Normally I would be instantly out the moment someone suggests, much less deigns to do without any consultation, to use superstition as a means of "outreach" using my money.
It is only my respect for Glenn that prevents me from cancelling my patronage immediately.
On schools, here's a quote from Freddie DeBoer that I so totally agree with I'm sharing it! (The Cult of Smart)
"Here’s a basic point I’ve been making for at least a dozen years, including in my book, and will now do again: the educational function of public schools, while certainly of prime importance, is the secondary function of public schools. The first function is giving children warm, safe places where they can be stimulated and looked after, and where they can access cheap or free meals if they need them. The humanitarian good of this function dwarfs that of the education function."
I have a quandry. First blacks complain that they pay more at local stores. As I recall this was born out by a study that found this to be true. When the rioting and looting starts in these communities, who is in the forefront? Blacks don't seem to defend their neighborhoods. What does this mean? After things have settled down, does a would be store owner want to start up in that neighborhood? Does the insurance company want to offer him a policy? Will the premiums be higher or lower than other places in the city?
Awhile back I watched Washington DC. Black parents wanted school choice so that their kids could get a better education. The teachers' union opposed this. Blacks elected Democrats who took the unions money and ignored the parents. So the kids will grow up and fall into the same life styles,
Here we have school choice in San Francisco and the wealthy Whites and Asian endlessly complain that they can't send their kid to the neighborhood school. No matter what you do, someone will complain about it.
But, they never tell the whole story. When I worked at a huge diesel shop, one day we cracked a windshield on a pickup truck, called a glass shop and was given a quote. The shop foreman called about an hour later and put him on speaker. For the same windshield, same truck they were charging us 25-30% more. So, a money grabbing shop doesn't care who you are, or what color. They charge you as much as possible. If a store wants to charge you more, don't go back. They will get the idea
Ty Glenn and Bob; I sincerely appreciate your insights and courage. I can’t imagine the sacrifices you have made to fight the good fight.
The KKK could not have engineered as crushing and diabolical policy and process as Democrats have done to persecute blacks; they have blacks killing blacks, black government leaders teaching that blacks are inferior and need massive extra help throughout their life, forcing black children in to unsafe and abysmal schools resulting in self-fulfilled prophecy of inferior aptitude. This has been going on since the 70’s and I expect it will only get worse in this decade because the culture now is too broken to fix in a few years. Another generation of blacks lost (killed, maimed, jailed, discarded, etc) due to Democrat Party while an embarrassingly small percentage make it through sheer courage and willpower or victim granting affirmative action quotas. The Democratic Party is the KKK except far more effective at ruining black lives.
Mr. Woodson says: '80 percent of blacks living in those communities are against defund the police.' Yet Atlanta just elected a Mayor who ran on a defund the police platform. I do not believe anybody gets elected Mayor in Atlanta with only 20 percent of the black vote. So, if the people living in the neighborhoods most affected by the defund the police movement don't like what is happening, perhaps they should change their voting habits.
I have yet to find any city that actually defunded the police and have continued to do so in the face of the rising crime of 2020. If you can find one, I would appreciate it. I researched Oakland, which is near where I live and while they made a big show of it, they didn't actually cut the budget, and have since quietly increased it.
This. It's not at all surprising to me that the people pushing these policies don't suffer the consequences-- that's why they continue to push them. What fascinates me is that the people who *do* suffer those consequences continue to vote for them. Krasner easily turned back the effort to recall him in Philly. Boudin may be recalled in SF, but (local here) he was completely open about his positions on crime during his campaign... and got elected.
IF the ballot boxes aren't stuffed and the vote isn't manipulated then they wouldn't get elected. You are only looking at one side of the problem. Wait, there's a water leak in the vote counting area... move along, we'll give you the results when we finish creating them.
I'm not one that thinks the election was a fraud or stolen or anything. And maybe what happened is that the workers were tired and wanted to go home, and since that's not the best thing to say, they decided to blame it on an exaggerated water leak. That could have happened, and I think it probably is what happened.
However, it was all so shady that any thinking person is going to assign a great big question mark to what went on there. I'm 80% confident (to throw out a number) everything was aboveboard at that location, and that's not high enough for such an important election.
All elections have fraud. The "margin of fraud" is a real thing. That said, there was no more of that kind of fraud in 2020 than in any other year.
There was quite a bit of unconstitutional election rule changes under the rubric of "COVID". Unconstitutional because the state legislatures are supposed to mandate this stuff, not unelected executive agencies.
I suspect election fraud is easier to remember than unconstitutional election rule changes, though.
Among other things, our Constitution guarantees every citizen a right to be free of "Domestic Violence" (which includes things like riots, widespread crime, etc."). It's time for people in these blighted areas to begin filing criminal charges against those responsible for these policies for violating the rights (class action - millions of charges) of citizens adversely impacted by clearly pro-crime policies.
Each violation of an individual's rights carries a sentence up to 10 years in prison. Start putting some of these Soros wonks in prison for a few millenia, this nonsense will stop magically almost overnight.
Right now, there are about 70 people in prison for life for non violent pot crimes? Times have changed. I once read about a "hippy" who borrowed a friends car and got pulled over. They found 8seeds in the ashtray and were recommending 8 years in prison
"Armed robbers who use guns or other deadly weapons to stick up stores and other businesses will be prosecuted only for petty larceny, a misdemeanor, provided no victims were seriously injured and there’s no 'genuine risk of physical harm' to anyone. Armed robbery, a class B felony, would typically be punishable by a maximum of 25 years in prison, while petty larceny subjects offenders to up to 364 days in jail and a $1,000 fine."
Hey, the armed robber didn't actually kill anyone. It's all good.
$1000 fine? One San Francisco shoplifting trip and: Debt Paid in Full!
For those who think this is too soft, rest easy that if a white bandit holds up a Black shopkeeper, it will still qualify as a hate crime. Or at least a really, really bad microaggression.
"It will quality as a hate crime." Do you actually believe this or is it some rhetorical nonsense? Whites are not more likely to be prosecuted that Blacks. In fact, it is the other way around.
I live in Seattle, WA and can attest to the rapid descent of our city culture. I work with small business support in Seattle’s southend and can tell horror stories from the past two years. In the past 6 months alone, four people have died within 400 yards of the Mt. Baker Light Rail Station, the heart of the area I serve. Preschoolers were witness to the first gang murder of a teenaged youth waiting at the bus stop.
I’m now quoting a beloved local restaurant owner whose first name is Drea: “The neighborhood as a whole is no longer thriving, it's stagnant and depressing and sad and feels more volatile and unsafe than any previous times.
We've had windows smashed out on both our food truck and restaurant this past month. And just last week I was politely trying to get a homeless man to leave when another customer threw his phad thai across the table and told me we are shit for trying to kick the homeless man out. This homeless man has been trespassed from our property by SPD for multiple prior engagements including wearing no pants/underwear, verbally threatening my employees, entering without a mask, entering with a weapon, stealing, damaging property, spitting, bleeding, etc. And as I tried to explain our position to the phad thai thrower he just told me he had no interest in my explanation. It's really disappointing and discouraging to be a small business owner on Rainier Ave right now.”
Drea single handedly raised almost $45K in a Go Fund Me campaign and a community auction, to help one of her line cooks’ families survive him being in a hit and run accident on Feb. 1, 2021, as he walked home from work at midnight. Medics told her they hadn’t expected him to survive the trip to the hospital because his blood loss was so great, and then he had two thoracic surgeries to get all internal bleeding stopped. Drea had a sitting down, peeling potatoes kind of job ready for him after 3 months, so his health insurance could continue unabated, hoping all the while that his body would be able to engage. She’s a saint in my book.
