The continued marginalization of minority communities
Look, it's not a secret that crime is higher in poor, minority communities. Go to any ghetto, be it Detroit, Chicago, St. Louis, and you will find high crime, and a disproportionate amount of minorities. Many of these people live in absolutely atrocious environments, with the school systems, and even public sanitation and drinking water being far below substandard. Far below anything we should consider acceptable. But there are people who want to deny this; say that, the crime rates aren't higher among minorities, that these cities are amazing, and that the police are lying about this. Yes, the police are racist and for no good reason arresting minorities and lying about this how crime rate, even going so far as to shoot them for no good reason. Now, I understand you're trying to paint minorities in a good light; after all, who wants a high crime rate? But it's dangerous and downright irresponsible to deny the problems that actually exist among minorities, and in particular the black community, as it marginalizes them and covers up the problem so, largely white people, can ignore that these problems exist. It can't be that crime is actually higher in the Ghetto, oh no, cops are making it up!
Look, it's okay that crime is higher among certain minorities and even poor people. I lived in a house with a dirt floor and a tin roof until I was 3 years old, and my parents scraped and fought their way up to get out of this crushing poverty. After 200,000 dollars of debt and ridiculous work hours, they had finally scraped their way in to the lower middle class. Yes, even in American folks, we have slums. Yes, I want you to realize that people actually live in these places. That children go to schools with fungus growing out of the walls. Teachers refuse to go to these schools due to the unsafe living conditions. You want to seriously ask the question as to why crime is higher? Maybe it's because with bad schools, gets are more likely to turn to crime. The average gang initiate is 13 or 14, and gangs recruit kids from schools. [1][2] The average poor urban person will commit violent crimes at a drastically higher rate than people middle class or above. Poor urban blacks (51.3 per 1,000) had rates of violence similar to poor urban whites (56.4 per 1,000), meaning that race really isn't the issue. The problem is that black people tend to more poor than white people on average, with 24% of black people being below the poverty line, compared to 9% of white people. [1] At least 48 percent of violent crime is committed by organized criminal gangs, meaning that it's not really a secret that gangs and violent crime, particularly homicide, are connected.
Our children are being sucked in to this madness and used like child soldiers in these gangs wars to make money and compete for turf to determine who gets to sell drugs to who, and all you can say is "police are making it up". I'd like to ask you to at least have the dignity, to give us the dignity, to admit that it's happening. To not blame the police, to not blame the victims or, black people and minorities in particular, but the bad economy. The more you choose to ignore it and your made-up fantasy worlds so you can attack your political enemies, the worse our country and in particular these people will be. America doesn't have some national problem afflicting us; it's not terrible everywhere. In fact, it's great in most places. It's only terrible in a few places. And where it's bad, it's really bad. Almost unbelievably bad; so bad, many people try to ignore it. They look at the symptoms like a high prison rate or rate of being shot by police, and say it must be racism. Where are these people who cry racism when these communities fall apart after being ignored, though? Where are they trying to make a legitimate difference, to actually make the place no longer a shit hole anymore? That cry about the police shooting a black person as if it's the first time they've ever realized that life fucking sucks there.
Having the misfortune of being born in to extreme poverty shouldn't be a death sentence, and shouldn't be scolded. So what if crime is actually higher; let's address it and change it, not racistly assume it doesn't exist. You know what you are if you think black people are worse than white people if crime rates are actually higher? A racist. Crime isn't necessarily higher than whites in say, South Africa or Angola, and black people weren't always disproportionately more likely to be criminals in America either. In fact, in 1926 (page 11) the arrest rates for black people was only 23%, compared to 38% today. So, black people weren't always the main people committing crimes, at one point it was the irish, and then Italians during the reign of the mafia. The fact that crime is abnormally higher, at a given point in time, is not proof that everyone of that particular race is somehow inherently bad. Look, neither black people nor white people will ever commit a major crime in their life. Violent crimes are done by less than 2% of the black population, just like the white population and everyone else. Most people will never do anything seriously immoral or bad, no matter their own living conditions. But these horrible living conditions produce an environment that causes the less stable people to be more likely to be criminals. If you consider how many people break down during a riot or after a hurricane and you can see what percentage of people, of all races, are likely to be violent criminals. You remove the thin veil of society and you see how people really are. Most of them are good, but there are always those who are going to be bad. While rich people fire thousands of workers or commit white collar crimes, poor people tend to be more violent. Which is why you have the disparity in prison statistics. Rich "bad" people simply don't have as often a reason to steal, so they do so less.
So why do people continue to deny it? To try and help minorities by pretending their situation isn't fucked up? That crime can't be higher among them because that would be too hard for white people to admit? These people didn't choose to live in these environments, they were born in to it, and due to the cyclical nature of poverty, can't get out of it. You really expect someone with a horrid education infested by gangs and cockroaches, afraid more of getting shot or dying of disease than getting bullied to be able to work their way out of their situation? If you want to change the system, if you want to change the problem, you actually have to help these disparaged communities, these mostly minority communities, or else you let it continue.
"Evil triumphs, when good men do nothing". So let's not do nothing, and invest in these poor communities. Detroit, Chicago, St. Louis all have the same problems and by focusing on education and improved economic conditions we can help them. This will cost us some money, but considering that it's only a handful of places that need to be targeted, it should be relatively inexpensive. People if given the opportunities to help themselves largely will, meaning if given the option, will likely take it. We don't need help at a national level for all minorities, or all people in general, we don't need to attack the justice system and tell them to not arrest actual real criminals. The number one victims of black criminals is other black people, so letting them all go would be a disaster. What we need is for people to actual invest in these communities, and start to admit that these problems even exist.
