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What Do the Ten Most Dangerous Cities in America Have in Common?
Marketwatch posted a piece today listing the American cities where violent crime is most prevalent. The worst of the lot is Detroit, which was, 65 years ago, the wealthiest city per capita in the United States. Then comes Oakland, Memphis, St. Louis, Cleveland, Little Rock, Baltimore, Rockford in Illinois, Milwaukee, and Birmingham in Alabama.
The piece is an honest attempt to find what unites these cities. But it is skewed by its trust in the standard liberal cliches. So after specifying the crime rate, the population of the city, and the number of murders in 2013, it specifies the poverty rate — as if to imply that poverty is “the root cause” of crime. No other common denominator is mentioned.
And yet, apart from poverty, there is one other common characteristic uniting these communities — a characteristic that we are not allowed to talk about.
Early on in his tenure, Eric Holder called for a national conversation about race and he described us as “a nation of cowards.” Although I doubt very much whether he in particular could stomach a genuinely frank conversation on this subject, I do believe that he is right that we as a people are afraid to speak up — and I regard this as a serious defect, for it prevents our even thinking about how we might address a grave problem.
The truth is simple and sad. While violent crime is by no means restricted to inner-city African-American neighborhoods, it is more prevalent there than anywhere else.
We have been treated in the last couple of years to astonishing nonsense concerning the “rape culture” that is supposedly pervasive on America’s campuses — when the statistics based on crimes reported to the police suggest that rape is exceedingly rare at our universities and exceedingly common in inner-city black neighborhoods. If our President and his Attorney General really cared about the mistreatment of women, these neighborhoods would be their focus.
If we were to have an honest national conversation on race or, for that matter, on rape, we would have to attend to the near collapse of the black family, to the fact that only 17% of African-American teenagers aged 15 to 17 live in a family where both parents are present, and to the impact this has on the likelihood that young black men will turn to crime. If Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown were victimized, it was not by the likes of George Zimmerman or Darren Wilson. It was by parents who did not stay together and keep their sons on the straight and narrow.
This really is a serious problem — and it is much more of a problem for ordinary African-Americans than it is for white men such as myself. For by and large black people are the ones who are victimized. They live in the dangerous neighborhoods. They are the ones threatened by violent crime. They are the ones most apt to be raped.
One would think that, with a black President and a black Attorney General, we would be witnessing an attempt to think through this problem and to deal with it. But in the last six years, neither Barack Obama nor Eric Holder has said a word on the subject.
The problem, they imply, is white racism. The problem is poverty and oppression. Never do they ask whether the poverty might not be a symptom — a function of family breakdown. Never do they tell us how it can be the case that white people are to blame for black-on-black crime.
I do not doubt that something needs to be done. I feel for the young people who grow up in such neighborhoods, who are drawn into criminal activity, or who suffer violent attack.
But before one can deal with a problem, one has to do what Barack Obama, Eric Holder, and the party they represent resolutely refuse to do — which is to admit that there is a problem and to acknowledge that it is due to patterns of conduct endemic in such neighborhoods and not to anything done or not done, said or not said by white Americans as such.
It would, for example, be good to begin by admitting that these neighborhoods need rigorous policing on a scale not elsewhere required. If whites have failed blacks in these 10 cities, it is in part because the Democratic machines that control each and every one of them have left African-American neighborhoods in considerable measure unpoliced.
Rigorous policing of the very sort now under attack in New York and elsewhere would be a good beginning. But unless something can be done to promote family formation and family stability, it will, I fear, be of little avail.
The sad truth is that the black family was once in far better shape. What we are witnessing is not the legacy of slavery. It is the legacy of patterns of conducted promoted by the social welfare programs created by the New Deal, which rewarded women for becoming single mothers.
How — and even whether — this development can be reversed is a puzzle, and it needs addressing. It is arguably our greatest social problem — for it is by no means limited to inner-city African-American neighborhoods, and it is gradually becoming prevalent among every ethnic population in the land. At the moment, only 54% of white teenagers aged 15 to 17 live in families where both parents are present, and that is an all-time low.
Published in General
I submit that it’s hard to identify a “root cause” of dysfunction in many of our cities, especially in the “inner city” neighborhoods with heavily minority (especially black) populations. There seems to be a “vicious circle” of causation:
I do wonder about the extent to which the decline and increasing dysfunction of the inner cities is an unfortunate and unintended consequence of the greater acceptance that upper- and middle-class minorities now find in the larger community, leading to the “brain drain” that I mention above. Of course, this isn’t my idea — Murray and Herrnstein speculated about this question in The Bell Curve, and the term “brain drain” was coined in the post-WWII years to describe the flight of highly educated/trained professionals from Europe (especially the UK) to the US. The more technical term is “human capital flight.”