What I see in Seattle is a general lack of competence among the elected officials. Add to that progressive rhetoric about race and equity matters. Our past Mayor, who made Seattle famous because of the ‘Chop’ fiasco here after the George Floyd riots, may have arguably been a great prosecutor in her earlier career, but she lacked the spine and know how to prevent or then manage the rioters that overtook Seattle two summers ago. The same is true of our progressive City Council. They fly high with ideals but don’t understand the nuts and bolts of how things work for a community to thrive.
A friend of mine was in the Seattle Mayor’s race last year. When I asked him how he would have managed the riots as Mayor this was his answer:
1. When Minneapolis went up in flames, Seattle had two days before the riots would end up
here as well.
2. All the buildings in downtown Seattle would have been sprayed with anti graffiti paint and
the ground floor windows covered with plywood.
3. He would have a meeting with the heads of all the activist groups and ask them to create
a list of followers in their groups and be able to identify them in a crowd.
4. He would have identified a downtown street for folks to peacefully gather, have police
lined up single file down both sides of that street, and usher the collected crowd to the
football stadium where a stage with microphones would be ready for an organized
demonstration. We have a stadium in downtown Seattle near the ferry terminal.
5. The activist leaders would alert police to the faces in the crowd
that they did not know, a step to keep the anticipated looters and anarchists from
infiltrating the crowd as much as possible.
When I asked Lance how he knew this, he answered that this was how the marches were run in the Civil Rights Movement. Lance is from Georgia and his grandfather was one of three people that approached Martin Luther King Jr. while he was in Divinity School to lead the Civil Rights Movement. Lances grandfather was a businessman and his job was to bring forward the funding for the movement. Whether this would have worked in today’s world, I don’t know, but I do know that it filled me with confidence. I’m sorry Lance didn’t win, and I wish our new Mayor well.
Thank you Professor Loury for these conversations, I can’t tell you enough how much I think they help my blood pressure as I deal with people in Seattle that seem to think the way forward progressively is to keep improving on the lie.
Here’s a little treat that shows the better part of my neighborhood, one of many filmed businesses/organizations to promote the SE Seattle area right before the pandemic.
That's sad. My wife and I went to Seattle almost 40 years ago. We loved the skyline, the fact that you could get in the woods in short order, and the great attitude of the people there. I went to work right by the old holly park ghetto projects, at a service station at night, and truth to tell only had a problem with one person there. But, we just didn't have enough money to get traction and welfare wouldn't help us because we were too... White. But other than that, we were treated very well. Hopefully things will get better there. Peace
You know who pays the cost of The War on (some) Drugs and other failed Conservative policies? Poor people, overwhelmingly poor Black families.
It is disingenuous to complain about "Progressive" policies without giving them historical framing. Giving 1/3 of young Black men criminal records has a huge impact on Black communities abilities to form families, Black men's ability to find meaningful employment and the ability of Black's to generate and keep wealth.
The criminal justice system has been racist for generations. This has been documented in many studies, as well as just looking with your own eyes and with common sense.
Is it worse to lock up young men who will mostly improve their lives in a few years or is it worse for a community so suffer a modest increase in crime? I don't know the answer and neither do you. The right answer is to ask the community, not come in with come kind of savior complex, telling poor people what do with, with no understanding of what it is like to be poor and with no understanding of community dynamics.
I grew up poor. I have 11 siblings and five are men. We have all been arrested at one point or another. At least two have had their lives ruined by felony convictions, one caused by the ****** "War on Drugs", which has been failure by any standard.
Conservatives have no answer to the problems of poor communities. All they can do is cut funding for housing and food for the poor and then point fingers at our communities failures.
I agree with you partially here El Monstro, because I grew up poor, and was a minority in my neighborhood, and I'm white. We can, unfortunately reference the fact that black vs. white incarceration for the same drug offenses is historically higher for Black offenders, and that is unjust. However, what you fail to realize is that when the war on drugs began, many Black mayors, city council officials, and other office holders at the time were asking authoritative entities for something to be done about the drugs in their communities, the addiction rates, and the associated levels of violent crime that come with any black market narcotic trade. So, yes, it was conservatives that instituted the polices largely, with lots of local minority backing. If you're going to condemn conservatives, you must also condemn the liberal "POC" in those communities who condoned and bolstered those efforts, and with good reason. I don't know if you know what murder and drug use looked like in many of our urban centers in the 80s and early 90s, but it wasn't pretty and it was worse than it is now. What would your policy be to remove violent offenders that engage in the drug trade in any community? And what do you have to say to the folks on the other side of the aisle that supported the institution of these policies? They get a free pass because of a blue voting record?
I also agree with you that poor people pay the cost, and we could certainly have a conversation IN GOOD FAITH about race, where we examine ALL of the factors of wealth creation or lack thereof, and discuss the disparity between black and white, but this seems to be missing the larger point, that it is more so the poor generally that pay the price while the rich get off, instead of Black folks being targeted. This is a class battle more than it is a race battle, although conventional political narratives would have us believe and state otherwise. My evidence for this is that it occurs in the "white" community as well. Some guy goes to jail for 2 years for auto theft, while the CitiGroup people directly responsible for the theft of over 100 million goes unpunished. In fact, Matt Taibbi recently wrote an excellent article on this phenomenon and how appeals courts are biased in the direction of letting white collar criminals off and fining these offending companies with paltry fines and no criminal punishment in the form of incarceration. Both offenders in both crimes are white.
You write: "It is disingenuous to complain about "Progressive" policies without giving them historical framing. Giving 1/3 of young Black men criminal records has a huge impact on Black communities abilities to form families, Black men's ability to find meaningful employment and the ability of Black's to generate and keep wealth."
It is also disingenuous and an attempt at a biased, bad faith argument to fail to mention the percentage of young Black folks (vs. white or other race counterparts) that don't use contraception, have out-of-wedlock births, and become single parents while still under the age of 18. Did racism or a biased justice system cause that as well? Are you unaware that the statistics for success for single mothers and fathers under the age of 18? It isn't good. These are choices that were made by these people, unless you'd like to apply the trope here that there is no agency among these people, and there is some sort of through-line of logic and cause-effect that results from slavery to deciding to have sex with no protection and to also decide to abandon one's family as soon as it begins. These are problems of subculture in some communities that directly correlate with bad outcomes.
Guess what? My father is a heroin addict and left my family before I was 10. I too have committed crimes and been hemmed up by the police. It's rather unfortunate for me that I have no historical reference to oppression on which to base my poor decision making so as to relinquish myself of any agency, therefore any guilt of the choices I made. I don't have that luxury. My parents were essentially fuckups- and at 30 years old, I almost found myself homeless. No one gave me anything. I had to claw my way up from damn near rock bottom to get to where I am now. Sure, it could be argued that I had an easier time because of my skin color, but that would have to be one damned good argument to convince me. Again, it's class that's the real battle here, not race.
You also write: "Is it worse to lock up young men who will mostly improve their lives in a few years or is it worse for a community so suffer a modest increase in crime? I don't know the answer and neither do you."
Begging your pardon, but I know who does know the answer. The lady in Philadelphia has an answer for you, and it's NO, IT IS NOT WORSE. First, locking up for what? I'm against the war on drugs, and I personally think that we should do something like what Portugal has done and decriminalize across the board. But even if we did that, there's behavior, VIOLENT behavior built into a subculture that has largely gone unaddressed as a symptom of that subculture since the late 60s. Legalizing drugs won't help everything. What about crimes that are committed irrespective of drugs, like armed robbery, assault, murder (non drug-related)? The lady that had a bullet rip through her son on their front porch would probably tell you that YES, IT IS BETTER TO LOCK UP VIOLENT OFFENDERS THAN LET ONE OF THEM MURDER HER SON. Are you seriously asking this question? Have you ever lost a child to street violence? Have you ever known a woman that got raped on her walk home from her second job late at night? These are real things happening to real people in the communities you refer to, and you have the audacity to proclaim that the answer to whether or not it's better to lock the people perpetrating these crimes up, than to let the crimes occur, because according to you, things just solve themselves on their own after a few years?
