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Black Males; Inner City Reality…

June 18, 2011 by  
Filed under Misc., News, Opinion, Weekly Columns

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(ThyBlackMan.com) One of the biggest problems confronting many inner-city Black neighborhoods is too many low-income Black males killing other low-income Black males. Needless to say, that is not the way such crimes are diagnosed in most of the press and by Black “leaders.”

In newspaper articles and on radio and television news programs, the focus is always on “Black males killing Black males,” which is technically accurate. But if one is to assess the situation correctly with the goal of developing a  solution, it is more accurate to speak about “low-income Black males killing other low-income Black males,” which is the case in a huge majority of such incidents.

Double standard

The reality is if those low-income Black males were killing, at the same rate, White homeless males – not to mention White executives – the city’s top officials would stop them by any means necessary.

If they were killing young people from middle-income Black families, they would be stopped. If the police didn’t act, the middle-income families would find a way to stop the killing of their children.

This basically means that low-income Black males, without their realizing it, are being allowed – even sometimes encouraged – to kill one another. They mistakenly believe they are getting away with the killings, that they have beaten the system when they are not punished or barely punished for those killings. All the while, they are doing just what the system wants them to do.

Not all about drugs

A second wrong diagnosis of the current situation is the insistence that most of the killings involve fights over drug turf or drug usage. Drugs are one of the factors in such criminal behavior, but a careful examination reveals that many of the killings occur because one party believes, rightfully or wrongly, that another party has dissed him.

The slightest incident “you bumped into me and didn’t say excuse me,” “you looked at me the wrong way,” “you loud-talked me,” etc., has much too often led to fatal confrontations. Dudes who have little else going for themselves are extremely sensitive about being “disrespected.” These aspects of the killings are often either ignored by the press, politicians and academicians who nearly always look for a drug angle.

Finally, much too often the very relevant fact that in most instances the killer or killers and the victim know each other, either personally or from a previous confrontation at a party or in a bar, is too often ignored. It’s not a case of strangers killing strangers.

Tougher problem

The question thus becomes how to stop people who know each other from killing each other. More police presence or carefulness can reduce strangers being killed; it is much more difficult to stop people who know each other from killing each other.

Diagnosing the situation accurately is the first step in creating a solution to the extremely serious problem of low-income Black males killing other low-income Black males. Of course, that presumes that the system is interested in a solution. Right now that doesn’t seem to be the case.

Written By A. Peter Bailey


Comments

4 Responses to “Black Males; Inner City Reality…”
  1. Crane Hearn says:

    “One of the biggest problems confronting many inner-city Black neighborhoods is too many low-income Black males killing other low-income Black males.”

    The article begins with this sentence without reference to a specific city. This obviously is a nationwide problem with little regard to specific geographical location however it is logical to assume this to be a “big-city” problem only. Correct?

    I offer this conclusion since in Fort Wayne, Indiana where I live, inner-city or Black killings would not fall into the category as above since we have no predominantly Black neighborhoods.
    Comments Welcome…

  2. Buzz Kilowatt says:

    It is amazing that whatever the problem, it is always the fault of someone or something else.

    The moral compass is broken in the black community. It’s broken in churches; it’s broken in the streets, but most important, it is broken in the homes.

    Everyday I read about some black parent(s) seriously injuring or abusing their offspring. It’s not that the rest of society doesn’t value the lives of black people; these particular black people don’t value their own or the lives of others.

    Some 70% of black children are borne out of wedlock. Today is father’s day. A very confusing time in the ghetto.

  3. Dr. Gilmore says:

    Excuse me, we have had two murders today in Houston Texas. I am not going to count those for the past two weeks. The real issue is and I am in the 2nd major year of bringing awareness to the reality of “Mental Illness” within the ranks of ‘Brothers’. lets be honest, this current New Jack City mode is nothing new for the past 30 years, what the reality is to many of our “Brothers” is that they need major therapy. Now what makes that difficult is there are not enough to even speak to us.

    As a Vietnam Veteran, Brother from the streets of 3rd Ward Houston, former Heroin Addict, PTSD and all that, whose own Brother died in Prision, I am not making excuses, but the fact is simple. We need major mental health intervention, now as a national Certified Counselor in all 50 States, some of us will be lost and the question is how many. No the fact is some Brothers are currently attempting to kill themselves as we speak, I will not make excuses for us and nobody else needs to make them. We need to salvage what we can, shock those young Brothers that need or want to be saved (My Preacher coming out). Have a good funeral suit and make sure to know how to watch your back.

    If you think I am on point, well read my free book, A True Story at http://www.HopeAfter.org, we used to say in the service, take no Prisoners…Lord help us today.

  4. Frank says:

    Blacks killing blacks will never be a huge concern no matter what their social-economic class might be. The ugly truth is that the establishment views this as a solution to black population control.

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