Poverty and Violence – There IS No Causal Connection

The Aryan Brotherhood is the fastest growing and most dangerous gang in the U.S. today

Is Gang Violence About to Take Hold in Middle America, the Way Out-of-Wedlock Births and Single-Parenthood Has?

I’ve always been one of those people who’d blurt out the direct answer to a problem without much diplomacy, or regard for “political correctness” (a/k/a “OTHER people’s feelings”). It’s NOT always a prudent strategy, but it seems to be a part of my DNA. Yeah the "obnoxious dick" part.

Recently I came across two articles I found both interesting and oddly enough related. One, titled “4 US Cities Cited as Most Violent in the World. Do You Know What They Have in Common?” (http://www.ijreview.com/…/315809-four-violent-american-ci…/…) highlights four American cities (Detroit, New Orleans, Baltimore and St. Louis) that rank among the most violent the world over.

This article (from the Conservative website IJ Review) went on to try to get a handle on the root cause, or etiology of this violence...and came up with the SAME trite and tired causes that most Left-of-Center outlets do:

They came up with;

(*) High poverty rates

(*) A high prevalence of single-parent families...

...AND

(*) Decades of uninterrupted Democratic control of those cities. (The IJ Review IS a Conservative outlet, after all)

The problem with those potential “causes” is that they ARE NOT among the real causes of the violence in those areas. We KNOW that because there are other poor cities in America with all of those SAME issues that are far LESS violent, so it MUST BE...."something else."

The 2nd article shed some light on the subject...at least for me, but then again, I seem to be more open-minded, not to mention, more of a real DICK, then a lot of other folks I know.

That article was titled simply, “These Are the Poorest Cities in America” (http://time.com/3581716/poorest-cities/). And well, what do you know, it turns out that a number of cities NOT known for their violence make the list. Cities like Fresno, El Paso and Tucson are all among the 10 poorest cities in America, BUT they are NOT among its most violent.

Can anyone else see the primary difference between Tucson, Fresno and El Paso....and Detroit, Baltimore and New Orleans?

Oooooh...I do...I DO?!

Anyone else?

Come on! I KNOW this one!

OK, it’s that while Detroit, Baltimore and New Orleans are all predominantly black, Fresno, Tucson and El Paso are not.

Detroit is 83% black, Baltimore is 63.3% black, New Orleans is 60.2% black. By contrast, Fresno is just 6% black (78% white), El Paso is just 4% black (92.2% white) and Tucson is just 5% black (70% white).

YES, “blackness,” or more appropriately, the preponderance of African-Americans seems to be the primary factor that separates the most violent poor cities from the less violent ones.

Weird huh?

OK, for anyone who’s ever lived or worked in such areas, it’s really not all that “weird,” it’s just “the way things are.” Such areas have long been seen as "more dangerous," but judging by our failed policies and our continuing to be stuck in failed paradigms (blaming poverty, single-parenthood, etc.) in attempting to understand the violence, we seem to lack NOT only the will, but even the appropriate measure of concern to effectively deal with it.

We tend to collectively look away.

And we cling to these failed ideas, despite the fact that NONE of our well-intentioned “solutions” have ever worked – we refuse to address the real problem, out of a sense of not wanting to hurt other people’s feelings.

Seriously?!

Do you think black people are unaware that the places they live in are ultra-violent?

Does refusing to address that issue do anything to address the shameful and shocking fact that the #1 cause of death for black males between 16 and 36 is homicide?

Do you think that the black community is fundamentally different than the Irish, Jewish or Greek communities?

They are NOT! We are all subject to the same advantages and pitfalls of human nature. There are some very noble aspects of human nature and also some horrific aspects, as well....and every group deals with both.

That’s also why throwing money at such problems NEVER...EVER works.

As an example, there WILL no doubt be a good deal of federal money flowing into Baltimore in the wake of the riots there and the CVS there has (inexplicably) said it will reopen, but no amount of money can fix the problem of a populace that seems to have little use for education, lacks the requisite skills for today's job market and is prone to bigotry, hatred and violence.

Now, that lack of interest in education, a lack of basic jobs skills and penchant for recklessness and irresponsibility that causes POVERTY is NOT a BLACK/WHITE issue. Poverty is caused by the SAME behaviors among blacks, whites and all others.

