Well, in my neighborhood, if it weren’t for black folk, we’d have virtually no crime at all.
That’s just a fact.
I think it has a lot more to do with environment than anything. If you look at whites in a predominantly black high crime neighborhood, I suspect you would find a pretty similar crime rate among the whites.
My tiny middle class town has a single black family. Yesterday I talked to the head of that household about this Gates thing. He said that his neighbors don’t view him with suspicion and when we had local cops, they didn’t view him with suspicion. However now that we have state and county police patrols, he expects to be treated a little different by police simply because he sticks out among his neighbors.
It should be pointed out that ANY new family moving in around here is viewed with at least a little suspicion. We’re just a close knit little village of around 150 people or so.