Incidentally, I don’t mean to blame successful minorities by raising this point, nor do I generally believe that successful minorities have a greater responsibility than others to work toward improvement in dysfunctional inner-city communities. It just seems to me that human capital flight may be a significant part of the problem, and a difficult one to solve.
The desegregation of the Boston city schools, as painful as it was, was the best thing that ever happened in Boston for the kids and families.
To fix poverty, we need better city design and a commitment to not allowing neighborhoods to be made up of one type of family. We need to maintain a diversity in wealth, ages, family structures, and so.
Boston actually did this thirty years ago so as to achieve diversity in all these areas, and it had some success. For example, it went out of its way to attract young people. It wanted to increase the proportion of people between the ages of twenty and thirty–which for Boston meant talking some of the visiting college students into staying in Boston after graduation and building a life in the city.
I mention these examples not to tout Boston but to say there are steps city planners can take to fix cities pretty fast.
And while I’m on my soapbox, one more point:
I think Prof. Rahe is absolutely right about the root cause of poverty. And to fix it, we must as a society return to the olden days’ thinking that the mother-baby duo must be kept together and helped and protected, by dad first, then the rest of us.
As my old Italian, wonderful mother-in-law used to say, No one will ever love that baby the way his or her mother will.
Everything the liberals have done has been to interfere with that natural bond. They make fun of family life.
I have to give all of the credit for fixing Boston to one man: Police Chief Paul Evans.
He refused to see crime neighborhoods. As far as he was concerned, it was all one city, and he deployed police and police protection throughout the city evenly.
By not treating the neighborhoods and citizens differently, he turned around a city embroiled in racial violence to become one of the nation’s “most livable cities.” Just enforcing crime evenly and instituting police and community solidarity.
He worked with everyone he could find, community leaders throughout the city. And he worked with businesses to develop a business-funded after-school program that was the envy of every other city in the country.
One person.
And what about Mr. Zimmermans clear streak of domestic abuse? The fact remains that Mr. Zimmerman had no reason to accost or harass Trayvon on that night. The fact that he did directly precipitated their fight. If Martin had been better raised perhaps he would not have so easily sunk to Mr. Zimmerman’s level, but the same is true of Mr. Zimmerman who if he had been more mature and intelligent would not have left his car that night in pursuit of imagined criminals.
None of that detracts from the failure that is the upbringing of Trayvon Martin which was the point of the original post.
The “sunk to Mr. Zimmerman’s level” comment is beyond absurd. By what standards can you now measure “Zimmerman’s level” (having previously been unable to measure Martin’s) that, if applied to Martin would not show a much lower level? Also, the evidence clearly showed that Martin accosted Zimmerman.
Nobody is going to claim Zimmerman to be the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he was no thug. As for his subsequent issues, walking around with a big target on your chest can get you in trouble both from external actors and your own stupidity.
Zimmerman did not accost Trayvon Martin or harass him; he tracked him — and he had good reason to do so. He had been doing Neighborhood Watch work in that neighborhood for the police for years — to good effect — and Trayvon Martin was behaving in a suspicious manner in a high-crime neighborhood, weaving back and forth as if intoxicaqted and looking in windows as if he was casing houses. Zimmerman did what he was trained to do; he observed what was going on; he alerted the police; they suggested that he return to his car; and he turned around. On the way back, he was assaulted.
As for “the clear streak of domestic abuse,” there was none — prior to his altercation with Trayvon Martin. I say that because what he was put through after that time would have broken many a man. And, yes, it appears to have broken him. This guy was guilty of nothing other than public-spirited conduct via the Neighborhood Watch and defending his life when it was threatened.
The local police figured it out right away. So did the local prosecutor. Then, the President of the United States, the Attorney General, and the liberal media decided to make an example of him, and the Republican Governor of Florida appointed a special prosecutor who abused her position in a desperate attempt to get his scalp. Zimmerman is not the brightest of men nor the sturdiest; and though he survived the ordeal, his capacity to control his anger did not. This sometimes happens to guys who have lived through hell in combat. It happened to George Zimmerman.
I haven’t been there in a long time, either. I know for sure that I have negative associations with it and think of it as “synonymous with crime.” Have any of us been there lately to see? I’m trying to get the semi-official stats and coming up with this.
It would be a great achievement in transparent government if I could look up the crime rate in Anacostia in 2015 and get something like an approximate federal answer, but I found this:
Anacostia is a historic neighborhood in Southeast Washington, D.C., and is located east of the Anacostia River, which the area is named after. According to the 2000 Census, 92 percent of the neighborhood’s residents are African American.
Those outside Southeast D.C. often see a dire public image from local-news headlines:
To local media and many outsiders, the name Anacostia has become synonymous with negativity, particularly crime.
With data showing that Anacostia murder rates are 625 percent higher than the national average and the risk of robbery 229 percent higher than average, according to The Washington Post, stereotypes of Anacostia aren’t baseless.
