How to fix black America?

[Hercules56]

The African-American community has the following problems at much higher rates than whites and the USA and general:

-crime

-poverty

-low high school & college graduation rates

-single parent homes

-drug use

-unemployment


The government tried to deal with some of these issues with welfare programs such as Section 8, SNAP, WIC, TANF, but these only helped the very immediate financial issues without helping anyone become self-reliant.

So what do we need to do? Is there anything larger society can do or does the black community have to literally fix itself?

 

[Axxman300]

The African-American community has the following problems at much higher rates than whites and the USA and general:

-crime

-poverty

-low high school & college graduation rates

-single parent homes

-drug use

-unemployment


The government tried to deal with some of these issues with welfare programs such as Section 8, SNAP, WIC, TANF, but these only helped the very immediate financial issues without helping anyone become self-reliant.

So what do we need to do? Is there anything larger society can do or does the black community have to literally fix itself?

The problems can't be "fixed" without the facts:

White people make up 69% of arrests for crime in the US, with African-Americans making up 28.1%. The problem is that a black man is more likely to go to prison than his white counterpart.

https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2012/crime-in-the-u.s.-2012/tables/43tabledatadecoverviewpdf

White Americans abuse drugs at a higher rate than African Americans too.

So right off the bat, Americans need to deal with facts and not assumptions.

White America needs to get off of their backs and see them as equals. I know this is hard for so many, but the change has to start with them, not African-Americans. If they feel like they're 100% part of the county's system, structure, and culture a lot of their real problems will go away in a generation because they'll have skin in the game.

 

[casebro]

Skin bleach, and the problem gets washed away.

But seriously, that list is not exclusive to blacks.

Sounds like a description of trailer park trash, from Minnesota to Georgia, no matter the color.

(hmm, an idea- do more whites fit that list than blacks? )

Bat an intreging though in anither thread here somewhere- Blame the system like so many minoritys do, and a man cant' fix it. But if that man takes personal responsibility, he can pull himself up by his bootstraps. Maybe, see next paragraph.

We just don't need full employment. What with Chinese imports, and our own computer driven efficiency, we only have a set number of jobs. Educate one black man, he rises a step ot two. But jobs are currently a zero sum game. Somebody else gets demoted to drug salesman, welfare queen, or criminal. White guy or black, do you think?

We need a paradigm shift as to what we think "useful life" means. We used to spend a lot of timing sitting on a dock fishing. Leisure time was not weekends, it was waiting for the crops to come in. Now we all want to hustle, and buy a fancier car, bigger house etc. If the Type As would kick back, maybe more work would be left for down the chain? Trickle down economics?

Anyway, it's not a black problem, it's a Modern Society problem.

 

[Fudbucker]

I would guess it's a function of poverty more than anything else, but that begs the question: why is the poverty rate for blacks so high?

 

[stanfr]

Skin bleach, and the problem gets washed away.

Didn't turn out so well for Michael Jackson

 

[stanfr]

I would guess it's a function of poverty more than anything else, but that begs the question: why is the poverty rate for blacks so high?

Slavery, of course.

 

[Guybrush Threepwood]

We just don't need full employment. What with Chinese imports, and our own computer driven efficiency, we only have a set number of jobs. Educate one black man, he rises a step ot two. But jobs are currently a zero sum game. Somebody else gets demoted to drug salesman, welfare queen, or criminal. White guy or black, do you think?

That's an interesting economic theory. do you have any evidence that the USA has a fixed number of jobs?

 

[Craig B]

Slavery, of course.

That begs the older question: why was the slavery rate for blacks so high? And the later question: why was the sitting at the back of the bus rate for blacks so high?

 

[Hercules56]

The problems can't be "fixed" without the facts:

White people make up 69% of arrests for crime in the US, with African-Americans making up 28.1%. The problem is that a black man is more likely to go to prison than his white counterpart.

https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2012/crime-in-the-u.s.-2012/tables/43tabledatadecoverviewpdf

White Americans abuse drugs at a higher rate than African Americans too.

So right off the bat, Americans need to deal with facts and not assumptions.

White America needs to get off of their backs and see them as equals. I know this is hard for so many, but the change has to start with them, not African-Americans. If they feel like they're 100% part of the county's system, structure, and culture a lot of their real problems will go away in a generation because they'll have skin in the game.

Blacks make up the majority of arrests for murder and robbery in the USA.

Also, for most other crime arrests, blacks represent almost 3x their percentage of population in the USA.

https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2014/crime-in-the-u.s.-2014/tables/table-43

 

[newyorkguy]

As a buddy of mine (who happened to be black) once said to me:

Face it, man, my ancestors were brought here against their will in chains. To be sold as property. What America means to a black person is a whole different thing.

