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Is Racism Responsible for Today's Black Problems?
Townhall,com ^ | July 29, 2020 | Walter E. Williams

Posted on 07/29/2020 3:36:08 AM PDT by Kaslin

I doubt whether any American would defend the police treatment of George Floyd that led to his death. But many Americans are supporting some of the responses to Floyd's death -- rioting, looting, wanton property destruction, assaults on police and other kinds of mayhem by both whites and blacks.

The pretense is that police conduct stands as the root of black problems. According to the NAACP, from 1882-1968, there were 3,446 black people lynched at the hands of whites. Today, being murdered by whites or policemen should be the least of black worries. In recent times, there is an average of 9,252 black-on-black murders every year. Over the past 35 years, that translates into nearly 324,000 blacks murdered at the hands of other blacks. Only a tiny percentage of blacks are killed by police. For example, in Chicago this year, there were 414 homicides, with a total of 2,078 people shot. So far in 2020, three people have been killed by police and four were shot. Manhattan Institute scholar Heather Mac Donald reports that "a police officer is 18 1/2 times more likely to be killed by a black male than an unarmed black male is to be killed by a police officer." Crime is a major problem for many black communities, but how much of it can be attributed to causes such as institutional racism, systemic racism, and white privilege?

The most devastating problem is the very weak black family structure. Less than a third of black children live in two-parent households and illegitimacy stands at 75%. The "legacy of slavery" is often blamed. Such an explanation turns out to be sheer nonsense when one examines black history. Even during slavery, where marriage was forbidden, most black children lived in biological two-parent families. Professor Herbert G. Gutman's research in "The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom 1750-1925" found that in three-fourths of 19th-century slave families, all the children had the same mother and father. In New York City, in 1925, 85% of black households were two-parent. In fact, "Five in six children under the age of six lived with both parents." During slavery and as late as 1920, a black teenage girl raising a child without a man present was a rarity.

An 1880 study of family structure in Philadelphia shows that three-quarters of all black families were nuclear families. There were only slight differences in family structure between racial groups. The percentages of nuclear families were: black (75.2%), Irish (82.2%), German (84.5%) and native white Americans (73.1%). Only one-quarter of black families were female-headed. Female-headed families among Irish, German and native white Americans averaged 11%. According to the 1938 Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences, only 11% of black children and 3% of white children were born to unwed mothers. As Thomas Sowell reported: "Going back a hundred years, when blacks were just one generation out of slavery, we find that census data of that era showed that a slightly higher percentage of black adults had married than white adults. This fact remained true in every census from 1890 to 1940."

The absence of a father in the home predisposes children, especially boys, to academic failure, criminal behavior, and economic hardship, not to mention an intergenerational repeating of handicaps. If today's weak family structure is a legacy of slavery, then the people who make such a claim must tell us how it has managed to skip nearly five generations to have an effect.

There are problems such as grossly poor education, economic stagnation, and poverty that impact the black community heavily. I would like someone to explain how tearing down statues of Christopher Columbus, Thomas Jefferson and Confederate generals help the black cause. Destruction of symbols of American history might help relieve the frustrations of all those white college students and their professors frustrated by the 2016 election of President Donald Trump. Problems that black people face give white leftists cover for their anti-American agenda.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: bfs; blackcommunity; blm; georgefloyd; lawandorder; nuclearfamily
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1 posted on 07/29/2020 3:36:08 AM PDT by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

GS admitted that Bs are being USED to attacks Ws
for him, for his plan, for WHO, for Gates.

so as the too long lived GS says, “Die already, America”.


2 posted on 07/29/2020 3:39:23 AM PDT by Diogenesis ("when a crime is unpunished, the world is unbalanced")
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To: Kaslin

The Democrats are responsible for the retardation of Black Americans evolution into freedom.

In short the Dems and the Black Caucus have kept many Black People in America clinging to plantation mentality.

It is the Dem party who is to blame for any systemic racism, its big bucks for them!

Donald Trump is workling to successfully release Black Americans from the Dem plantation. This is why the Dems hate President Trump. He is succeeding where they did not.

Jobs, jobs jobs. Thats what its about. Black Americans then free themselves from Democrat maintained illusory systemic racism.


3 posted on 07/29/2020 3:41:15 AM PDT by Candor7 (Obama Fascism:http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/05/barack_obama_the_quintessentia_1.html)
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To: Kaslin
I doubt whether any Americans would defend the police treatment of George Floyd that led to his death.

The writer already makes too many assumptions . Thinking and rational Americans need to see the whole incident and need to hear both sides of the story before making assumptions.

4 posted on 07/29/2020 3:54:04 AM PDT by Ikeon (Sht happens, its in the Bible. read Job...)
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To: Kaslin

It’s the way they look at the world and I don’t like their attitude.


5 posted on 07/29/2020 4:02:38 AM PDT by equaviator (If it seems like it's too bad to be true, then it probably isn't.)
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To: Kaslin

Yes - the more racist Blacks become, the more problems they exhibit.


