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Tag: race

  • The Racial Reality

    Using the Baltimore Sun’sfun interactive homicide chart, these are the sad and politically incorrect totals for 2010:

    223 homicides: 202 black (91%), 13 white, 5 Hispanic, 1 Asian, 2 unknown(?).

    Overall, the 2009 population of Baltimore is estimated to be 63% African American and 33% white. So roughly, the black homicide rate (50) is eight times the white homicide rate (6.2 — which isn’t that much higher than the national average of 5.4 per 100,000).

    Is there a moral? I don’t know, but certainly we can do better. It’s also clear you can’t talk about this homicide problem without talking about race, and people don’t want to talk about race. Merely broaching the subject can get you labeled as racist. Who wants that? And hell, why should you care? It’s just “them” killing each other, right? And maybe you, no matter your race, moved out of the city a long time ago precisely to get away from this problem. It’s certainly an understandable reaction. But it’s not part of the solution.

    Unless we do something major in terms of changing our drug policy, investing in police, and yes, even spending money on job creation, the killings will continue. These are choices we make. And mostly we choose to do nothing. So the killings continue.

    This isn’t a local problem; it’s a national disgrace.

  • Move cops to higher-crime districts

    So say the Chicago ministers. Generally, such a move would a good idea. You certainly wouldn’t want to move the cops to lower-crime district.

    But if this happens, don’t be surprised next year when more blacks are arrested and more tickets are given to blacks.

    For what’s it’s worth, one Rev. Marshall Hatch of New Mount Pilgrim Missionary Baptist Church seems to have a pretty understanding of police and politics:

    On Friday, the ministers released an open letter to Daley and held a news conference outside his office at which they called on the lame-duck mayor to take advantage of the freedom his new status provides and deliver on a promise he made in 2003. They argued that Weis also has nothing to lose, since all four of the major mayoral candidates have vowed to dump him.

    “The timing will never be as good as it is now. This is something they are in a position to do without having to worry about political backlash.”

    Hatch added: “There’s a qualitative difference between beat officers in the community as a part of the fabric of a community and tactical, SWAT strategies that tend to have the adverse effects of criminalizing large parts of communities of high crime and high risk.”

    Well said, preacher.

    Now about the politics. The article in the Sun Times goes on to say:

    Political pressure from aldermen who stand to lose police officers has kept the city from redrawing the boundaries of police beats or otherwise reallocating police resources since the late 1970s.

    The Fraternal Order of Police has said it intends to strictly enforce a contract that, according to the union, could sharply limit Weis’ ability to reallocate officers from one police district to another.
    …
    Last month, mayoral front-runner Rahm Emanuel tried to halt any effort to shift police resources. Emanuel said he was determined to “find policies that unite” the city and argued that shifting officers from lower-crime districts in his North Side political base to higher-crime districts on the South Side and the West Side would only divide Chicago.

    Riiiight….

  • The Face of a Killer

    The Face of a Killer

    [update: Hey, look at the picture below and then the picture of me to the right? Do you think we were separated at birth? Or maybe I just photo-shopped all the cops holding me out of the picture.]
    Should I be bothered by the fact that I’m always somewhat relieved whenever I find out that some murderer, in this case “a troubled man with an arrest record and a reputation for a hair-trigger temper,” just happens to be white?

    Is this some weird vestige of liberal guilt? Or is this logical relief at knowing 1) what some would would say if he were black or Latino, 2) feeling obliged to argue against some irrelevant and racist theories on race, and 3) then somehow having my words twisted by idiots who would say I’m justifying the actions of murderer?

    Here’s the coverage in The Daily News.

    One victim:
    Another victim:

  • Man killed by police was holding a water nozzle, not a gun, police say

    What race do you think the victim was?

  • Right-Wing Lies: The welfare of Larmondo “Flair” Allen

    Right-Wing Lies: The welfare of Larmondo “Flair” Allen

    Am I really the only person who is skeptical enough to check the basic truth of emails before forwarding them to my 140 closest friends? I mean, it doesn’t take too long to go to Snopes

    The thing about mass-forwarded right-wing emails is that they are almost always never true. They’re like the headlines in the supermarket tabloid Weekly World News. There might be a grain of truth. But the basic theme, the ultimate point, is a lie.

