Young Black Males: OVER-Represented in Prisons NOT in the Military

Conventional wisdom is often wrong. Like that bit of conventional wisdom that holds that military service disproportionately attracts men and women from disadvantaged backgrounds, many of whom are members of minority groups. Many people believe that troops enlist primarily because they have few options, not because they want to serve their country. A recent study on the matter shows that NOT to be the case; (http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2008/08/who-serves-in-the-us-military-the-demographics-of-enlisted-troops-and-officers)

When compared military volunteers to the civilian population on four demographic characteristics: household income, education level, racial and ethnic background, and regional origin. As a result, we now know who serves in the active-duty ranks of the U.S. all-volunteer military.

According to the report (p. 13), “both active-duty enlisted troops and officers come disproportionately from high income neighborhoods—a trend that has increased since 9/11”. As can be seen from the chart on the left, only 11% of enlisted recruits in 2007 came from the poorest 1/5 (quintile) of neighborhoods, while 25% came from the wealthiest quintile. These trends are even more pronounced in the Army Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) program, in which 40 percent of enrollees come from the wealthiest neighborhoods. Also contrary to popular perceptions, U.S. military enlisted troops are not poorly educated. In fact, American soldiers are significantly more likely to have a high school diploma than their civilian peers: only 1.4% of enlisted recruits in 2007 had not graduated from high school or completed a high school equivalency degree, compared to 20.8% of the general male population in the age range between 18 and 24. Moreover, 95% of officer accessions have at least a bachelor’s degree.

Likewise, the conventional wisdom that minorities are overrepresented in the military is not supported by the facts. No clear racial imbalance is evident in regard to enlisted personnel. Among the officer corps, Caucasians are proportionately represented and African-Americans are overrepresented. American Indian and Alaskan natives are the most overrepresented group among new recruits. Asians and Pacific Islanders are slightly underrepresented. Hispanics are also underrepresented, with the troop-to-population ratio of 0.65 in 2007.

So, why are young black males so overrepresented in prison? In 2010 black non-Hispanic males were incarcerated at the rate of 4,347 inmates per 100,000 U.S. residents of the same race and gender. White males were incarcerated at the rate of 678 inmates per 100,000 U.S. residents. Hispanic males were incarcerated at the rate of 1,755 inmates per 100,000 U.S. residents!

Moreover, the disproportionate black male crime rates DO NOT decrease in predominantly black and black-run cities. Interestingly enough, black majority cities have similar crime statistics for blacks as do cities where majority of population is white. For instance, white-majority San Diego has a slightly lower crime rate for blacks than does Atlanta, a city which has black majority in population and city government.

SEE: http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2008/08/who-serves-in-the-us-military-the-demographics-of-enlisted-troops-and-officers

AND: http://cdrsalamander.blogspot.com/2013/07/why-there-are-grits-in-dfac.html

AND: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States

Real Background Information is Getting Tough to Find on Trayvon Martin

Trayvon Martin sporting "Gold Fronts"

It seems like a lot of people are going through a LOT of trouble trying to posthumously clean up Trayvon Martin’s image.

Many of the SAME people who’ve erroneously claimed that it’s wrong to look at his background to assess his character, are the same ones looking to muddy the waters by changing or erasing Trayvon’s recent social media past.

Actually it’s entirely legitimate to review a person’s background to assess their character and it’s as wrong to cosmetically clean a person’s image as it is to claim they did things that they didn’t do.

Trayvon Martin had a Twitter account that now appears to have been recently deleted by his family or friends.

His screen name was “NO_LIMIT_NIGGA,” as you can see from the twitpic account screenshot below.

It also appears that friends believed that Martin had recently assaulted a bus driver, as another twitter post makes reference to Trayvon having “swung on a bus driver,” just a few days before he died.

SEE:

http://patdollard.com/2012/03/was-trayvon-martin-a-drug-dealing-gangbanger/

 

Fact is, it’s highly unlikely that George Zimmerman, a man of Hispanic descent, reportedly with many dark-skinned family members would’ve targeted Trayvon Martin based even primarily on race.

It’s equally unlikely that a man who made up flyers, at his own expense, to try to get justice for a black homeless man attacked by a white man, just weeks ago would’ve held any personal animus for someone like Trayvon martin.

Moreover, the enhanced images of George Zimmerman, being brought into the Sanford, Police station DO appear to show wounds to the back of Zimmerman’s head.

SEE: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/04/03/enhanced-video-zimmerman-in-police-station-appears-to-show-injuries/

Now, IF, as Zimmerman contends, Trayvon Martin initiated a confrontation because he felt Zimmerman was following him and did assault Zimmerman, and upon finding Zimmerman had a gun, fought to get control of that gun, then that would certainly constitute self defense on Zimmerman’s part.