6 posted on 07/29/2020 4:05:39 AM PDT by trebb (Don't howl about illegal leeches, or Trump in general, while not donating to FR - it's hypocritical.)
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To: Kaslin

Before the BLM riots, I never took race into account when decision making.

Now, I must.

BLM’s riotous and thuggish behavior taught me Blacks are too risky. Stay away, physically.


7 posted on 07/29/2020 4:10:41 AM PDT by Uncle Miltie (mohammed was a slaver: Burn the Koran!)
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To: Kaslin

This is a very good article. I guess we have LBJ’s “Great Society” to thank for the destruction of the nuclear black family in America.

As for this: “Is Racism Responsible for Today’s Black Problems?” I would say that unfortunately, today’s “black problems” are the fault of the individual black people who are afforded every chance in the world, yet refuse to take it.

Everyone, no matter what color they are, faces challenges in life. It is only up to you to determine how you will handle it, or how you will lash out and blame everybody else for the hand you’ve been dealt.


8 posted on 07/29/2020 4:13:04 AM PDT by proud American in Canada (In these trying times, "Give Me Liberty or Give me Death!")
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To: Kaslin
...in Chicago this year, there were 414 homicides, with a total of 2,078 people shot. So far in 2020, three people have been killed by police and four were shot.

Seems black lives don't matter much to black thugs...

9 posted on 07/29/2020 4:13:25 AM PDT by GOPJ (Leo Terrell - Michael Shellenberger - Stephen Hsu - Bari Weiss - Bernell Trammell)
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To: Uncle Miltie

“Before the BLM riots, I never took race into account when decision making.

Now, I must.

BLM’s riotous and thuggish behavior taught me Blacks are too risky. Stay away, physically.”

__________________________________

Sadly, I think you’re right. Remember the “knock-down game” of a few years ago? There were bunches of wild, feral young black men roaming around, targeting people, particularly white people (and if they’re seniors, so much the better), to attack and hurt.

And this was before the George Floyd incident.

I once had a dream (with all due respect to Dr. King), where I was on the “el” in Chicago, where I grew up. And there were a bunch of young black guys who were eyeing me. I, a 57 year-old white woman, just stared them down. And they backed down.

I’d never take that chance in real life. In fact, I don’t think I’d take the el again. Which is too bad, because there’s a line that goes straight from O’Hare to the suburbs that I used to take all the time.


10 posted on 07/29/2020 4:19:51 AM PDT by proud American in Canada (In these trying times, "Give Me Liberty or Give me Death!")
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To: Uncle Miltie

Staying with family a couple of summers in Crown Heights taught me that.

By far, the most violently antisemitic group in the USA are blacks. More so than Arabs.


11 posted on 07/29/2020 4:20:07 AM PDT by Jewbacca (The residents of Iroquois territory may not determine whether Jews may live in Jerusalem)
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To: Kaslin

More like black problems are responsible for racism.


12 posted on 07/29/2020 4:20:22 AM PDT by Lion Den Dan
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To: proud American in Canada

The knock down game continues on at a rate of a couple per week.

The victims are generally older Hasids. The perps are sons Obama never had.

So it doesn’t make the news.


13 posted on 07/29/2020 4:21:43 AM PDT by Jewbacca (The residents of Iroquois territory may not determine whether Jews may live in Jerusalem)
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To: Kaslin

Blacks are responsible for Blacks’ problems.


14 posted on 07/29/2020 4:22:26 AM PDT by EEGator
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To: Jewbacca

Crown Heights? Al Sharpton’s old “stomping” grounds.


15 posted on 07/29/2020 4:33:26 AM PDT by MarDav
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To: Kaslin
Just to restate the statistic:

More Black people are killed by Black criminals EVERY YEAR than were killed by the Ku Klux Klan during its entire existence.

16 posted on 07/29/2020 4:55:09 AM PDT by sima_yi ( Reporting live from the far North)
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To: Kaslin

NO, it is their excuse. The “great society” did more harm to the black family than sheets byrd, george wallace and lester mattox and their merry band of klams could have ever dreamed of doing.


17 posted on 07/29/2020 4:59:54 AM PDT by weezel
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To: Kaslin

Imho, one parent families and a poor education are the main problems.

5.56mm


18 posted on 07/29/2020 5:02:01 AM PDT by M Kehoe (DRAIN THE SWAMP! Finish THE WALL!)
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To: Kaslin
There are many reasons for the problems in the black community, and racism is a part. But since it's a problem people can blame on others then it's the most convenient excuse.

Not sure what we can blame te similar problems in the white community on.

19 posted on 07/29/2020 5:02:16 AM PDT by DoodleDawg
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To: M Kehoe

Actually 0 parent families are common where grandmothers are the person raising the children


20 posted on 07/29/2020 5:04:18 AM PDT by bert ( (KE. NP. N.C. +12) Progressives are existential American enemies)
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