    [Now liberals forward some lies too, but not as much. Certainly not as much since people stopped forwarding that damned “Save Sesame Street” email five years ago.]

    What here’s what bothers me deep down. I don’t know if conservatives really care about the truth. It seems that for too many “faith” and “belief” and “firm conviction” are more valued attributes that the truth. I always think, “Gee, I might be wrong.” Does that make me a wishy-washy French-loving lefty? Maybe. But if your faith and beliefs are built on lies, shouldn’t that matter?

    For the record: Obama was born in the U.S., Saddam Hussein was not behind September 11th, and the ACLU never tried to ban crosses from cemeteries. Just because you get an email or hear somebody who say something on talk radio doesn’t make it true! Not evenif they’re spittle-flying mad when they say it!

    So here’s the latest, an obit about one Larmondo “Flair” Allen. Now this is indeed a gem (and there’s nothing on Snopes).

    This apparently murderous drug dealer is called “an entrepreneur.” He was 25. He left eight brothers, five sisters, and ninechildren. Three of his daughters are named Larmondhall, Lamonshea, Larmomdriel.

    So I snicker at all this. I have a sense of humor. So do most liberals (despite what many conservatives think).

    But here’s the text with the email. As usual with right-wing email, it’s large and in many colors:

    Entrepreneur?????

    It took me a couple of minutes to get it, but imagine,

    He’s 25 and has 3 sons and 6 daughters

    NINE welfare recipients collecting $1500 each…..

    That equals $13,500 a month !!! Now add food stamps,

    Free medical, free school lunches, on and on and on.

    Now that, to me, is a real Entrepreneur.

    Do the math, that’s over $156,000.00 a year.

    Anybody out there sittin’ on their a** while reading

    This message making that kind of money?

    YOUR TAX $$$$ AT WORK??

    So the message isn’t just to laugh at the obit and this loser (and I wouldn’t be surprised if the writer of this obit was fully aware of the humor in using the word “entrepreneur”), but to blame the entire Obama communist liberal welfare state for everything that is wrong with America.

    First of all (and I only went online for a few minutes to find this out–so I can’t vouch with certainly that this is all true), the obit is from 2004. OK, but it’s still true, I suppose.

    But who the hell thinks that an able bodied man (much less one with “flair”) gets $1,500 a month per child? That’s what set off my B.S. alarm.

    I mean, this is America. We don’t have such a welfare system. And yet I firmly believe that opposition to this non-existent welfare system is what drives the world view of so many conservative Americans.

    And don’t get me wrong. I know there is much abuse of disability and what little welfare system we have. But you can’t help the “deserving poor” (my wife grew up on food stamps some of the time) without some abuse from those trying to milk the system. So friggin’ what? It’s not like we’re talking big bucks.

    In all of 10 minutes online, I couldn’t find details about the welfare benefits (now called TANF) in Louisiana. But let’s take Texas simply because I could find it on line. This is federal aid. In Texas, a family of eight with one or two parents gets less than $500 a month. Total. For each additional person, add… $60. [see the update below for Louisiana stats.]

    $1,500 or $60 per kid? It kind of matters.

    There might be some people out there who might have a kid for an extra $60 a month. But there can’t be too many. But in addition to TANF, there are also food stamps and sometimes some city and state aid is well. Still, it doesn’t add up to much. And if “Flair” had a legitimate job (ha!), he could get some earned income tax credit, something I have received for more than one year of my working life.

    But the straight-up federal welfare for you and your Texas family of nine kids? $6,636 a year. Live large, baby. Live large.

    Update, August, 2011. This is from a reader’s comment:

    In Louisiana, this (now) single mother with 9 children would receive $512/month with a lifetime limit of collecting this for 5 years. She’d be able to get another $500/mo roughly in food stamps and probably get some housing assistance as well.

    Now as far as Survivor Benefits from Social Security for the children, it depends on whether or not Larmondo had a regular job and paid into Social Security for at least 18 months. If he did, then they’ll qualify for benefits. If not, no soup for the kids. Being generous and saying Larmondo spent some time workin’ at McDonald’s to get his 18 months in… his partner may be able to collect the one time payment of $255 for his death and 7 of the kids would be eligible for continuing payments until 18. Those payments would be kind of small though, a total of less than $500/mo. combined.

