6 ms·
'Years ago, I interviewed Kweisi Mfume, then the president of the NAACP. "As between the presence of white racism and the absence of black fathers," I asked, "
by Meekro 7y ago
'Years ago, I interviewed Kweisi Mfume, then the president of the NAACP. "As between the presence of white racism and the absence of black fathers," I asked, "Which poses the bigger threat to the black community?" Without missing a beat, he said, "The absence of black fathers."' - Larry Elder
- sidlls 7y agoA big reason for the absence of black fathers is institutional white racism.
- zchrykng 7y agoThe higher crime rates leading to higher incarceration rates is probably a bigger factor than "white racism". Edit: Making this edit to clarify what I'm trying to say, since several responses has tipped me off to how it could be read. Being black doesn't have anything to do with committing more crimes. Higher crime rates is much more a factor of economic and family status. Both of which are negatively impacted by higher crime rates, which reinforces the cycle to everyone's dismay. Those statuses are on average worse in the black community than others, which causes a large part of the statistical difference. The causes of the difference stem from the legacy of racism and choices that were made in designing welfare programs, at least in large part. Which sucks.
- baselined 7y agoThe War on Drugs is the cycle of incarceration and racism
- zchrykng 7y agoWe can argue all we want about how ineffective and/or misguided the War on Drugs has been, but that doesn't change that fact that crimes are crimes. Were some of the sentencing guidelines structured in a racist way? Maybe, I've heard people say that and don't have any evidence showing the opposite, but that is a side issue.
- Infinitesimus 7y agoCheck out https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/the-shocking-and-sickening-story-behind-nixons-war-on-drugs-that-targeted-blacks-and-anti-war-activists/ https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/the-shocking-and-sickening-st... if you're curious. The money quote: > "You want to know what this was really all about?” he asked with the bluntness of a man who, after public disgrace and a stretch in federal prison, had little left to protect. “The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or blacks, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”
- zchrykng 7y agoBleh, yeah. Hadn't seen that before. Not a fan on the War on Drugs, especially not after reading that. On the other hand, I'm strongly in favor of enforcing the laws on the books, and if there is a bad law it should be changed, not ignored.
- Meekro 7y agoThe origins of that quote are dubious. Author Dan Baum claims that Nixon lawyer John Ehrlichman made this confession to him back in 1994, but Dan waited until 2016 to publish it-- long enough that most people in Nixon's inner circle (including Ehrlichman himself) have died and couldn't set the record straight. However, Pat Buchanan (long time adviser to Nixon) said in an interview that the quote is nonsense.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- sidlls 7y agoPat Buchanan is certainly a reputable source.
- wavefunction 7y agoWhere in the logic loop are we?
- zchrykng 7y agoMostly the place where everything sucks. It is a nasty self reinforcing problem. See some of my other responses for more context. Wasn't trying to imply that black people are natural disposed to committing more crimes, just that currently they do, from a combination of economic and social reasons.
- wavefunction 7y agoI was making an admittedly content-free "wry comment." I agree with you completely!
- jakear 7y agoAre you implying that a human with black skin is predetermined to commit crime at a higher rate? Or might there be some confounding variables, such as poverty, caused by hundreds/thousands of years of institutional racism?
- zchrykng 7y agoAlready responded to a few other similar question. Absolutely not what I'm saying. There are lots of factors driving the different rates, and black people are just on the wrong end of a lot of the trends. My original post was probably more snarky and should have had more background to what I was thinking, given how many people have asked questions like this.
- deith 7y agoRace is not only skin colour.
- lopmotr 7y agoYou're confusing ethnicity with skin color. The common meaning of "black" isn't "dark skin color", it depends on ancestry. For example, Indians aren't considered black, no matter how black their skin. Blacks do have lower IQ than whites on average, and that's correlated with criminality. IQ is partly hereditary. So yes, it's quite likely that a randomly chosen black is predetermined to commit more crime in future than a randomly chosen white. Not because of skin color though, but because of genes. Hundreds/thousands of years of institutional racism against Jews somehow left them with a low crime rate and high IQs. So it's in no way obvious that such history is a cause of crime. You need more evidence than just the satisfying feeling of blaming somebody.
- dennis_jeeves 7y ago>Blacks do have lower IQ than whites on average, and that's correlated with criminality. IQ is partly hereditary Lopmotr, you think this will go down well with an average HNer here :) ? You have been downvoted for what is generally considered a 'fact' among people who have closely looked at IQs. I have upvoted you. Readers, this observation is not to be conflated with racism. Two groups that separately evolved will necessarily have statistically different IQs. You could tell me that blacks have _more_ IQ than the whites and I'll listen. But if you tell me that blacks and whites have near identical IQs, I would be questioning your understanding of biology. Biology is not egalitarian. Notes: I'm fully aware that I have used the terms black/white pretty broadly. There are various ethnic groups in each category and sometimes the variations within a category can be higher than compared to another category. While the average IQ score of 'race' A might be less than the average score of 'race' B. The IQ score of an ethnic group in A might be higher than all of Bs ethnic groups.
