Violent Crime & Race
I pre-emptively call myself a racist so you don’t have to. Neener neener.
One of the things rarely discussed (because it’s just not PC) is violent crime and race. It’s OK this time, because a black guy’s doing it:
Last year, among the nation’s 10 largest cities, Philadelphia had the highest murder rate with 406 victims. This year could easily top last year’s with 240 murders so far.
Other cities such as Baltimore, Detroit and Washington, D.C., with large black populations, experience the nation’s highest rates of murder and violent crime. This high murder rate is, and has been, predominantly a black problem.
According to Bureau of Justice statistics, between 1976 and 2005, blacks, while 13 percent of the population, committed over 52 percent of the nation’s homicides and were 46 percent of the homicide victims. Ninety-four percent of black homicide victims had a black person as their murderer.
Blacks are not only the major victims of homicide; blacks suffer high rates of all categories of serious violent crime, and another black is most often the perpetrator.
Liberals and their political allies say the problem is the easy accessibility of guns and greater gun control is the solution. That has to be nonsense. Guns do not commit crimes; people do.
Deb also notes: If Guns Cause Crime, Why Aren’t All Communities Affected?
Now, I’ve touched on this cultural phenomenon before. And, notably, Useful Fools did some comparisons across countries and via race, noting that the US had a substantially lower violent crime rate than European countries but a higher murder rate. And that the homicide rate for blacks was 20.5 whereas the rate for whites was 3.3. And, while overall violent crime and homicide among non-blacks declined, among blacks it continued to rise.
And, according to the Justice Department, Firearms Violence 200% Higher for Blacks Than For Whites. Other race based stats:
* Firearm violence rates for blacks age 12 or older (8.4 per 1,000 blacks) were 40% higher than rates for Hispanics (6.0)
* 200% higher than rates for whites (2.8 per 1,000).
* Blacks were about 9 times more likely than whites to be murdered with a firearm.
* On average black victims of firearm violence were 3 years younger than white victims — 29 versus 32.
* From 1993 through 2001 blacks accounted for 46% of homicide victims and 54% of victims of firearm homicide but 12% of the U.S. population.
August 23rd, 2007 at 12:48 pm
I can’t believe that the solution to violence could be this simple! We just need a govt program to make all these black people white! It worked for Michael Jackson!
Any culture that put a man on the moon and invented carbon offsets can surely limit melanin in skin!
Anyone have any caucasian offsets to sell?
August 23rd, 2007 at 2:05 pm
Heh.
Seriousness aside, I’ve often wondered why this is so hard to talk about. Young black males kill each other at a rate the KKK could only dream about.
I guess the problem is that people are afraid to point out that there’s nothing inherently self genocidal in the color your skin–but it should be no surprise that a permanent underclass concentrated in inner urban environments where the drug war rages experiences higher homicide and crime rates.
Duh.
If anything, this is the most anti-racist point you can make–other races in similar socioeconomic conditions have not much better luck. Here in Baltimore…white folk and Latin folk concentrated in the hood don’t fare all that well either compared to rural and suburban wealthier folk.
Until people realize that crime is a class issue and not a race issue, we’ll never have a free, unfettered, honest discussion of the issue. It’ll just keep being something that you can’t talk about.
August 24th, 2007 at 8:37 am
Somebody’s bound to do it anyway, despite your attempt to beat them to the punch, so I’ll start it off:
You racist!
August 29th, 2007 at 9:39 am
[…] the propositions by gun control advocates will impact me, a law-abiding man, and will not prevent young black men from killing other young black men. And we rural, conservative whites have a gun-loving lifestyle because we choose to defend […]
August 29th, 2007 at 6:54 pm
Sorry uncle. With a PhD in Sociology and also African American, I have studied this topic extensively. This is a class issue not race issue. The avg median income for those killing each other in urban areas is very low. If you look at statistics of upper class wealthy blacks you will see the crime rate drastically lower in all aspects. Same for whites and Hispanics. I know you thought you were on to something but you need to look past just “statistics” to get to the root of the problem.
August 29th, 2007 at 7:18 pm
I concur but poverty tends to affect certain races more than others. I never implied that race causes the violence.
I have never seen such statistics but would like to look at them.
What about non-blacks, non-whites, and non-hispanics who are poor? Just curious.
August 29th, 2007 at 7:37 pm
SayUncle,
Your not a racist, your a statistician like me. So to keep me any my family safe I’m going to play the odds by planning my activities accordingly.