[scottfactor]

This story was written by an opinion columnist for the St. Petersburg Times, a liberal Poynter Institute writer who is African-American. In a newspaper full of liberal tripe, I sometimes find his honest views refreshing. Although many times I do not agree with Mr. Maxwell, sometimes he hits the nail right ont he head. If the black community wishes for better days, it had better start cleaning it's own backyard before it continues to criticize me for stepping on the grass.

[Jim Robinson]

The black community that does this is nuts!! Idiots all!!

[Joe Boucher]

I truely believe race relations had turned the corner.
After this marxist pos “magic negro”, I’ll never again look at a black in a position of power and NOt wonder if they are a quota boy.
A set aside.
Did they get this position only because they are black and not on their merit.
Way to go obammy.

[A_Former_Democrat]

Some people are their own worst enemies

[BenLurkin]

The Leningrad Times?

[ClearCase_guy]

These are the people who, when they are feeling especially poor and looked down upon, decide to burn down their own neighborhood.

They screwed up Africa. They screwed up our cities. They somehow hold me accountable for all of their problems. I'm so done with it -- go fix yourself.

[wideawake]

Russia has it's own criminal underground, with its own code of silence and its own system of ostracism. It's called vor v zakone.

[I_Like_Spam]

This is really nothing new, Gary Heidnik lived unmolested in a predominantly African American community in Philly. Similarly, Jeff Dahmer did his crimes in a crowded apartment building in the ‘hood.

[luvbach1]

This is the same ostracization directed at blacks who speak standard English instead of ungrammatical Ebonics.

[Tax Government]

I wonder if Jesse Jackson would shake their hands for the media. It would help him a lot, and send a message where it needs to go.

[Bernard]

In a culture where life is cheap, having the decency to care for a fellow human being is looked down on. There can be little hope for people like this. and they will eventually get the end that they deserve.

[livius]

The code of silence has coarsened black culture, especially in low-income communities, both rural and urban.

Very, very true. I can't believe Bill Maxwell, a first class black victimologist, wrote this. Maybe common sense is breaking out among blacks, since the biggest killer of blacks is...other blacks. It's an entire ethnic group living in servitude to their thug population.

Whites have an abundant number of thugs, but we hate them. Blacks have got to start hating their own thugs too.

[nkycincinnatikid]

So tragicly true.

[SuziQ]

Their sin, considered by many to be perhaps the worst in American black culture, was helping "the enemy" — the police. You are guilty of helping the enemy in two main ways: You give the police, or another authority, information about a black person who has committed or is suspected of having committed a crime, which is "snitching." Or, as is the case with the three women, you physically aid and comfort police in distress, which is treated the same as snitching.

Therein lies the root of the decay of black culture. Sure, many years ago, there was the danger of black people being charged for crimes they didn't commit, but it didn't happen to ALL black people. Sadly, though, there developed an attitude toward the police that made it impossible for the officers to HELP black people when they're victimized by their own, or anyone else, for that matter.

The attitude gravitated to education, so now if young black people truly WANT a good education, they're made to feel as if they're traitors to their race. This keeps a large number of blacks in abject poverty, thus vulnerable to their own criminals who they're loathe to 'betray'.

[kalee]

bttt

[I_Like_Spam]

What irritates me worst about the code of omerta as practiced in the hood are the complaints of the African American community about open air drug markets, prostitution and other vice rampant in their neighborhoods.

Here in Pittsburgh, black leaders will complain that the city wouldn’t allow the kinds of shenanigans that go on in Homewood and Larimer to go on in Squirrel Hill (an affluent mostly white community here) for a minute.

But obviously if they insist on not snitching on their miscreant neighbors, the city can’t do anything about it. The folks in Squirrel Hill would confront it and call the police and snitch.