- legopelle 7y agoYou're saying that black people have a higher propensity for crime. Is it not more plausible that humans are more or less alike, and the difference is outside their control?
- zchrykng 7y agoBlack people aren't predisposed to commit crimes more often than anyone else. It is just that a higher percentage of them grow up poor and/or with just a single parent, which are factors in likelihood to commit crimes, which leads to higher incarceration rates, which just feeds the beginning factors. When you control for economic status and parents, white people have similar rates. The factors that make it more likely for an individual to commit a crime are outside of their control yes, but committing a crime or not is always an individual's decision that can't be blamed on anyone else.
- lopmotr 7y agoWhen you saids "It is just that .." , did you really mean those are the only causes of the higher black crime rate? If not, what do you think the other major causes are?
- drno123 7y agoI heard someone say a long time ago something along the lines that the frontal lobe develops differently between ethnic groups and that it controls your empathy and impulse reactions. I haven’t seen any research that supports this though (and did nit search for that). It would be interesting to see if this claim is supported by science.
- wjn0 7y ago> higher crime rates Source? Everything I've read suggests that crime rates are pretty much the same across race and ethnicity when controlling for economic status. The primary variable is contact with the justice system, i.e. getting caught.
- zchrykng 7y agoEverything I've read also indicates that it is mostly or entirely driven by economic status. White people who grow up poor and/or with single mothers are also highly likely to end up in prison compared to the normal population. This isn't about ethnicity, it is about economics and culture. It only disproportionately affects black people because of historical trends and welfare programs decades back that encouraged single parent homes, as was said in other comments.
- bsanr2 7y ago>White people who grow up poor and/or with single mothers are also highly likely to end up in prison compared to the normal population. They are, however, much less likely to be arrested, convicted, and sentenced to lengthy terms than similarly-situated black people. To be treated like a black person in the justice system, a white person must be some combination of much poorer, much less educated, and with a much longer criminal history. It is about race and ethnicity.
- iknowalot 7y agoAverage white US citizen has $1,000,000 in wealth, the average black person $500. Just had to own the plot of free land available to settlers (stolen from natives) for 100+ years to reach that mark $1m. No rocket science or brain surgery involved. This was planned maliciously, not an unintended consequence. If you learn anything about US history and the people who ran this country know that they wanted the outcomes we see (many south african partners of the US had similar goals). Blaming it on culture, family, IQ, etc has long been a cover for Europeans that have been robbing Africans for the better part of 6 centuries now. The Chinese & Indians were also tarred in a similar fashion when we were robbing them blind.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- jacquesm 7y agoA couple of notes: (1) even when adjusting for the 'crime rates' the sentencing lengths and the conviction rates for white vs black are way off and (2) the whole war-on-drugs things should be read as a 'war on people of color in all but name'.
- throwno 7y agoIf it's a war on people of color I guess it was an inside job: https://www.wnyc.org/story/312823-black-leaders-once-championed-strict-drug-laws-they-now-seek-dismantle/ https://www.wnyc.org/story/312823-black-leaders-once-champio...
- golemiprague 7y agoSo how come there are less black fathers now than when racism was much more prominent? Also how come we see the same problem in lower class white communities? I don't know if "institutional" racism (whatever that is) contributes to it or not but there are certainly other more prominent factors.
- Causality1 7y agoThe percentage of African-American children in single-parent homes went from 20% in 1960 to 65% in 2017. Is institutional white racism worse now than it was sixty years ago?
- JshWright 7y agoYes. You know what else happened in that time? The War on Drugs.
- SlowRobotAhead 7y agoAre you really arguing that racism is worse in 2020 than 1960? Have you looked at what was going on in the 1960s?
- bsanr2 7y agoI also question the methodology behind those statistics. Many of them only count married parents as not being "single." My father would have counted for my sister, post-divorce, despite being a highly-ranked officer in the military who paid for her college with his GI Bill funds. So would my cousin, who is not married to the mother of his child but who is very much living a traditional domestic life with his partner and daughter. The demonization and denigration of functional but unorthodox living arrangements is nothing new to American discourse.
- drno123 7y agoI am European - does Canada have War on drugs? How many black children in Canada are raised in single-parent families?
- Marsymars 7y agoCanadian, but I'm not really informed enough to answer your questions - just to point out that Canada and the USA have different racial demographics. They've got nearly the same % of white people, but Canada has a 3.4% black population vs 12.7% in the USA. (Canada mostly makes up the difference with Asian population, 14.7% vs 5.4%.)
- tpmx 7y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21957325 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21957325 places the result of that racist + non-racist incarceration at 11% of the total male black population (20-34). Are there any numbers on how many black fathers are absent?
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- bsanr2 7y agoOn Larry Elder: https://www.gocomics.com/boondocks/2003/11/19 https://www.gocomics.com/boondocks/2003/11/19 And if you deem it beneath HN's standards to quote a comic strip as a response to another post, well, I would say the same about quoting Larry Elder.