Pardon me again sir, but this is fucking lunacy.
You mention the inability to create and keep wealth. A big part of that is finding affordable housing and not paying an exorbitant amount in taxes for your income level. Please watch the following regarding progressive policies in the places where most Black folks live in urban centers in the US: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNDgcjVGHIw&authuser=0
So you can blame conservatives all you want. You can blame slavery, Jim Crow, redlining, etc. But what you don't get to do is absolve progressive control, authority, policy and office-holders for their part in making things worse.
Fact: Most places with the strictest gun control laws have the highest murder by firearm rates in the country. These are progressive polices and these areas have long since been under the governmental control of democrats. By that I mean, the state legislature is Democrat, the Mayor, the city councils, etc. Policies that were instituted by Democrats, and increasingly progressive Democrats.
Fact: These same places have the worst outcomes for "POC" and the most violent crime per capita of any other cities in our country. I'm referring specifically to NYC, LA, SF, Philly, Baltimore, Minneapolis, St. Louis, Chicago, and the list goes on.
Fact: In places that instituted "Defund the Police" initiatives, lives for the Black people that are not criminals in these areas have gotten worse. They're more likely to be robbed, shot, stabbed or otherwise assaulted or victimized as a result of these policies. But don't take my word for it, dig in and do your own research.
I agree with you that en masse, conservatives don't have any good answers to the problems of poor communities. But this by default doesn't mean that progressive Democrats do either. In fact, they have a far worse record for improving impoverished communities Black and white, in almost any area, whether it be an urban center or whether it be the poorest corner of Appalachia in southeastern Ohio and WV and areas in that region. The data is out there an available for anyone to see, so it seems like you need to do some homework before you comment and vilify one political party vs. the other.
Conservatives to have a lot of issues, and some of the same issues that Progressives have, especially in the realm of censorship as it relates to usurping the constitution with an authoritarian theme, but to purport that Progressives aren't directly responsible for some of the poor outcomes we see in urban centers is just being willfully ignorant and you put yourself on display as someone that has swallowed propaganda and the associated bias without really doing any kind of meaningful research on the areas affected most by the maladies that you describe.
There are a lot of roots to the failure of Black families to have both parents. Both Progressive policies and Conservative policies are too blame. I don't need to argue both sides of every point, but I am glad that you are here for a counterpoint. I do believe that most, but not all, of the problems that Black communities face are due to poverty and its attendant effects. But unlike you, I don't blame poor people for being born poor. There is still a multi-generational impact from Jim Crow that is still being felt. And layer upon that things like the failure of banks to lend and then when the do lend, lend at usurious rates, to Blacks, that make it hard to build intergenerational wealth. Add to that the failures of public schools, the criminal justice system and all the other legacy discrimination and it's a miracle anyone makes it out.
The racism in Progressive cities is just as severe as in more Conservative areas, it is just hidden a bit more. The schools in wealthy White Northern California as among the most segregated in the nation. Segregation is an area where legal and cultural changes can make a big difference. Poor Black kids in schools that are evenly moderately desegregated have much better outcomes. I think the problems are mostly due to a lack of good role models. Here in San Francisco, White people overwhelmingly won't send their kids to segregated public schools, even though they are mostly very good (and dominated by Asians, most of whom are poor and doing well academically). My mixed race kids are doing just fine.
So yes, there are many causes here. But Glenn made the case for the failure of Progressive policies and my point is that Conservative policies are just as bad and in some ways, even worse.
The top 10 cities for violent crime in America are:
St. Louis, MO (2,082)
Detroit, MI (2,057)
Baltimore, MD (2,027)
Memphis, TN (2,003)
Little Rock, AR (1,634)
Milwaukee, WI (1,597)
Rockford, IL (1,588)
Cleveland, OH (1,557)
Stockton, CA (1,415)
Albuquerque, NM (1,369)
These aren't exactly bastions of wealthy White Progressivism. They might be examples of failed Democratic cities, but I think you should look deeper. They are mostly cities devastated by White flight, abandoned by state legislatures and left to their fates. No one really cares about these places. Those that can get out get out as fast as they can.
I don't think that there are any easy answers, but growing up poor myself, I know that poverty is first and foremost a state of mind. A lack of belief in the future and oneself is a self fulfilling prophecy. As I tell my teen daughters, to their great amusement, "If you think you can, you might. If you think you can't, you won't."
My wife was a war refugee and her and her parents never thought of their lives as hopeless. I was always the smartest kid in my class and my family and my teachers all thought I was destined for bigger things than the rural and impoverished community where I attended high school. But most of my family never thought there was any way out and for almost all of them, it turned out to be true. I don't know how to change this mindset. I can't even fathom a solution. I know some would say turn to God, and maybe that is the answer, even though I have no faith myself.
I know what you mean. My story is kind of weird, like me. I spent eight years in a very irish-catholic private school. My school almost killed Catholic school in Montana, as the lawsuits piled up about the priests abusing the boys, and the nuns beating the girls. Try this girls above the knee skirt, then kneel on bricks for a couple of hours.. yeah ... My dad was a railroad man and made big money, but yes there was abuse there too. When I was 16,my neighbor killed himself, then after almost a year I started working with the jaws of life at my dad's towtruck business. Never knew what was wrong with me, but if I didn't drug myself to sleep I had nightmares. The only thing that worked was pot. Found out a few years ago I have had PTSD most of my life. Even with all that, I was determined to help my city. I drove cab for 20 years at night to get drunk folks off the road. If you were drunk, I'd give you a ride home, even if I had to pay the fare. I guess what I'm saying is even from a bad background I never succumbed to it. I helped make my city a better place. Never got rich, but that wasn't my goal. I made a difference. Don't look at rich folks and say wow they are successful. Set your sites on something, then do it. I never had to get anyone out of a wreck again, and did what I loved for years. If I saved 1 life it was all worth it. That's success.
That is very admirable. Mostly I made my family wealthy which was not really what I wanted to with my life, but it was what my wife wanted me to do with my life so I agreed to it. Now that I am in my 50s I am trying to focus more on doing good instead of just doing well.
I do believe that most of the committed crimes. I also do know that Blacks and Whites use drugs in equal amounts but Blacks are overwhelmingly more likely to end up with criminal records. Why is that?
I think that poor communities are overpoliced compared to wealthy communities. I know that Blacks' are far more likely to be poor. There is very strong, almost overwhelming evidence that the criminal justice system is biased on every level. Blacks are policed more, more likely to be arrested, more likely to be charged when arrested, more likely to be convicted when charged and more likely to have longer prison sentences. This is all well documented.
And that's just the criminal justice system. Our society is rife with similar biases. It is barely better than when MLK died, but just barely better and in many ways even worse.
Many people grow up poor. It's been the norm for most of human history. Among those who grow up poor some emphasize personal choice/responsibility and others emphasize societal responsibilities to them. Guess which group gets out of poverty?
Neither, because poverty traps people, especially inter generational poverty. Can’t “personal responsibility” your way into opportunities and resources that simply don’t exist.
There are plenty of programs that exist for young Black men that don't for young white men. Unless you're telling us that impoverished white people that have generations of predecessors behind them that haven't had challenges and didn't inherit a dime from their forebears don't exist (in which case I'll tell you that you're full of shit because I happen to be one), then there are definitely ways out.
Stating that resources don't exist is nonsensical. There is the UNCF. There are racial preferences in some states. There are now admissions offices that favor young black applicants over white because it's all but written into their charters. Glenn can probably attest to this as well. What I'm saying is that for equal circumstances, meaning similar familial incomes, social status, grades etc., a young Black man is more likely to get accepted to an Ivy League school than a white one, given similar backgrounds. Yes, you heard that correctly.
