A National Conversation about the American Ghetto

The American Thinker ^ | December 31, 2014 | Michael L. Grable

[Cincinatus' Wife]

"....Media sensationalism this year about two black deaths at the hands of white policemen inflamed the argument,.........

Here, however, is one standup law-enforcement professional, Milwaukee County Sheriff David A. Clarke, Jr., who begs to disagree.

Sheriff Clarke publicly condemns anti-police populism as the Left's deflection of an urban reality with which he's professionally all too familiar and for which the Left's all too politically responsible. "This deflects," says Sheriff Clarke:

against the real thing that we need to have a conversation about in this country and it's the American ghetto. And that's where most of the policing unfortunately has to be applied. The American ghetto has chronic poverty, high unemployment where people can't find meaningful work, and kids shackled to failing public schools ensuring that they won't reach their God-given potential. This creates a permanent underclass in this country and ensures that this group of people will continue to live life at the bottom. That's the kind of conversation that we need to have, as to how these failed liberal government policies have led to the creation and emergence of the welfare state. And that characterizes the American ghetto. Let's have that conversation and get off this nonsense that it's the policing profession that needs to be transformed. There's nothing wrong with the policing of, or institution of, policing in America.

[SNIP]

Virtually all of society's present power centers are existentially invested in a civil-rights myth that Sheriff Clarke's black ghetto is the direct consequence of an unmerited white privilege which only massive government coercion and redistribution can remedy.

This perverse myth germinated in academia, but has since become rooted in politics. Because all politics are cultural and academia is the laboratory of culture, the feedback loop is now virtually unassailable....

[SNIP]

[gleeaikin]

I agree that southern Republicans are not now like Bull Connor, Lester Maddox, and George Wallace, but it is very clear that Republicans have replaced Democrats to a large extent. Just look at who won most of the Congressional races in the southern states for many of the reasons you mention.

[kearnyirish2]

That’s right; short - violent - tribal.

In the meantime, what can the country do to deal with those who survive the gauntlet of abortion?

[katana]

The quasi-dominant media insists that the only possible reason Republicans have become the dominant party in the South and among white Americans living between 25 miles inland from either coast is because they and the party itself are rabidly racist. Goebbels would be proud since drumming out the Big Lie and demonizing people based on their race continue, to at least some extent, work so well.

[cuban leaf]

In the meantime, what can the country do to deal with those who survive the gauntlet of abortion?

---

One thing is to push for civilized people to acquire CC permits. It’s what my wife and I are doing - especially now that I work in downtown Louisville.

[Trailerpark Badass]

The ghettoes are ghettoes not because of failing social services or some ridiculous "lack of opportunity" based on zip code or geographical location. That rationalization makes me want to vomit.

ghettoes are ghettoes because of the people who live there, their absolute lack of character, and the poverty of their souls. They treat each other worse than the rich or the white could ever dream of.

[kearnyirish2]

That’s one solution; in the meantime, whole neighborhoods/municipalities are simply abandoned to the savages.

[cuban leaf]

Yep. For decades people have said PC will destroy us. Well, it will destroy a lot of us. Especially in those places. It’s why I moved out of Seattle in the spirit of Revelation 18:4.

[kearnyirish2]

Even worse, PC destroyed blacks. It prevents an honest discussion, without which there can be no remedy. While they are willing recipients of liberal condescension and freebies, they have fallen even further behind average Americans in terms of education, economic muscle, etc.

[SamAdams76]

However, in recent decades many would argue that there has been a complete reversal of roles in the South, with Republicans adopting much of the Dixiecrat positions.

???

That's one of the strangest statements I've ever read in this forum. Please explain.

[Trailerpark Badass]

Um, what?

you do know you're parroting a common, and false, leftist talking point, don't you?

[gogeo]

It’s no more complicated than that.

[gogeo]

+1+1

[okie01]

The Democrat Dixiecrats were an active force for repressions. However, in recent decades many would argue that there has been a complete reversal of roles in the South, with Republicans adopting much of the Dixiecrat positions.

You haven't responded to my original post. But I'll undertake to explain the source of your misperception.

1. It is absolutely true that much of the black population in the South continues to experience repression.

2. But it is also absolutely true that the Republican party -- which now governs every state in the South -- has nothing to do with this repression.

3. The source of modern-day repression is the black Democrat political bosses that run specific counties and cities in the South.

As a rule, counties and cities run by black politicians are havens for corruption. The counties and municipalities will be economically backward, local industry will be extorted, the governmental pension funds will be bankrupted and the local blacks exploited for their vote.

Each black-run county tends to have its "Senatuh Sanduhs" (Dallas Co, AL) -- and they are little different from the Al Sharptons and Jesse Jacksons of the North.

[gleeaikin]

Many people are not rabidly racist. However, if they ask themselves the question, how would I feel if my daughter/son married/slept with a XXXXXXX, their answer will tell the tale.

[cuban leaf]

Exactly. Those are the “places” I referred to. Well, a few non-black urban areas are being hit as well. My hometown of Seattle would be a good example.

But it’s fine in rural areas like where I now live.

[Trailerpark Badass]

What tale?

I suppose you would have no reservations regarding your child marrying into another culture, and anyone who would does only because they hate the "other?"

[katana]

Those who yell racist the loudest these days are almost without exception doing so in recognition that they cannot argue facts and must resort to what they think is an ad hominem trump card. The purpose is not just to distract from an argument they’re losing but to bait the other person into similar childishness. Racism, like so many things about us, is human nature. Haven’t yet seen any racial group which doesn’t identify people who have a substantially different appearance from them as “the other”. So they may as well yell “well, you’re fat!”, “Heretic!”, or let out the pod people shriek from the end of “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”.