If Martin felt he was being improperly followed, he should’ve avoided ANY contact with Zimmerman and called the police himself.

Apparently, he didn’t do that, instead, he apparently remained on the phone with a girlfriend and went on to confront Zimmerman.

IF he did confront Zimmerman that day and a struggle for Zimmerman’s gun ensued, then once Martin made the decision to confront Zimmerman, he was no longer a “victim,” but instead “the aggressor.”

That is at least part of what the ongoing investigations must sort out.

Those looking to sanitize Trayvon Martin’s image are guilty of obstructing justice, at the very least.

Why Do Hoodie-Wearing Pols and Celebs Continue to Trivialize a Horrific Incident?....

NY State Sens. Kevin Parker, Bill Perkins and Eric Adams wear hoodies in Albany yesterday in tribute to Trayvon Martin.

Rep Bobby Rush (D-Ill)

In the wake of the Trayvon Martin shooting scores of politicians and celebs have expressed their sympathy and solidarity with Trayvon martin by donning hoodies.

They may think they’re rebuking Geraldo Rivera’s ill-conceived comments that, “The hoodie as just as responsible for Trayvon Martin’s death as is George Zimmerman.”

Sanford, Florida police have said they arrived on-scene to find a bloodied and battered George Zimmerman, bleeding from the face (nose) and the back of the head near 17 y/o Trayvon Martin dead of a single gunshot to the chest.

Both State and federal authorities are now investigating that shooting...and rightfully so.

George Zimmerman apparently called police over Trayvon Martin’s presence in that community, believing him “up to no good.”

The 9-1-1 dispatcher asked if he was still following Trayvon Martin and when he answered in the affirmative, he was told to stand down – “We don’t need you to do that.”

According to Zimmerman, he went back to his car and had lost sight of Martin and just before he reached his vehicle was grabbed by Martin from behind.

Witnesses claim words were exchanged (“Why are you following me?...What are you doing here?”) and then he claims that the younger, 6’1” Martin punched him in the face, breaking his nose and sending him to the ground. He then claims he received the wounds to the back of his head when Trayvon Martin began slamming his head against the concrete.

IF Zimmerman trailed, then shot an unarmed Trayvon Martin “on suspicion,” then that’s a murder, but IF Martin actually confronted him and was shot while assaulting Zimmerman, then that is clearly self-defense.

All the existing accounts leave far more questions than answers. How, exactly, did a man who claims to have been in the process of being severely beaten find the wherewithal to draw and shoot his assailant?

But at this point, the facts aren’t all in so, as the investigations are still very much in progress. At this point, no one knows (except Mr. Zimmerman and the deceased Mr. Martin). The investigations will have to run their course.

Certainly NO ONE outside that small circle (the Martin and Zimmerman families) has ANY vested interest in any specific outcome, regardless of what some of the fringe people within our society might think.

Seeing politicians, celebrities and others donning hoodies as though that somehow expresses any real solidarity without any actual personal sacrifice is just pathetic.

It does NOTHING to bring more clarity to this case.

It does NOTHING to advance ANY cause.

It does NOTHING to bring Trayvon Martin back.

So WHY do some people so proudly embrace such meaningless, fruitless gestures? WHY?

Here’s an idea, let’s let the investigations go forward and see where they lead, rather than making assumptions either way.

JMK

A Tale of Two Rape-Tortures...

What an odd juxtaposition of events.

Ironically enough, on the very same week that Megan Williams (pictured above, left), the black West Virginia woman who was the center of a media sensation trial in 2007, one that resulted in seven alleged attackers all being convicted and sent to prison for kidnapping, rape and torture, recanted her story, now claiming she made up the kidnapping, torture story because she was mad at a boyfriend who’d beat her, four arrests were made in a savage gang rape (unlawful imprisonment and rape-torture) at Richmond High School, right outside San Francisco.

In the case of Megan Williams recanting her story, the Associated Press reported, “An attorney for a black woman who claimed torture by a white group in West Virginia says his client fabricated the story to get back at a boyfriend who had beaten her up.

“Megan Williams' attorney, Byron Potts, said at a news conference Wednesday that Williams came forward because she no longer wants to live a lie. Potts encouraged West Virginia authorities to re-evaluate the case.

“Williams told authorities in 2007 that she had been beaten, raped, forced to eat animal feces and taunted with racial slurs for days. She now lives in Columbus.”

As for the Richmond gang rape, the AP reported, “Four teens could appear in court as early as Thursday after being charged in the alleged gang rape of a 15-year-old girl outside her high school homecoming dance in Northern California.

“The four — ages 15, 16, 17 and 19 — were charged Wednesday with rape and enhancements that they acted in concert, which could make them eligible for life in prison."