Certainly we can say that there are more Black students that don't graduate high school than white ones. Certainly we can say that there is a higher rate of single parenthood which exacerbates poor outcomes, and relative to white counterparts, Black youths have poorer outcomes in this arena as well.
What we can't say, and what absolutely can't be taken seriously as a claim of social science is that there are no opportunities and resources for young impoverished children with shit parents, and we can't say that everyone that has a poor outcome has no contribution whatsoever with their life decisions to that poor outcome. We also can't say that just because your parents were poor, that you're predestined to have the same outcome and that you have no opportunities or resources to make your life better in this country.
This is false. This is a crutch. This is a dangerous way to encourage young people to think, and your comment should be condemned as such, and I'm happy to do it. I'm also happy to look at any evidence that you have to support your strongly-worded claim. Good luck finding it.
But Black people don't have the same backgrounds, that is exactly the point. Far more Whites than Blacks have educated parents, go to excellent public schools or private schools. Do you think that is far?
Whites and Blacks use drugs at the same rate, yet Blacks are five times as likely to have a drug conviction on their record. Is that fair?
Sure, there is affirmative action for that small sliver of Black youth who have been either afforded the opportunity to be raised by the few upper middle class or wealthy Black families in America. I have heard, though I can't substantiate this, that most of the "Black" people at top Ivy's are actually the wealthy children of foreigners. Higher education, especially at the tip top, is all about raising money to perpetuate themselves. Do you think that they are interested in admitting poor kids?
And yes, I do know that being poor isn't a ticket to failure. I grew up as poor as you can imagine, with 11 siblings. On food stamps, with no air conditioning in 110 degree weather for a while and then no insulation on the Wyoming prairie another time. I was born to a teen mother and an alcoholic abusive mentally ill father. I studied in school, got the GI Bill and went to a good university and found a way out. Partially I will credit that to White privilege. I was arrested a couple of times, and the charges were either dropped or I was sent to pre-trial diversion. I don't know for sure, but I don't think the small town DA would have put his arm around me and said "This doesn't mean you are a criminal son" if I hadn't known how to dress and what to say to avoid presenting myself poorly in court. I can credit organizations like the DeMolay (young men's Mason's) organization for that.
Most of my siblings did not fare as well: two have felony convictions, one has been homeless, and three of the girls had children before they were 21. We also have one lawyer and one nurse in the batch. I doubt we would have even that well if we had the three strikes of poor, rural *and* Black against us.
I disagree. For instance I am descended from a man who started life in a dirt floor shack orphaned by a cholera epidemic. He was at work full time by the age of 12. You are correct, few opportunities existed for him. However, he took advantage of those few that existed and made the rest happen for himself. He ended up in the US Senate.
Most of us are a generation or two removed from crushing poverty (I personally grew up in a home where we had to rely on WIC/welfare for some years). I don't doubt that there are exceptions, but what's telling in this anecdote is that this individual (your grandfather?) had to partake in full time child labor in order to escape poverty. We don't build a strong/cohesive society by tailoring public policy towards child labor as an escape from crushing poverty and thankfully we've moved passed exploiting children in the labor force.
Anyways here's a piece from 2015 assessing intergenerational poverty... I doubt the pandemic has made the outlook any better.
I grew up with a heroin addict father that abandoned my mother, sister and me when we were nine years old. My mom had to work three jobs, I got into trouble with other people in my neighborhood, had run-ins with the police for misdemeanor charges, I had a crippling psychological outlook on life because things seemed hopeless for me. Our family was on "government assistance" for years. My mom married an abusive asshole that I still detest to this day. I was beaten up because of the color of my skin in neighborhoods and the schools I came up in, until I was 10 years old. I was scared to walk home from school every day. I have had two failed marriages, I was almost homeless at one point, I have filed bankruptcy and I have had my share of drug and alcohol abuse in my past. I have only a high school degree. I score an 8 of 10 possible for Adverse Childhood Experiences. My family passed onto me zero wealth, and in fact probably hindered me with honor culture and other perspectives that I have since abandoned.
I have experienced everything that young black men say they have experienced and use as reasons why they haven't succeeded:
Physical attacks based on the color of my skin.
A father that wasn't around.
A community that wanted to see me put away.
No resources or generational wealth to draw upon.
Abusive parents.
Abandonment.
Living in unsafe/unfit structures that didn't keep out cold or moisture.
Not being able to find employment because I had no experience and couldn't talk in a way conducive to impressing potential employers.
Yet here I am. 46 years old, middle management, well-spoken, happy family life with 2 kids, reasonable amount of occupational and financial security.
I am not particularly attractive, intelligent, or connected, etc. I'm average. So, I have a hard time blaming anything on any mistreatment, institution or systemic reason for not succeeding. People like you will say, "yeah, but you're the exception". I'm not. People like you will say "yeah but you're white so you didn't face the same challenges". I did.
I'm not asserting that we should ignore inter-generational poverty. I am saying that it doesn't have to be a deciding factor in outcomes, because I am living, breathing proof that it does not. And I'm not particularly gifted by any stretch of the imagination. I just never quit, and I never blamed anyone but myself and my poor life decisions for my outcome earlier in my life, because my decisions or lack thereof contributed directly to staying impoverished. As is the case with most people.
People don't HAVE to sell drugs.
People don't HAVE to pull triggers.
People don't HAVE to intimidate, steal from, or harass others in their communities.
People don't HAVE to have kids before they're adults and then abandon them.
These are all choices that have a far greater impact on quality of life and quality of outcomes than does generational poverty. Until we're willing to have a conversation about differences in culture, who's controlling the areas with the most issues and the policies that have had poor outcomes for the very people they're supposed to empower, nothing is going to get better.
I mean for sure, good on you for doing well with what little you were given, but as with the previous post, this is simply a personal anecdote. If you're going to rely on your own lived experience to try and understand broad societal trends, I don't know just how much that's going to help you.
At least the original progresses were honest about the evil they were doing.... Today's progressives actually think they're good people... God save us from unaccountable do-gooders...
I tried having these conversations with my friends in the Brooklyn/Bay Area bubble during last summer's Floyd freakout, simply stating that this whole notion that police can be replaced by social workers was incredibly naive and dangerous, but 1) these are mostly people who've either grown up safely in suburbia or the much-safer-than-before cities of the past 20ish years, so they have no conception of crime, and 2) in the social media age, "discussing politics" is only and entirely a performance on Twitter that has absolutely nothing to do with what us older folks think of as the traditional purpose of politics, ie what are the best allocation of resources and what problems need clear and reasonable fixing, etc.
Political positions and discussions now exist entirely in the realm of the cultural, meaning sadly, that things like Defund the Police or Abolish the SAT are simply the new skinny jeans or plaid shirt that every cool kid must have.
None of this would matter much except for the fact that the perpetually neurotic blue-check Twitter class is the Democratic donor base and braintrust, so they set much of the national agenda (no matter how obviously silly and no matter how quickly their crowd-sourced dogma changes).
Dr. Loury, maybe in a future podcast you can unpack the Seattle initiative to lessen, in the name of social justice, penalties on drive-by shootings. Surely a topic worthy of one of your patented rants.
Normally I would be instantly out the moment someone suggests, much less deigns to do without any consultation, to use superstition as a means of "outreach" using my money.
It is only my respect for Glenn that prevents me from cancelling my patronage immediately.
On schools, here's a quote from Freddie DeBoer that I so totally agree with I'm sharing it! (The Cult of Smart)
"Here’s a basic point I’ve been making for at least a dozen years, including in my book, and will now do again: the educational function of public schools, while certainly of prime importance, is the secondary function of public schools. The first function is giving children warm, safe places where they can be stimulated and looked after, and where they can access cheap or free meals if they need them. The humanitarian good of this function dwarfs that of the education function."
