Shhh -- Race and Crime Discussed Below
I have a new column up at PJ Media today, in which I discuss – gasp! – race and crime. In light of the recent murders of two Chinese graduate students less than a mile from the USC campus, a crime all but certainly committed by a black or Latino, I pose the question: Bearing in mind that John Derbyshire found himself in the soup for imputing too much into racial distinctions and for encouraging others to do so, what advice on personal safety as it relates to ethnic groups should parents offer their children as they send them off next fall to USC (or Columbia, or Yale, or the University of Chicago)?
Read the whole thing here. You'll see that the comments on the site have taken some odd if occasionally interesting turns, but I’m keen to hear some reactions from the Ricochetti, from whom I invariably learn new things.
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Jul '10
Re: Shhh -- Race and Crime Discussed Below
Valiuth:
Why cultivate fear and suspicion in your children? I know, I know you call it caution and maybe it is, and maybe I'm a fool but the statistics all say the people you should fear most are those you know. · 9 hours ago
Those statistics are about as useful as the ones that tell us a car accident is most likely to occur near the home.
You mean I'm more likely to have an accident near the place I drive from and to every single day than some random stretch of highway a thousand miles away? Guess I don't need a seatbelt on the cross country trip.
Aug '10
Re: Shhh -- Race and Crime Discussed Below
Let's not forget the unwitting aiding and abetting by the school's administrators in many of these urban campuses. As my oldest daughter, attending one of them, complained about the crack houses that were within view of her doorstep in a small apt complex, behind her lay the campus, I inquired as to the school's warning about these obvious traps.
The school was much more concerned about their outreach to the neighborhood residents than ever presuming to warn their students about the obvious dangers of being in proximity to crack houses, crack dealers, or the crackheads that prowled the perimeters of the campus.
They were only described as victims of the economic cirumstances of the times, rather than criminally inclined drug addicts.
No doubt the official line at Univ of Chicago, Columbia, USC, Drake, and the rest is always about our neighbors and their misfortunes , rather than knowing what danger looks like and avoiding it.
Derb's candor will be missed by NR, there's no doubt we'll see it elsewhere as he gets better. Get Well Soon Derb !
Apr '11
Re: Shhh -- Race and Crime Discussed Below
As I mentioned on the prior thread (the Derbyshire thread), I'm white but grow up poor. My oldest brother is currently serving an 8 year sentence in a Washington state prison.
The advice I give my two teen-aged sons is in essence to discriminate based on class. The idea that the US is a classless society is nonsense. Stay away from poor people when you cannot control the environment. In particular, stay away from large groups of poor people when booze and drugs are available. Never, never, never allow yourself to become isolated in an environment where most of the locals are poor.
In some regions of the USA, blacks and Latinos are disproportionately among the poor. It is what it is. That's not true everywhere. Know your environment.
ETA: Derbyshire's advice will leave his kids vulnerable to violent/criminal elements of the non-black variety. They exist; check the prisons. Also, the black middle-class exists and Derbyshire's advice doesn't acknowledge this. He paints in both too broad and too narrow of strokes.
Edited on April 20, 2012 at 6:52pmSep '10
Re: Shhh -- Race and Crime Discussed Below
What a wonderful column. Thanks for sharing all of that with us!
As for the content, isn't it ironic that the arch-liberal faculty of these universities live in police-protected cocoons, surrounded by the actual fruits of their labors?
Jun '11
Re: Shhh -- Race and Crime Discussed Below
It was 1968.. I was in LA with my son scouting out USC.. which was his desire along with most of his friends in their upscale private school here in Hawaii
The tuition figures shocked me.. but I clinched the deal by driving him through "the neighborhood" around USC.
The REV. Jessee Jackson famously opined on this subject many years ago.. Look it up.
Jul '10
Re: Shhh -- Race and Crime Discussed Below
The division of a corporation I worked for once was in a very high crime neighborhood; the building and parking lot were enclosed with a very high chain link/ barbed wire fence. (That division was subsequently moved to the suburbs.) If it was dark, women were not allowed to walk to the parking lot unescorted – and if one worked late, that escort was always one of the security guards. We would always look for ten-penny nails propped at an angle against the backs of tires. It was then I learned how to drive the streets of such a neighborhood: a constant sweep of all the mirrors; never pulling up next to the car in front of me at a light but rather leaving plenty of space to go around even if that meant using the sidewalk; and taking the wrong way down a one-way street (short distance) to get to a main thorofare.
That was at the time of the racial riots in cities throughout the country – and prior to what we now call racial profiling. Then it was called behaving rationally. One evening my husband and I and another couple had gone to the movies
(Continued)
Jul '10
Re: Shhh -- Race and Crime Discussed Below
in another part of town, then stopped at a bar we had frequented as students at Pitt. Upon leaving, we seemed to be the only white people for blocks. A James Brown concert had just ended at Forbes Field and apparently there had been trouble. Several store fronts had been smashed and the city Riot Squad was on the scene. Our car was parked several blocks away and because we were being jostled about, we decided to move into the center of the street to make our way to it. We walked as nonchalantly as possible for two and a half blocks between the armed Riot Squad on one side of the street and hundreds of black folks on the other. My thought at the time was if there had been trouble, we would have been the cause of it.
An interesting side note: When we reached the car we turned on the radio to find out what was happening, but learned nothing. The media had been banned from the area – a wise move on the part of city officials. Too often, coverage of such incidents was blown out of proportion which led to more problems.
Sep '10
Re: Shhh -- Race and Crime Discussed Below
Have you also experience the sudden change in atmosphere, from safe to dangerous, between areas?
Yes. I was in a rental car in Philadelphia and returning to the airport to leave. I had passed through without incident and realized I had forgotten to refill the tank and didn't want to be charged the exhorbitant refueling charge by the rental car company. So, I proceeded to drive on past the airport and into the adjacent neighborhood looking for a gas station. After what seemed an inordinate time without respite, I turned into what appeared to be a gas station. It was closed at 3 pm on a Sunday and a cruiser car with a sunglass wearing cop out of some dystopian 70's flick was sitting there motionless waiting for something to happen. There was no one on the street anywhere and this guy paid no attention to me what so ever. It looked like a high speed pursuit vehicle. The hair started to stand up on the back of my neck, I turned around and got the hell out of there and gladly paid the idiotic refueling charge.
I didn't care what skin color the residents were.
Nov '10
Re: Shhh -- Race and Crime Discussed Below
John Marzan: From the comments section in the other blog.
Ding, ding, ding ding... · Apr 19 at 11:33pm
I liked the column and this comment, as well as Lady Bertrum's comment about the poor. I once dated a guy who had spent some time living in the rural south, and he told me that as a white stranger he would have been much less safe wandering into a white redneck bar than into a black one.
Sep '10
Re: Shhh -- Race and Crime Discussed Below
Lucy Pevensie
John Marzan: From the comments section in the other blog.
Ding, ding, ding ding... · Apr 19 at 11:33pm
I liked the column and this comment, as well as Lady Bertrum's comment about the poor. I once dated a guy who had spent some time living in the rural south, and he told me that as a white stranger he would have been much less safe wandering into a white redneck bar than into a black one. · Apr 21 at 7:03am
Theodore Dalrymple put his finger on it with his phrase "the underclass".