The history is so terrible I don't know how or whether we ever get past it. I think in historical terms we're still too close to it to even think rationally about America's racial history. Slavery endured in the U.S for ninety years. Generations of African Americans were born slaves, died slaves, saw their children enslaved. And their children's children. They knew nothing else, had no reason to expect things would change.

White Americans need to try and imagine what life would be like when you're existing as someone else's property. They own you. Horrible.

 

[casebro]

As a buddy of mine (who happened to be black) once said to me:



The history is so terrible I don't know how or whether we ever get past it. I think in historical terms we're still too close to it to even think rationally about America's racial history. Slavery endured in the U.S for ninety years. Generations of African Americans were born slaves, died slaves, saw their children enslaved. And their children's children. They knew nothing else, had no reason to expect things would change.

White Americans need to try and imagine what life would be like when you're existing as someone else's property. They own you. Horrible.

Life seven generations ago, sure. Not recently though. And I'll bet your black friend had the assets to buy a ticket back to his ancestral home too, but chose to stay here. His choice- 2nd class citizen, or live as a herder, eating kefir and blood drained from his cows?

 

[casebro]

Blacks make up the majority of arrests for murder and robbery in the USA.

Also, for most other crime arrests, blacks represent almost 3x their percentage of population in the USA.

https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2014/crime-in-the-u.s.-2014/tables/table-43

Pretty much in direct relation to black-on-black incidents of those crimes.

 

[Craig B]

Life seven generations ago, sure. Not recently though. And I'll bet your black friend had the assets to buy a ticket back to his ancestral home too, but chose to stay here. His choice- 2nd class citizen, or live as a herder, eating kefir and blood drained from his cows?

Wow! You reckon treating him as a second class citizen is still better than drinking cow blood. I mean he chose it, OK.

 

[casebro]

That's an interesting economic theory. do you have any evidence that the USA has a fixed number of jobs?

http://data.bls.gov/pdq/SurveyOutputServlet

I plugged in the maximum range for data, 1948-2016. Range was 55-65% of us had jobs.

 

[Craig B]

Is segregated education a better choice than kefir?

 

[casebro]

Wow! You reckon treating him as a second class citizen is still better than drinking cow blood. I mean he chose it, OK.

I bet he still has the choice today. Quit his bitching about how bad gr-gr-gr-great-grammpa had it, when he can go back to his ethnic home anytime he wants to.

And I'm saying he is complaining about a First World Problem. He's got food, clothes, shelter, when his 15th cousin's cattle are dying, and his children starving? .

Pretty simple comparison- track the population growth of Africa, vs Black Americans since they were imported. Hundreds of thousand imported, millions today. Has Africa's population boomed x30?

I suggest he thank his lucky stars that his gramps was brought over as a slave. Just as I thank my stars I'm not in Lithuania.

There are other black successes here*, in spite of society. Why isn't he one? Or maybe he is- Update?

*I'm a terrible typist usually, and I have an injured thumb this week, or I would tell you the story about the evening I was offered a job driving a limo- by the son of a sharecropper. Because Americans love to hear about a young man lifitng himslef up by his own bootstraps.

 

[Darat]

The African-American community has the following problems at much higher rates than whites and the USA and general:

-crime

-poverty
-low high school & college graduation rates

-single parent homes

-drug use

-unemployment


The government tried to deal with some of these issues with welfare programs such as Section 8, SNAP, WIC, TANF, but these only helped the very immediate financial issues without helping anyone become self-reliant.

So what do we need to do? Is there anything larger society can do or does the black community have to literally fix itself?

Fix that?

 

[Darat]

Blacks make up the majority of arrests for murder and robbery in the USA.

Also, for most other crime arrests, blacks represent almost 3x their percentage of population in the USA.

https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2014/crime-in-the-u.s.-2014/tables/table-43

What about "white collar crime" - or the trashing of the entire global banking system?

That aside is the crime rate for the poor black population different to that for the poor white/hispanic/asian etc. population?

 

[Darat]

As a buddy of mine (who happened to be black) once said to me:



The history is so terrible I don't know how or whether we ever get past it. I think in historical terms we're still too close to it to even think rationally about America's racial history. Slavery endured in the U.S for ninety years. Generations of African Americans were born slaves, died slaves, saw their children enslaved. And their children's children. They knew nothing else, had no reason to expect things would change.

White Americans need to try and imagine what life would be like when you're existing as someone else's property. They own you. Horrible.

And you've only had even theoretical equality before the law as a country for what less than 50 years?

 

[Darat]

Life seven generations ago, sure. Not recently though. And I'll bet your black friend had the assets to buy a ticket back to his ancestral home too, but chose to stay here. His choice- 2nd class citizen, or live as a herder, eating kefir and blood drained from his cows?

Which of these folks ancestral homes were in the UK?