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  • Daryl Gates dies

    Forgive me if I don’t send flowers to his funeral. What an SOB.

  • History Lesson

    “Southern Succession and the Civil War were about slavery.”
    If your response is, “duh!” then just ignore this.

    But if you believe otherwise, if you think hundreds of thousands of people were fighting and dying for the principle of preserving the union or abstract concepts of state’s rights, if you think Robert Lee was an abolitionist, if you think the Civil War was more about economics than morality or race, if you think slavery was just a footnote to the Civil War (and that’s what I was taught by one of my not-so-good history teachers in high-school), then read this excellent post from Ta-Nahisi Coates.

  • Off Duty and Black in Montgomery County

    I recently received this from a (black) Baltimore police officer:

    If you want to know what an Eastside drug dealer feels when confronted by Baltimore Police, show BPD ID to Montgomery County police. They tossed me out of a restaurant in Bethesda because my shirt rode up and my holstered weapon with the badge adjacent were visible.

    According to the manager, several patrons were “uncomfortable,” and I was told by “security” that I couldn’t be in the establishment while armed. When I didn’t leave, police were called and I was escorted out by MCPD, told “not to make trouble,” and threatened with “difficulty” if I didn’t cooperate.

    After securing my weapon and voluntarily offering to let a MCPD Lieutenant pat me down, I was told that I was making it more difficult than it had to be, threatened with arrest, and again refused entry into the establishment by police. No public intoxication, no disorderly, no assault, no nada! Apparently BWB (breathing while Black) is an arrestable offense in Montgomery County.

    Amazing how Whites, both Hopkins oncologists and crackheads from Harford Co. pass through the Eastern District. As a police officer, I maintain the ability to discern which is which. How convenient it must be to work in Mont Co. where this skill is obviously not needed.

    In the interest of fairness, when I made a formal IAD complaint, I specifically mentioned the Lt. and the Corporal, instead of the officers who were following their lead. They even sent a communication to BPD about it taking four of them to escort me out of the establishment. My chain of command just laughed it off. So far, but with IAD, you never know. You know, the last LOD death in Mont Co was run over by a fellow officer during a foot chase.

    Talk about “Black and Blue”…This shit is depressing!

    PLEASE make sure your students understand that when you REALLY need back up…you don’t give a damn WHERE it comes from!

    Thx for letting me vent,
    [name]

  • It’s not new, but is it fair?

    I wasn’t even going to link to this story because I don’t want to repeat myself more than necessary.

    Here’s the point: black New Yorkers are seven times more likely than whites to be arrested for marijuana possession. For a moment, let’s put aside the actually story (not that we should). For the sake of debate, let’s accept the seven times figure (as we should). Let’s also accept that whites smoke just as much weed as blacks (that’s also true). Let’s ignore that fact (not that we should) that these arrests happen even though personal marijuana possession in New York State is decriminalized. And let’s also not concern ourselves with the cost of $53 million to $88 million annually for these arrests. Let’s not worry that these arrests may play an important part in a general “broken windows” approach to crime prevention. And finally, let’s assume that everybody arrested is guilty as charged.

    Here’s my question:Does it matter that blacks are seven timesmore likely than whites to get caught for this drug crime? Perhaps not. I mean, all you have to do to not be arrested in not commit a crime, right?

    Is simple guilt all that is needed to give moral justification to our criminal justice system? Remember, this seven-times discrepancy is not due to the facts that blacks are more likely to committhis drug crime. We’re just talking about the odds of getting caught.

    I mean, what if cops only gave traffic tickets to women. Women who speed and run red lights. But what if basically men were given a pass when it comes to traffic violations. Does it matter? Would this be fair? Perhaps…. since all the tickets were given to guilty women. But for traffic enforcement to be fair, shouldn’t men get tickets, too?

    At some level, I think the very notion of justice–at least justice with any moral legitimacy–depends on the idea that everybody has an equal (or at least somewhat equal) chance of getting caught.

    What do you think?

  • Police speak out against racial profiling in California

    Take that, “blue wall of silence.” From Anthropoliteia.