His book ‘The Cult of Smart’ is a really good read. Glenn if you read this, please consider getting him and/or Benjamin Applebaum on the podcast.
REQUEST - could you please make the full version available on substack again! All that's showing is the 8 minute version.
Click on "The Glenn Show" or on Glenn's image and it will show you the entire list. Scroll down one or two and you'll see it. 68 minutes.
Where's the rest of the show? It's only showing as 8 minutes, but I think it was about an hour when I first checked a few days ago.
I have a quandry. First blacks complain that they pay more at local stores. As I recall this was born out by a study that found this to be true. When the rioting and looting starts in these communities, who is in the forefront? Blacks don't seem to defend their neighborhoods. What does this mean? After things have settled down, does a would be store owner want to start up in that neighborhood? Does the insurance company want to offer him a policy? Will the premiums be higher or lower than other places in the city?
Awhile back I watched Washington DC. Black parents wanted school choice so that their kids could get a better education. The teachers' union opposed this. Blacks elected Democrats who took the unions money and ignored the parents. So the kids will grow up and fall into the same life styles,
Here we have school choice in San Francisco and the wealthy Whites and Asian endlessly complain that they can't send their kid to the neighborhood school. No matter what you do, someone will complain about it.
But, they never tell the whole story. When I worked at a huge diesel shop, one day we cracked a windshield on a pickup truck, called a glass shop and was given a quote. The shop foreman called about an hour later and put him on speaker. For the same windshield, same truck they were charging us 25-30% more. So, a money grabbing shop doesn't care who you are, or what color. They charge you as much as possible. If a store wants to charge you more, don't go back. They will get the idea
Why is it called "progressive policy"? Socialistic and Communistic policy is already proved to be a regressive policy.
Ty Glenn and Bob; I sincerely appreciate your insights and courage. I can’t imagine the sacrifices you have made to fight the good fight.
The KKK could not have engineered as crushing and diabolical policy and process as Democrats have done to persecute blacks; they have blacks killing blacks, black government leaders teaching that blacks are inferior and need massive extra help throughout their life, forcing black children in to unsafe and abysmal schools resulting in self-fulfilled prophecy of inferior aptitude. This has been going on since the 70’s and I expect it will only get worse in this decade because the culture now is too broken to fix in a few years. Another generation of blacks lost (killed, maimed, jailed, discarded, etc) due to Democrat Party while an embarrassingly small percentage make it through sheer courage and willpower or victim granting affirmative action quotas. The Democratic Party is the KKK except far more effective at ruining black lives.
Mr. Woodson says: '80 percent of blacks living in those communities are against defund the police.' Yet Atlanta just elected a Mayor who ran on a defund the police platform. I do not believe anybody gets elected Mayor in Atlanta with only 20 percent of the black vote. So, if the people living in the neighborhoods most affected by the defund the police movement don't like what is happening, perhaps they should change their voting habits.
I have yet to find any city that actually defunded the police and have continued to do so in the face of the rising crime of 2020. If you can find one, I would appreciate it. I researched Oakland, which is near where I live and while they made a big show of it, they didn't actually cut the budget, and have since quietly increased it.
This. It's not at all surprising to me that the people pushing these policies don't suffer the consequences-- that's why they continue to push them. What fascinates me is that the people who *do* suffer those consequences continue to vote for them. Krasner easily turned back the effort to recall him in Philly. Boudin may be recalled in SF, but (local here) he was completely open about his positions on crime during his campaign... and got elected.
IF the ballot boxes aren't stuffed and the vote isn't manipulated then they wouldn't get elected. You are only looking at one side of the problem. Wait, there's a water leak in the vote counting area... move along, we'll give you the results when we finish creating them.
I'm not one that thinks the election was a fraud or stolen or anything. And maybe what happened is that the workers were tired and wanted to go home, and since that's not the best thing to say, they decided to blame it on an exaggerated water leak. That could have happened, and I think it probably is what happened.
However, it was all so shady that any thinking person is going to assign a great big question mark to what went on there. I'm 80% confident (to throw out a number) everything was aboveboard at that location, and that's not high enough for such an important election.
All elections have fraud. The "margin of fraud" is a real thing. That said, there was no more of that kind of fraud in 2020 than in any other year.
There was quite a bit of unconstitutional election rule changes under the rubric of "COVID". Unconstitutional because the state legislatures are supposed to mandate this stuff, not unelected executive agencies.
I suspect election fraud is easier to remember than unconstitutional election rule changes, though.
Among other things, our Constitution guarantees every citizen a right to be free of "Domestic Violence" (which includes things like riots, widespread crime, etc."). It's time for people in these blighted areas to begin filing criminal charges against those responsible for these policies for violating the rights (class action - millions of charges) of citizens adversely impacted by clearly pro-crime policies.
Each violation of an individual's rights carries a sentence up to 10 years in prison. Start putting some of these Soros wonks in prison for a few millenia, this nonsense will stop magically almost overnight.
Another great example of this idiocy... https://nypost.com/2022/01/04/manhattan-da-alvin-bragg-to-stop-seeking-prison-in-some-cases/
Right now, there are about 70 people in prison for life for non violent pot crimes? Times have changed. I once read about a "hippy" who borrowed a friends car and got pulled over. They found 8seeds in the ashtray and were recommending 8 years in prison
https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2020.html
This is an advocacy group but I think their work is well researched.
About 1.4 Million are in prison or jail for non-violent crimes, mostly property crimes.
About 20% are still in jail for drug crimes, though this is way down from the 80s and 90s.
"Armed robbers who use guns or other deadly weapons to stick up stores and other businesses will be prosecuted only for petty larceny, a misdemeanor, provided no victims were seriously injured and there’s no 'genuine risk of physical harm' to anyone. Armed robbery, a class B felony, would typically be punishable by a maximum of 25 years in prison, while petty larceny subjects offenders to up to 364 days in jail and a $1,000 fine."
Hey, the armed robber didn't actually kill anyone. It's all good.
$1000 fine? One San Francisco shoplifting trip and: Debt Paid in Full!
For those who think this is too soft, rest easy that if a white bandit holds up a Black shopkeeper, it will still qualify as a hate crime. Or at least a really, really bad microaggression.
"It will quality as a hate crime." Do you actually believe this or is it some rhetorical nonsense? Whites are not more likely to be prosecuted that Blacks. In fact, it is the other way around.
I live in Seattle, WA and can attest to the rapid descent of our city culture. I work with small business support in Seattle’s southend and can tell horror stories from the past two years. In the past 6 months alone, four people have died within 400 yards of the Mt. Baker Light Rail Station, the heart of the area I serve. Preschoolers were witness to the first gang murder of a teenaged youth waiting at the bus stop.
I’m now quoting a beloved local restaurant owner whose first name is Drea: “The neighborhood as a whole is no longer thriving, it's stagnant and depressing and sad and feels more volatile and unsafe than any previous times.
We've had windows smashed out on both our food truck and restaurant this past month. And just last week I was politely trying to get a homeless man to leave when another customer threw his phad thai across the table and told me we are shit for trying to kick the homeless man out. This homeless man has been trespassed from our property by SPD for multiple prior engagements including wearing no pants/underwear, verbally threatening my employees, entering without a mask, entering with a weapon, stealing, damaging property, spitting, bleeding, etc. And as I tried to explain our position to the phad thai thrower he just told me he had no interest in my explanation. It's really disappointing and discouraging to be a small business owner on Rainier Ave right now.”
Drea single handedly raised almost $45K in a Go Fund Me campaign and a community auction, to help one of her line cooks’ families survive him being in a hit and run accident on Feb. 1, 2021, as he walked home from work at midnight. Medics told her they hadn’t expected him to survive the trip to the hospital because his blood loss was so great, and then he had two thoracic surgeries to get all internal bleeding stopped. Drea had a sitting down, peeling potatoes kind of job ready for him after 3 months, so his health insurance could continue unabated, hoping all the while that his body would be able to engage. She’s a saint in my book.
