Black on Black Crime Does Not Exist. Crime exists. Black people who commit crimes exist. Black victims of crimes exist. Black people who commit crimes with victims are also black exist. It even exists in a high percentage.
So why do I say this phenomenon doesn't exist? Because the percentages are essentially the same no matter what racial group, we are looking at. Yet, the label of “Mexican on Mexican crime” or “Chinese on Chinese crime” is never used. “White on White” crime is unheard of. Even though statistically, white people are most likely to be killed by other white people, Latin Americans are most likely to be killed by other Latin Americans; Asians are most likely to be killed by other Asians, etc.
So, why all the focus on “Black on Black” crime? I think it all comes down to accepting reality and to a lesser degree, responsibility for the terrible conditions black Americans have lived in since we first got off the boats in 1619.
Most conservatives (let’s keep it real, this is a right wing position) feel that blacks and other American minority groups do not have an excuse to not be on a level playing field with white people, since slavery “ended” in 1865.
However, what they ignore are the “Black Codes” that were passed to ensure that “free” black people were restricted to jobs that either had low wages, or put them in debt. Then there were Jim Crows laws, which created laws that legally separated the races, until 1954 when Brown vs. Board of Education ruled that unconstitutional. Then of course you had “white flight”, when after the 1954 ruling white people who now faced the possibility of living next to black neighbors all left the cities and moved to the suburbs. Now since they (white people) were allowed to live in these cities and create businesses and lives for themselves already, when they all left the moment black people were legally allowed to move there, they took all the jobs and businesses with them.
On top of the government’s oppression of us via law, their policies also screwed the now, mostly black inner city neighborhoods. In my city of Detroit for example, the auto industry was everyone’s way to making a decent living. However, in the 60s when major outsourcing took place, unemployment numbers skyrocketed. The same thing happened to many major U.S. cities, and there was no plan to assist the people who were willing and able to work.
So, no jobs where you live, and hundreds of years of systemic oppression can lead to what? Crime. As the song from City High goes, “What would you do if your son was at home, crying all alone on the bedroom floor cause he’s hungry?” Most people will start doing what they have to do to survive and to make sure there children and families aren’t starving and suffering.
In any place I’ve ever lived (Detroit, Oak Park, Farmington Hills, Big Rapids in Michigan, and Chandler, Phoenix, and Tempe in Arizona), the strong majority of the people who are selling drugs or robbing people are broke. Again, add in the lack of job availability, and the problem grows. And when illegal activities are a black market business, you can’t call the cops. You can’t take someone to court for lost product. You have to take matters into your own hands. And when there are a lot of black market activities in your neighborhood, it’s easy to become paranoid. Paranoia is why you see so many people in the “hood” carrying guns, even if they don’t sell drugs or rob people. It’s because you don’t know who else around you is. That’s when the high murder rates kick in. All of these factors together lead to the phenomenon the media calls “Black on Black crime”. Crime is committed based on location and proximity, not race (excluding hate crimes, obviously.) Nobody who is already poor is gonna travel across town to rob someone’s house. Nobody is gonna travel cities away to go murder someone. These things happen right at home. And it’s mostly based on the history of how black people were/are treated in the good ole U.S.A. We didn’t even mention the wealth passed down from generation to generation, which creates an incredible disadvantage for those of us who haven’t been afforded the opportunity to build wealth from the countries inception. We also didn’t mention the 1994 crime bill that racially targeted minorities.
Black on Black crime is a myth. It’s just crime. Give these people REAL opportunity to make a living for themselves and their families, and you will see that it isn’t a racial thing. So all my right wing readers (if you exist), please think about all of these things before you say “It’s just their culture” or “where are the fathers?”, just remember that we didn’t land on Plymouth rock….you know the rest.
