This fits with an idea I've brought up here on Glenn's substack: that upstanding white citizens are more inclined to "write off" the white criminal underclass as "trash" etc., while upstanding black citizens seem more burdened by a need to "uplift" the black criminal underclass. While this response is understandable for historical reasons and laudable for moral ones, it is nevertheless counterproductive for the greater black community, as it leads to more cross-cultural contamination between the criminals and the upstanding citizens. Cheap example: the saggy pants thing started in the criminal underclass and spread to normal black teens, who then seemed lower status than they actually were. In this way criminal chic becomes a threat to black youth from upwardly mobile families while white youth from similar families instead face a greater social imperative to prove that they are not among the white "trash."
I think I recall that discussion. I remember John one time saying something to the effect that Black people often didn't want to harshly enforce laws because they frequently knew someone who would be affected. But, while it offers an explanation, that line of thought seems a dead-end road. No chance of anything improving; a tacit endorsement of the status quo.
This fits with an idea I've brought up here on Glenn's substack: that upstanding white citizens are more inclined to "write off" the white criminal underclass as "trash" etc., while upstanding black citizens seem more burdened by a need to "uplift" the black criminal underclass. While this response is understandable for historical reasons and laudable for moral ones, it is nevertheless counterproductive for the greater black community, as it leads to more cross-cultural contamination between the criminals and the upstanding citizens. Cheap example: the saggy pants thing started in the criminal underclass and spread to normal black teens, who then seemed lower status than they actually were. In this way criminal chic becomes a threat to black youth from upwardly mobile families while white youth from similar families instead face a greater social imperative to prove that they are not among the white "trash."
I think I recall that discussion. I remember John one time saying something to the effect that Black people often didn't want to harshly enforce laws because they frequently knew someone who would be affected. But, while it offers an explanation, that line of thought seems a dead-end road. No chance of anything improving; a tacit endorsement of the status quo.