What I see in Seattle is a general lack of competence among the elected officials. Add to that progressive rhetoric about race and equity matters. Our past Mayor, who made Seattle famous because of the ‘Chop’ fiasco here after the George Floyd riots, may have arguably been a great prosecutor in her earlier career, but she lacked the spine and know how to prevent or then manage the rioters that overtook Seattle two summers ago. The same is true of our progressive City Council. They fly high with ideals but don’t understand the nuts and bolts of how things work for a community to thrive.
A friend of mine was in the Seattle Mayor’s race last year. When I asked him how he would have managed the riots as Mayor this was his answer:
1. When Minneapolis went up in flames, Seattle had two days before the riots would end up
here as well.
2. All the buildings in downtown Seattle would have been sprayed with anti graffiti paint and
the ground floor windows covered with plywood.
3. He would have a meeting with the heads of all the activist groups and ask them to create
a list of followers in their groups and be able to identify them in a crowd.
4. He would have identified a downtown street for folks to peacefully gather, have police
lined up single file down both sides of that street, and usher the collected crowd to the
football stadium where a stage with microphones would be ready for an organized
demonstration. We have a stadium in downtown Seattle near the ferry terminal.
5. The activist leaders would alert police to the faces in the crowd
that they did not know, a step to keep the anticipated looters and anarchists from
infiltrating the crowd as much as possible.
When I asked Lance how he knew this, he answered that this was how the marches were run in the Civil Rights Movement. Lance is from Georgia and his grandfather was one of three people that approached Martin Luther King Jr. while he was in Divinity School to lead the Civil Rights Movement. Lances grandfather was a businessman and his job was to bring forward the funding for the movement. Whether this would have worked in today’s world, I don’t know, but I do know that it filled me with confidence. I’m sorry Lance didn’t win, and I wish our new Mayor well.
Thank you Professor Loury for these conversations, I can’t tell you enough how much I think they help my blood pressure as I deal with people in Seattle that seem to think the way forward progressively is to keep improving on the lie.
Here’s a little treat that shows the better part of my neighborhood, one of many filmed businesses/organizations to promote the SE Seattle area right before the pandemic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=str-sfcY81I
Thank you again!
That's sad. My wife and I went to Seattle almost 40 years ago. We loved the skyline, the fact that you could get in the woods in short order, and the great attitude of the people there. I went to work right by the old holly park ghetto projects, at a service station at night, and truth to tell only had a problem with one person there. But, we just didn't have enough money to get traction and welfare wouldn't help us because we were too... White. But other than that, we were treated very well. Hopefully things will get better there. Peace
Seward Park Audubon society--nice to see!!
You know who pays the cost of The War on (some) Drugs and other failed Conservative policies? Poor people, overwhelmingly poor Black families.
It is disingenuous to complain about "Progressive" policies without giving them historical framing. Giving 1/3 of young Black men criminal records has a huge impact on Black communities abilities to form families, Black men's ability to find meaningful employment and the ability of Black's to generate and keep wealth.
The criminal justice system has been racist for generations. This has been documented in many studies, as well as just looking with your own eyes and with common sense.
Is it worse to lock up young men who will mostly improve their lives in a few years or is it worse for a community so suffer a modest increase in crime? I don't know the answer and neither do you. The right answer is to ask the community, not come in with come kind of savior complex, telling poor people what do with, with no understanding of what it is like to be poor and with no understanding of community dynamics.
I grew up poor. I have 11 siblings and five are men. We have all been arrested at one point or another. At least two have had their lives ruined by felony convictions, one caused by the ****** "War on Drugs", which has been failure by any standard.
Conservatives have no answer to the problems of poor communities. All they can do is cut funding for housing and food for the poor and then point fingers at our communities failures.
Do better than this Glenn. I know you can.
I agree with you partially here El Monstro, because I grew up poor, and was a minority in my neighborhood, and I'm white. We can, unfortunately reference the fact that black vs. white incarceration for the same drug offenses is historically higher for Black offenders, and that is unjust. However, what you fail to realize is that when the war on drugs began, many Black mayors, city council officials, and other office holders at the time were asking authoritative entities for something to be done about the drugs in their communities, the addiction rates, and the associated levels of violent crime that come with any black market narcotic trade. So, yes, it was conservatives that instituted the polices largely, with lots of local minority backing. If you're going to condemn conservatives, you must also condemn the liberal "POC" in those communities who condoned and bolstered those efforts, and with good reason. I don't know if you know what murder and drug use looked like in many of our urban centers in the 80s and early 90s, but it wasn't pretty and it was worse than it is now. What would your policy be to remove violent offenders that engage in the drug trade in any community? And what do you have to say to the folks on the other side of the aisle that supported the institution of these policies? They get a free pass because of a blue voting record?
I also agree with you that poor people pay the cost, and we could certainly have a conversation IN GOOD FAITH about race, where we examine ALL of the factors of wealth creation or lack thereof, and discuss the disparity between black and white, but this seems to be missing the larger point, that it is more so the poor generally that pay the price while the rich get off, instead of Black folks being targeted. This is a class battle more than it is a race battle, although conventional political narratives would have us believe and state otherwise. My evidence for this is that it occurs in the "white" community as well. Some guy goes to jail for 2 years for auto theft, while the CitiGroup people directly responsible for the theft of over 100 million goes unpunished. In fact, Matt Taibbi recently wrote an excellent article on this phenomenon and how appeals courts are biased in the direction of letting white collar criminals off and fining these offending companies with paltry fines and no criminal punishment in the form of incarceration. Both offenders in both crimes are white.
You write: "It is disingenuous to complain about "Progressive" policies without giving them historical framing. Giving 1/3 of young Black men criminal records has a huge impact on Black communities abilities to form families, Black men's ability to find meaningful employment and the ability of Black's to generate and keep wealth."
It is also disingenuous and an attempt at a biased, bad faith argument to fail to mention the percentage of young Black folks (vs. white or other race counterparts) that don't use contraception, have out-of-wedlock births, and become single parents while still under the age of 18. Did racism or a biased justice system cause that as well? Are you unaware that the statistics for success for single mothers and fathers under the age of 18? It isn't good. These are choices that were made by these people, unless you'd like to apply the trope here that there is no agency among these people, and there is some sort of through-line of logic and cause-effect that results from slavery to deciding to have sex with no protection and to also decide to abandon one's family as soon as it begins. These are problems of subculture in some communities that directly correlate with bad outcomes.
Guess what? My father is a heroin addict and left my family before I was 10. I too have committed crimes and been hemmed up by the police. It's rather unfortunate for me that I have no historical reference to oppression on which to base my poor decision making so as to relinquish myself of any agency, therefore any guilt of the choices I made. I don't have that luxury. My parents were essentially fuckups- and at 30 years old, I almost found myself homeless. No one gave me anything. I had to claw my way up from damn near rock bottom to get to where I am now. Sure, it could be argued that I had an easier time because of my skin color, but that would have to be one damned good argument to convince me. Again, it's class that's the real battle here, not race.
You also write: "Is it worse to lock up young men who will mostly improve their lives in a few years or is it worse for a community so suffer a modest increase in crime? I don't know the answer and neither do you."
Begging your pardon, but I know who does know the answer. The lady in Philadelphia has an answer for you, and it's NO, IT IS NOT WORSE. First, locking up for what? I'm against the war on drugs, and I personally think that we should do something like what Portugal has done and decriminalize across the board. But even if we did that, there's behavior, VIOLENT behavior built into a subculture that has largely gone unaddressed as a symptom of that subculture since the late 60s. Legalizing drugs won't help everything. What about crimes that are committed irrespective of drugs, like armed robbery, assault, murder (non drug-related)? The lady that had a bullet rip through her son on their front porch would probably tell you that YES, IT IS BETTER TO LOCK UP VIOLENT OFFENDERS THAN LET ONE OF THEM MURDER HER SON. Are you seriously asking this question? Have you ever lost a child to street violence? Have you ever known a woman that got raped on her walk home from her second job late at night? These are real things happening to real people in the communities you refer to, and you have the audacity to proclaim that the answer to whether or not it's better to lock the people perpetrating these crimes up, than to let the crimes occur, because according to you, things just solve themselves on their own after a few years?