A recent documentary on poverty highlighted the dysfunctions in Appalachia. One former resident, who'd gotten out and made good in the mining industry moved back to that area, opened up a mine in one county there and the many of the local people wouldn't take the job training, others would work 5 or 6 weeks at jobs that paid over $100,000/year, then leave to drink and do Meth.

There's a reason people are poor and it's primarily behavioral. Society fails to understand that at its own peril.

HOWEVER, there is a reason why there is such a stark difference between say, Tucson and Baltimore (Tucson is BOTH poorer and less violent than Baltimore) in terms of VIOLENCE, and it is NOT poverty....it’s demographics.

It appears that the widespread violence in predominantly black urban areas IS very much a "black problem"...for now. Since 1976, blacks in the USA (12% of the population) have accounted for over HALF of all murders in the entire nation. THAT’S an incredible statistic.

The vast majority of poor people (of ALL backgrounds) are NOT violent.

Schools fail because the parents in such areas fail to make education a priority in their children's lives. The children come to school undisciplined and the schools are NOT allowed to instill it.

It seems that violence stems from a perversion of the innate desire for control. Creative, productive people (like Savvas Savopoulos, the recent victim of a racial killing in Washington, D.C.) turn that desire inward to exert control over themselves and harness that innate desire into creation (in the form of art and businesses, etc.), impotent/powerless people (like Daron Wint, Mr. Savopoulos’ murderer) turn that desire inward and turn to violence to get a sense of that kind of control...over others.

I DO NOT claim to know the precise etiology of that phenomenon in predominantly black areas, but it would appear that racism and racial violence are encouraged as "righteous rage," by a well-established and well-funded racial grievance industry. That certainly seems borne out by the chronicling done by the likes of Colin Flaherty (https://www.youtube.com/user/BamaFanatic12345)

There seems to be no other logical explanation and if that's indeed the case, that's going to be a very difficult problem to get a handle on. For a whole host of reasons, Western society has begun rewarding/compensating "victims," and the competition for that coveted "victim's status" has been full bore for a long time now...among ALL groups.

That too, is probably one of the reasons that gang culture is so attractive to so many young people...of ALL backgrounds. There are gang issues in Fresno, El Paso and Tucson, as well. In fact, right now, in the USA, the Aryan Brotherhood is the fastest growing and reportedly, the most dangerous gang in the nation. Like ALL gangs the Aryan Brotherhood and other such gangs offer youths a source of acceptance, pride and they reinforce a victim's sense of paranoia that "everyone else is out to get them."

Today, just as the black family was in the vanguard of those caught up in the unintended consequences of welfare (the disintegration of the family, generational dependency, etc.), that community is again "the canary in the coal mine" when it comes to gang culture and the systemic violence that comes along with it. IF you don't think that can happen throughout the rest of America, then you haven't been paying attention.

Suburbanites, black and white do themselves a great disservice by ignoring this and convincing themselves "this won't happen here." NO ONE ever thinks it's going to happen to THEIR community...to THEIR family.

When Daniel Patrick Moynihan warned about the corrosive effects of America's welfare programs (chasing men/fathers out of the home, miring generations in a "learned helplessness," and elevating victimhood to an exalted status, thereby balkanizing America's cities), and noted that the effects we were then first seeing in the black community were coming for everyone else, the vast majority of Americans rejected that message.

Since that time, then Senator Moynihan has been proven correct. Both out-of-wedlock birth rates and the number of single-parent households have skyrocketed throughout American society.

The explosion of the gang culture and all that brings with it will come next, shocking those that "never thought it could happen here."

Ignoring the problem will NOT make it go away. It will only let it metastasize.

The fact that a Conservative publication, like the IJ Review would buy so completely into the Left’s absurd Marxist “root causes” (discrimination, oppression and poverty) of violence, shows how very, VERY far from being able to adequately address such issues America really is.

In the meantime, an epidemic of black-on-white violence is being ignored, “hate crimes” laws are being consistently and apparently deliberately misapplied and the #1 cause of death among black males between the ages of 16 and 36 remains homicide.

There is a LOT that is disturbing about that...about continuing to stay with policies and ideas we all KNOW have failed, simply because they sound...and feel good.