The headline could have been something like “ Most young black men leading a life of crime”.
That would have been more truthful than the outright lie they printed.
” Most young black men leading a life of crime”.
With all due respect, that is also nonsense.
Let me tell you my experience at the annual School Safety Patrol Awards for the Oakland (California) public school safety patrols (kids who help direct traffic before and after school). The Safety Patrol system is under the auspices of the Oakland police department, and there are periodic, though brief, interactions between the kids and the cops during the year.
It’s held at the Mormon temple’s auditorium. There are LOTS of black kids who are members of the safety patrols, and their families come out to watch in substantial numbers. The ceremony commenced and ends with a non-denominational prayer by a Christian minister from a local black Christian church. The main program is run by a police officer who is a suprisingly good master of ceremonies, and the Mayor, Chief of Police and other city officials are in attendance. I went to two of these when my kids were in elementary school.
No one is making the black kids join the safety patrols and no one is making the black families come to the award ceremonies to cheer for their kids at a police-sponsored function. All are proud to be there. I’m not saying this is the whole picture of black culture in Oakland, but it is a real picture, and it is buried way below the sensational stories of rampant crime, on the one hand, and rampant police abuse, on the other.
This is the day-to-day reality of a lot of working class and middle class black people. Respectable, Christian, law abiding, and not automatically the adversaries of law enforcement. You can draw what conclusions you will, but I was there, and that’s what I saw, two different years.