Pardon me again sir, but this is fucking lunacy.
You mention the inability to create and keep wealth. A big part of that is finding affordable housing and not paying an exorbitant amount in taxes for your income level. Please watch the following regarding progressive policies in the places where most Black folks live in urban centers in the US: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNDgcjVGHIw&authuser=0
So you can blame conservatives all you want. You can blame slavery, Jim Crow, redlining, etc. But what you don't get to do is absolve progressive control, authority, policy and office-holders for their part in making things worse.
Fact: Most places with the strictest gun control laws have the highest murder by firearm rates in the country. These are progressive polices and these areas have long since been under the governmental control of democrats. By that I mean, the state legislature is Democrat, the Mayor, the city councils, etc. Policies that were instituted by Democrats, and increasingly progressive Democrats.
Fact: These same places have the worst outcomes for "POC" and the most violent crime per capita of any other cities in our country. I'm referring specifically to NYC, LA, SF, Philly, Baltimore, Minneapolis, St. Louis, Chicago, and the list goes on.
Fact: In places that instituted "Defund the Police" initiatives, lives for the Black people that are not criminals in these areas have gotten worse. They're more likely to be robbed, shot, stabbed or otherwise assaulted or victimized as a result of these policies. But don't take my word for it, dig in and do your own research.
I agree with you that en masse, conservatives don't have any good answers to the problems of poor communities. But this by default doesn't mean that progressive Democrats do either. In fact, they have a far worse record for improving impoverished communities Black and white, in almost any area, whether it be an urban center or whether it be the poorest corner of Appalachia in southeastern Ohio and WV and areas in that region. The data is out there an available for anyone to see, so it seems like you need to do some homework before you comment and vilify one political party vs. the other.
Conservatives to have a lot of issues, and some of the same issues that Progressives have, especially in the realm of censorship as it relates to usurping the constitution with an authoritarian theme, but to purport that Progressives aren't directly responsible for some of the poor outcomes we see in urban centers is just being willfully ignorant and you put yourself on display as someone that has swallowed propaganda and the associated bias without really doing any kind of meaningful research on the areas affected most by the maladies that you describe.
Do better than this El Monstro. I know you can.
There are a lot of roots to the failure of Black families to have both parents. Both Progressive policies and Conservative policies are too blame. I don't need to argue both sides of every point, but I am glad that you are here for a counterpoint. I do believe that most, but not all, of the problems that Black communities face are due to poverty and its attendant effects. But unlike you, I don't blame poor people for being born poor. There is still a multi-generational impact from Jim Crow that is still being felt. And layer upon that things like the failure of banks to lend and then when the do lend, lend at usurious rates, to Blacks, that make it hard to build intergenerational wealth. Add to that the failures of public schools, the criminal justice system and all the other legacy discrimination and it's a miracle anyone makes it out.
The racism in Progressive cities is just as severe as in more Conservative areas, it is just hidden a bit more. The schools in wealthy White Northern California as among the most segregated in the nation. Segregation is an area where legal and cultural changes can make a big difference. Poor Black kids in schools that are evenly moderately desegregated have much better outcomes. I think the problems are mostly due to a lack of good role models. Here in San Francisco, White people overwhelmingly won't send their kids to segregated public schools, even though they are mostly very good (and dominated by Asians, most of whom are poor and doing well academically). My mixed race kids are doing just fine.
So yes, there are many causes here. But Glenn made the case for the failure of Progressive policies and my point is that Conservative policies are just as bad and in some ways, even worse.
The top 10 cities for violent crime in America are:
St. Louis, MO (2,082)
Detroit, MI (2,057)
Baltimore, MD (2,027)
Memphis, TN (2,003)
Little Rock, AR (1,634)
Milwaukee, WI (1,597)
Rockford, IL (1,588)
Cleveland, OH (1,557)
Stockton, CA (1,415)
Albuquerque, NM (1,369)
These aren't exactly bastions of wealthy White Progressivism. They might be examples of failed Democratic cities, but I think you should look deeper. They are mostly cities devastated by White flight, abandoned by state legislatures and left to their fates. No one really cares about these places. Those that can get out get out as fast as they can.
I don't think that there are any easy answers, but growing up poor myself, I know that poverty is first and foremost a state of mind. A lack of belief in the future and oneself is a self fulfilling prophecy. As I tell my teen daughters, to their great amusement, "If you think you can, you might. If you think you can't, you won't."
My wife was a war refugee and her and her parents never thought of their lives as hopeless. I was always the smartest kid in my class and my family and my teachers all thought I was destined for bigger things than the rural and impoverished community where I attended high school. But most of my family never thought there was any way out and for almost all of them, it turned out to be true. I don't know how to change this mindset. I can't even fathom a solution. I know some would say turn to God, and maybe that is the answer, even though I have no faith myself.
I know what you mean. My story is kind of weird, like me. I spent eight years in a very irish-catholic private school. My school almost killed Catholic school in Montana, as the lawsuits piled up about the priests abusing the boys, and the nuns beating the girls. Try this girls above the knee skirt, then kneel on bricks for a couple of hours.. yeah ... My dad was a railroad man and made big money, but yes there was abuse there too. When I was 16,my neighbor killed himself, then after almost a year I started working with the jaws of life at my dad's towtruck business. Never knew what was wrong with me, but if I didn't drug myself to sleep I had nightmares. The only thing that worked was pot. Found out a few years ago I have had PTSD most of my life. Even with all that, I was determined to help my city. I drove cab for 20 years at night to get drunk folks off the road. If you were drunk, I'd give you a ride home, even if I had to pay the fare. I guess what I'm saying is even from a bad background I never succumbed to it. I helped make my city a better place. Never got rich, but that wasn't my goal. I made a difference. Don't look at rich folks and say wow they are successful. Set your sites on something, then do it. I never had to get anyone out of a wreck again, and did what I loved for years. If I saved 1 life it was all worth it. That's success.
That is very admirable. Mostly I made my family wealthy which was not really what I wanted to with my life, but it was what my wife wanted me to do with my life so I agreed to it. Now that I am in my 50s I am trying to focus more on doing good instead of just doing well.
"Giving 1/3 of young Black men criminal records"
Just to be clear, are you asserting that none of these young Black men committed crimes?
I do believe that most of the committed crimes. I also do know that Blacks and Whites use drugs in equal amounts but Blacks are overwhelmingly more likely to end up with criminal records. Why is that?
I think that poor communities are overpoliced compared to wealthy communities. I know that Blacks' are far more likely to be poor. There is very strong, almost overwhelming evidence that the criminal justice system is biased on every level. Blacks are policed more, more likely to be arrested, more likely to be charged when arrested, more likely to be convicted when charged and more likely to have longer prison sentences. This is all well documented.
And that's just the criminal justice system. Our society is rife with similar biases. It is barely better than when MLK died, but just barely better and in many ways even worse.
Many people grow up poor. It's been the norm for most of human history. Among those who grow up poor some emphasize personal choice/responsibility and others emphasize societal responsibilities to them. Guess which group gets out of poverty?
Neither, because poverty traps people, especially inter generational poverty. Can’t “personal responsibility” your way into opportunities and resources that simply don’t exist.
There are plenty of programs that exist for young Black men that don't for young white men. Unless you're telling us that impoverished white people that have generations of predecessors behind them that haven't had challenges and didn't inherit a dime from their forebears don't exist (in which case I'll tell you that you're full of shit because I happen to be one), then there are definitely ways out.