Confirms my sense of it. Is the rest of the article untrue?
But they are one-dimensional, say students, administrators and teachers at Anacostia High School, now known as The Academies at Anacostia.
Many District residents are unwilling to dispel the negative stereotypes associated with Anacostia, but after spending time there, it is clear that a lot of positives exist that get overlooked. Last year, 79 percent of seniors at The Academies at Anacostia received their diplomas, and of those, 95 percent were accepted to college, according to The Washington Post.
Students at Anacostia have pride for their school and many assert that they come to class every day, committed and dedicated to learn. Fights still occasionally break out, but students at Anacostia are working hard to break through the barrier of violence, crime, and teen pregnancy to succeed and accomplish their goals.
In the hallways of The Academies at Anacostia are the school’s 2010-11 goals, which include a 95 percent graduation rate, 85 percent daily attendance, 50 percent proficiency in District testing, and 100 percent uniform compliance. The Academies at Anacostia students, on the other hand, say they refuse to be defined by the headlines, statistics or outsiders’ perceptions. In a multi-faceted exploration of life at The Academies at Anacostia, members of the Southeast D.C. community tell their own stories about the school and the neighborhood. From their perspective, things look a little different than it does on the outside.
Alas, not I. But it looks as if someone is doing good work in that neighborhood. Are the Academies at Anacostia private schools, public schools, or charter schools? One way to try to cope with a lack of family formation and with family breakdown is to provide surrogate parents. The orphanages of yesteryear sometimes worked well. Good schools — above all, single-sex schools with uniforms, strict rules, and dedicated teachers — can turn kids around. We outsiders may not be able to fix broken families — but, where they are prevalent, the existing public institutions can be reconfigured to compensate . . . at least in some measure.
Apparently public in partnership with charter.
So… um… should we try to fix it?
I’m shrugging as I type that, because I know it sounds ridiculously shallow, but I’m actually dead serious.
Perhaps it’s time to celebrate (wink) the 50th anniversary of the Great Society by starting a major political movement to end it, and offer millions of people the option of rising out of poverty.
It is obvious to anyone that unwed motherhood is a near guaranty of poverty, that reliance on government handouts insures that one will remain forever at society’s lowest rung, and that together these things lead to despair and loss of human dignity. It is a trap, a horrible fate that shall not be named. Obama and Holder dare not speak it, busy as they are trying to “lift up” those caught in this trap with false praise, deflected blame and empty excuses. The men who dodge responsibility, the girls who bear their bastards (yes it’s a harsh but accurate word) while lacking the independent means to care for them, they are all irresponsible and there is No Excuse for it. If anything, Obama and Holder, have made things worse. They have encouraged people who need to look inward to find a way out of the poverty trap, to aggressively blame others, whites, for their woes. “You have not done enough for me!” is the mantra when in fact, we all have only ourselves and our loved ones to look to for help. White, black, American, we each make our own way and our own choices within the circumstances we find ourselves. We persevere. There is nothing good about poverty. Yet, the Left wants to embellish it, make the ghetto some kind of special place you can be proud you are from. No. Never. It is a place to escape from, a horrific trap to avoid. And this begins by rejecting it, admonishing it, calling it the crime and drug ridden, soul stealing, ambition sucking, independence stripping , corrupt place that it is. And this begins by rejecting single motherhood, by refusing a welfare existence, by condemning paternity without responsibility and enforcing financial support of children. Ghetto crime needs to be a top priority and schools need to be safe places to learn. Everyone needs to want to find a way out, not a way to feel good about being there.
I agree entirely, and there are black ministers who are, for excellent reasons, even more passionate about this matter than I am.
See what I have to say in a comment above about the role schools can play.
Amen
Hey, if it works, go for it.
[Note that Instapundit is pointing here. With 80 interesting comments.]
Focus on material things at the expense of remembering that God loves us and wants us to be happy leads to abandonment of traditional morality.
Intelligence doesn’t mean a person is a good person. A person intelligent enough to know he can’t do anything to help a city’s downward spiral will leave when opportunity presents itself. Depending on available leaders sounds like a silver bullet approach. Works when you have the silver bullet, but what about the many people who ride in the wagon? A city will start dying when it loses its spirit. With spirit and proper attitude, people of very modest means can better the situation in their community. It must first be demonstrated that they care.
You’re talking about the man’s earning. This is keeping up with the Jones’ mentality. ‘…in sickness, in health, for richer, for poorer…’ Whether economically or spiritually, a couple weds because they cannot survive without the other. Were women valued for what they could offer economically? Perhaps more so nowadays, but that is not the point.
The Left has taught minorities to hate well. Hate does its worst damage to the hater.
All high tax, big government schemes are empire building that serves the wrong people, the servants of the government, who live to serve themselves, not the people.