Something's very DIFFERENT in the coverage of those two cases...hmmmm, what could it possibly be?

Can you see the difference?

In the first story, about a black victim who is recanting her accusations, the race of BOTH the alleged “victim”/false accuser AND her alleged attackers is made known (as were BOTH races mentioned in all the original reports back in 2007)...in the second, in which a white 15 y/o girl was raped and tortured (“Besides rape, the 19-year-old, Manuel Ortega (pictured above, right) of Richmond, was charged with robbery and assault causing great bodily injury...The other three face one count each of felony rape with a foreign object...” – that’s “TORTURE”) NEITHER the race of the victim OR the alleged attackers was made known.

You know, if it weren’t for the very passionate protestations from the press claiming that “we’re always careful in protecting the identities of both victims and suspects in such highly sensitive incidents,” you might easily get the idea that maybe there’s some deliberate policy with America’s news media that allows black victims of white attackers to be treated different/BETTER than white victims attacked by racial minorities.

Of course, I’m sure anyone in the news media would quickly assert how silly such an assumption would be...right?

Moreover, in that second case, “Police believe as many as 10 people ranging in age from 15 to mid-20s attacked the girl for more than two hours in a dimly lit area. As many as two dozen people witnessed the rape without notifying police.” Apparently a white teenaged victim merits about as much sympathy in “the hood” as she’s likely to get in, say, your average American newsroom.

Something I saw, this same week on Lawrence Auster’s GREAT blog, A View From the Right (http://www.amnation.com/vfr/) really puts some of this into a clearer perspective. Perhaps nothing I’ve read recently hast better put into perspective the sense of the innately pernicious nature of modern liberalism than THIS, from one of Lawrence Auster’s readers, Kevin V., who wrote;

“As I've told you, as a young man I was a very earnest left-winger. I attended Cal and was active in left wing politics as an undergrad, primary with the Socialist Worker's Party and, later, with Michael Harrington's Democratic Socialists of America. For most of this time I lived in the city of Albany, California, which, if you look at a map of the East Bay on Google you'll find nestled between Berkeley and Richmond, with San Pablo Avenue being a main thoroughfare through all three cities.

“My life - education, work, socializing, leisure, political activity, going out to eat, everything - was centered around this part of Contra Costa County for six long years. Years that are, by far, the absolute worst years of my life. It was during this painful period that I experienced two life-changing realizations.

“First, the earlier, was that the type of society that my ideals produced was not one I wished to live in. Simply put, liberalism didn't work. Interpersonal relations were coarse, the culture low, the work atmosphere almost unbearable, the racial tension was hateful, government at all levels simply did not function properly, public transport was a dangerous shambles, and everywhere the result of this failed state of affairs was the de facto rule of the tough guy, the thug.

“That was hard enough to go through - the loss of one's ideals is no easy to take even if necessary - but it was the second realization that was the most painful of all. After spending a certain amount of time in Richmond and Berkeley I realized that it wasn't simply that liberalism is wrong-headed and does not work, but that it is actively evil. Interpersonal relations are coarse because liberals actively hate real people and are endlessly self-absorbed. The culture is low because the culture is evil, it actively works to debase, to debauch, to tear down anything having anything to do with beauty or truth, because it is a standing rebuke. The work atmosphere was unbearable because each person was concerned about his rights to an obsessive degree, with every simple request becoming an assault on a liberal's personhood and individual sovereignty.

“And, worse, that racial tension was high not just because of liberalism but because blacks and Latinos actively despise white people, they hate us, with a burning passion.

“And at the heart of this evil was the rancid city of Richmond, whose streets I had to pass through every night on the way home from work. Every night, the same whooping mob cheering on a 25-on-1 assault in a convenience store parking lot, the push-and-shove match between competing tribes of top dogs outside the bars and nightclubs, the barely understandable swear-word filled tirades of crying, out-of-control black women, the same beat-up squad cars responding to the same places dealing with the same people over and over and over again, night after night. The bars on the windows, the razor wire along business rooftops, the trash strewn about, the mocking laughter of packs of young men--always in packs.

“So, no, I'm not surprised. And I say this by way of explaining my initial reaction to the story: Any white parent who would send their daughter to school in such a place is beyond mere idiocy, beyond mere lunacy, beyond mere misjudgment. Such a person is an ideologue who is deliberately exposing their child to danger in the name of their ideology, because to do otherwise, to recognize the evil in the air there would bring their entire world view down around them.

“And I was once one of them, though, thankfully, not when I had children.”

(http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/014633.html)

Yes, that last bit might sound a little like blaming the victim, but it’s really blaming utopianist and irresponsible parenting, by (probably) well-meaning, but hopelessly naïve parents...THAT and all of ours failure to come to grips with the 800 pound gorilla in the room – non-white ethnic bigotry.