Stating that resources don't exist is nonsensical. There is the UNCF. There are racial preferences in some states. There are now admissions offices that favor young black applicants over white because it's all but written into their charters. Glenn can probably attest to this as well. What I'm saying is that for equal circumstances, meaning similar familial incomes, social status, grades etc., a young Black man is more likely to get accepted to an Ivy League school than a white one, given similar backgrounds. Yes, you heard that correctly.
Certainly we can say that there are more Black students that don't graduate high school than white ones. Certainly we can say that there is a higher rate of single parenthood which exacerbates poor outcomes, and relative to white counterparts, Black youths have poorer outcomes in this arena as well.
What we can't say, and what absolutely can't be taken seriously as a claim of social science is that there are no opportunities and resources for young impoverished children with shit parents, and we can't say that everyone that has a poor outcome has no contribution whatsoever with their life decisions to that poor outcome. We also can't say that just because your parents were poor, that you're predestined to have the same outcome and that you have no opportunities or resources to make your life better in this country.
This is false. This is a crutch. This is a dangerous way to encourage young people to think, and your comment should be condemned as such, and I'm happy to do it. I'm also happy to look at any evidence that you have to support your strongly-worded claim. Good luck finding it.
But Black people don't have the same backgrounds, that is exactly the point. Far more Whites than Blacks have educated parents, go to excellent public schools or private schools. Do you think that is far?
Whites and Blacks use drugs at the same rate, yet Blacks are five times as likely to have a drug conviction on their record. Is that fair?
Sure, there is affirmative action for that small sliver of Black youth who have been either afforded the opportunity to be raised by the few upper middle class or wealthy Black families in America. I have heard, though I can't substantiate this, that most of the "Black" people at top Ivy's are actually the wealthy children of foreigners. Higher education, especially at the tip top, is all about raising money to perpetuate themselves. Do you think that they are interested in admitting poor kids?
And yes, I do know that being poor isn't a ticket to failure. I grew up as poor as you can imagine, with 11 siblings. On food stamps, with no air conditioning in 110 degree weather for a while and then no insulation on the Wyoming prairie another time. I was born to a teen mother and an alcoholic abusive mentally ill father. I studied in school, got the GI Bill and went to a good university and found a way out. Partially I will credit that to White privilege. I was arrested a couple of times, and the charges were either dropped or I was sent to pre-trial diversion. I don't know for sure, but I don't think the small town DA would have put his arm around me and said "This doesn't mean you are a criminal son" if I hadn't known how to dress and what to say to avoid presenting myself poorly in court. I can credit organizations like the DeMolay (young men's Mason's) organization for that.
Most of my siblings did not fare as well: two have felony convictions, one has been homeless, and three of the girls had children before they were 21. We also have one lawyer and one nurse in the batch. I doubt we would have even that well if we had the three strikes of poor, rural *and* Black against us.
I disagree. For instance I am descended from a man who started life in a dirt floor shack orphaned by a cholera epidemic. He was at work full time by the age of 12. You are correct, few opportunities existed for him. However, he took advantage of those few that existed and made the rest happen for himself. He ended up in the US Senate.
Most of us are a generation or two removed from crushing poverty (I personally grew up in a home where we had to rely on WIC/welfare for some years). I don't doubt that there are exceptions, but what's telling in this anecdote is that this individual (your grandfather?) had to partake in full time child labor in order to escape poverty. We don't build a strong/cohesive society by tailoring public policy towards child labor as an escape from crushing poverty and thankfully we've moved passed exploiting children in the labor force.
Anyways here's a piece from 2015 assessing intergenerational poverty... I doubt the pandemic has made the outlook any better.
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/07/america-social-mobility-parents-income/399311/
I grew up with a heroin addict father that abandoned my mother, sister and me when we were nine years old. My mom had to work three jobs, I got into trouble with other people in my neighborhood, had run-ins with the police for misdemeanor charges, I had a crippling psychological outlook on life because things seemed hopeless for me. Our family was on "government assistance" for years. My mom married an abusive asshole that I still detest to this day. I was beaten up because of the color of my skin in neighborhoods and the schools I came up in, until I was 10 years old. I was scared to walk home from school every day. I have had two failed marriages, I was almost homeless at one point, I have filed bankruptcy and I have had my share of drug and alcohol abuse in my past. I have only a high school degree. I score an 8 of 10 possible for Adverse Childhood Experiences. My family passed onto me zero wealth, and in fact probably hindered me with honor culture and other perspectives that I have since abandoned.
I have experienced everything that young black men say they have experienced and use as reasons why they haven't succeeded:
Physical attacks based on the color of my skin.
A father that wasn't around.
A community that wanted to see me put away.
No resources or generational wealth to draw upon.
Abusive parents.
Abandonment.
Living in unsafe/unfit structures that didn't keep out cold or moisture.
Not being able to find employment because I had no experience and couldn't talk in a way conducive to impressing potential employers.
Yet here I am. 46 years old, middle management, well-spoken, happy family life with 2 kids, reasonable amount of occupational and financial security.
I am not particularly attractive, intelligent, or connected, etc. I'm average. So, I have a hard time blaming anything on any mistreatment, institution or systemic reason for not succeeding. People like you will say, "yeah, but you're the exception". I'm not. People like you will say "yeah but you're white so you didn't face the same challenges". I did.
I'm not asserting that we should ignore inter-generational poverty. I am saying that it doesn't have to be a deciding factor in outcomes, because I am living, breathing proof that it does not. And I'm not particularly gifted by any stretch of the imagination. I just never quit, and I never blamed anyone but myself and my poor life decisions for my outcome earlier in my life, because my decisions or lack thereof contributed directly to staying impoverished. As is the case with most people.
People don't HAVE to sell drugs.
People don't HAVE to pull triggers.
People don't HAVE to intimidate, steal from, or harass others in their communities.
People don't HAVE to have kids before they're adults and then abandon them.
These are all choices that have a far greater impact on quality of life and quality of outcomes than does generational poverty. Until we're willing to have a conversation about differences in culture, who's controlling the areas with the most issues and the policies that have had poor outcomes for the very people they're supposed to empower, nothing is going to get better.
I mean for sure, good on you for doing well with what little you were given, but as with the previous post, this is simply a personal anecdote. If you're going to rely on your own lived experience to try and understand broad societal trends, I don't know just how much that's going to help you.
At least the original progresses were honest about the evil they were doing.... Today's progressives actually think they're good people... God save us from unaccountable do-gooders...
And it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better. You better have a plan.....
And remember, there is no fixing this. You're going to have to live with this... be prepared....
I tried having these conversations with my friends in the Brooklyn/Bay Area bubble during last summer's Floyd freakout, simply stating that this whole notion that police can be replaced by social workers was incredibly naive and dangerous, but 1) these are mostly people who've either grown up safely in suburbia or the much-safer-than-before cities of the past 20ish years, so they have no conception of crime, and 2) in the social media age, "discussing politics" is only and entirely a performance on Twitter that has absolutely nothing to do with what us older folks think of as the traditional purpose of politics, ie what are the best allocation of resources and what problems need clear and reasonable fixing, etc.
Political positions and discussions now exist entirely in the realm of the cultural, meaning sadly, that things like Defund the Police or Abolish the SAT are simply the new skinny jeans or plaid shirt that every cool kid must have.
None of this would matter much except for the fact that the perpetually neurotic blue-check Twitter class is the Democratic donor base and braintrust, so they set much of the national agenda (no matter how obviously silly and no matter how quickly their crowd-sourced dogma changes).
Dr. Loury, maybe in a future podcast you can unpack the Seattle initiative to lessen, in the name of social justice, penalties on drive-by shootings. Surely a topic worthy of one of your patented rants.