, is that most people wanted blacks confined to ghettos and were content to work around the unpleasant social consequences. Ultimate responsibility for the persistence of racial segregation rests with white America. On issues of race and residence, white America continues to be fundamentally hypocritical and self-deceiving."
I believe white Americans ARE being basically hypocritical when we point to other folks as criminals. We are primarily responsible for creating living conditions that are criminal. Maybe not all of us are guilty of sins of commission, but certainly we are responsible for sins of omission when we say and do nothing while such things go on.
