With the 20th anniversary of the South-Central L.A. riot of 1992 coming up, I was glancing at a thumbsucker in the Books section of the L.A. Times by a diligent literary critic who concludes that, unlike the 1965 Watts riot, literary types have avoided the subject of the latter riot:
But 20 years later, the shelf of books addressing the disaster is threadbare, conditional even, as if we've never figured out how to write about these events.
My explanation for this is that the most true and interesting things anybody can say about the Rodney King riot are A) that it was a shameful tantrum by African-Americans (which of course few aesthetic writers dependent upon grants would dare say), and B) that blacks actually were embarrassed enough by it to slowly start behaving better.
By a variety of measures, the early 1990s represented a crisis among black. The most obvious is the peak in the black homicide offending rate, especially among very young blacks. But lots of other things went wrong: test scores went down and teen fertility was up.
The invention of crack in the mid-1980s was obviously one big problem, but another was rap, especially as it evolved toward celebrating criminality in the late 1980s. Put crack and rap together and what do you get? In the intellectual sphere, the early 1990s were the peak of multiculturalist postmodern whoop-tee-doos in the academy.
On a more conscious level, blacks were even more embarrassed three years later by their celebration of O.J. Simpson getting away with murdering those two white people. That led quickly to Minister Farrakhan's Million Man March, which had a remarkably penitential aspect to it by the standards of anything black-related. But, I think the aftermath of the Rodney King riot was the moment when blacks collectively stared into the abyss of where they were headed and started to take a few halting steps back toward collective sanity.
B) that blacks actually were embarrassed enough by it to slowly start behaving better.
ReplyDeleteIf by "embarrassed" you mean "getting arrested in droves by suddenly overzealous Police Departments".
steve wrote: " it was a shameful tantrum by African-Americans (which of course few aesthetic writers dependent upon grants would dare say)"
ReplyDeletemy reply:
yes, that is where The Narrative really starts, I believe. In colleges, especially the elite colleges. Remember: the things they focus on, they do in their own best interests. And in some ways the USA has a culture centered on elite college obsession. And those in power came from those colleges, in large part, and so that is what they prefer in all walks of life.
Did ya notice how bent out of shape the establishment media got when Bush considered nominating for SCOTUS that graduate of Smu Law, a perfectly respectable law school? They ousted Miers as a candidate toot sweet, didn't they? Not an elite school. They like those in power to have been throughly indoctrinated in the culture of the elite right from their younger years.
Another hypothesis:
ReplyDeleteIn 1965, the Watts Riots fit into the lefty narrative of the Poor Impoverished Oppressed Black People Rising Up. It gave imagined credence to the argument that socialized justice---e.g.. ending Jim Crow, the Civil Rights Act, affirmative action, welfare, government handouts, and all that---were what black people deserved, because otherwise the rampant, racism-only-caused "unfairness" would cause immense strife and pain. This worked very well on those lefties who were young, white-bread suburbanites---the usual hippies---who'd never really experienced blacks up close and personal, and so had been indoctrinated by the left's narrative.
Flash-forward to 1992, and we'd had years of handouts and largesse, only to see blacks remain impoverished and ghetto-ized. What's more, Reagan's ability to turn the economy around after Carter's disaster re-birthed conservatism imprinted on many aging hippies that perhaps they weren't quite right about it all after all. And there was no large-scale youth movement then to indoctrinate. So there was no large-scale push by the left to use the riots as a sign of white racism and justification for handouts.
Funny, it took 27 years to displace the narrative for one group. And yet a whole new generation of non-blacks, who, once again, never interacted with blacks before, have somehow been indoctrinated with the same narrative; I thank the Cosby Show and Fresh Prince for that.
The black abbyss: summer of 2011 swarm-stompings. Summer of 2012 Trayvon attacks. And Decent Black Folk always circling wagons.
ReplyDeleteProliferation of CCW, mandatory prison sentences, better ER medical technology that meant that homicide victims aren't homicide victims. I'll believe the more practical explanations before I buy any bologna about black contrition.
ReplyDeleteThat BJS link isn't working (Flood from iSteve took the server down? Someone hiding embarrassing data?), but judging by the graph, this "penitential" attempt at good behavior brought homicide rates all the way down to seven times that of whites. Are our expectations really that bad?
ReplyDeleteOr to put it another way, if that's the result of blacks collectively trying to right, what would not trying look like? I'd rather hope they aren't trying that hard yet.
and B) that blacks actually were embarrassed enough by it to slowly start behaving better.
ReplyDeleteI wonder what you base this conclusion on. Seems from the graph that homicides by whites decreased by a similar degree, about two-fold. Were whites embarrassed enough by LA riots to slowly start behaving better?
" countenance said...
ReplyDeleteProliferation of CCW, mandatory prison sentences, better ER medical technology that meant that homicide victims aren't homicide victims. I'll believe the more practical explanations before I buy any bologna about black contrition."
You had to put a damper on it, didn't you? You're probably right; it seems like they can reanimate a pile of meat these days.
Steve: this is an intriguing theory, but I would hold out for more specific evidence of collective black contrition. Otherwise, the macro-trends in, for instance, drug use and incarceration, which you yourself have so compellingly described, are much more the likely agents.
ReplyDeleteYour characterization of the Million Man March is quite plausible but is completely absent from, say, Wikipedia's account. And I don't recall any causal relationship with the riots or the OJ verdict.
Since 1992, it has become increasingly unacceptable to point out black on white crime, and black on white crime appears to be increasing (is this Auster's Law?)
ReplyDeletePreviously, blacks held in a lot of pent up rage that eventually exploded. Now, they get together in small groups and attack a few random white people. Sort of a release valve mini riot that prevents the tension building up and exploding into a full-scale riot.
In reality, blacks are behaving worse - its just dispersed (over time, space, and affected population), so it is less noticeable.
Steve, I agree with Fred Reed on the endless now that most Black people in the underclass live in: like Medieval peasants, never traveling farther than 5 miles from where they were born. With the high illiteracy rates and total dependence on television (take a look at any student union at a place like say, oh Cal State Long Beach and see who is watching cartoons on TV there) it would seem that there would not be a lot of contrition.
ReplyDeleteRather, I offer an alternative demographic explanation: Ethnic cleansing. Just as Blacks ethnically cleansed Whites out of places like Detroit, the 1990's saw a diaspora of Black people from traditional inner-city bastions by a flood of Mexican immigrants, bringing with them far more ruthless and well organized gangs, that in turn had on call unlimited manpower and the sanctuaries of foreign countries.
Thus Blacks were wrt to the urban underclass, cleansed out to places like Moreno Valley, or Antelope Valley, or other distant exurbs where long-standing gang ties, fights over turf, and so on did not exist. Fewer conflicts over control of space, fewer victims of homicide. Now of course Black control of exurbs runs into White flight being cut off by tough credit requirements, high unemployment/low wage growth, a collapsing housing market, and so on.
The Secret History of the 1990's was the explosion of Mexican immigration into the US, and the subsequent domino effect on various populations, IMHO.
Of course this graph only runs until 2005. And there's an increase in the black rate just before the graph ends.
ReplyDeletePut crack and rap together and what do you get?
ReplyDeleteRofl.
(Can I answer it, just in case it's too subtle for some? CRAP!)
"Your characterization of the Million Man March is quite plausible but is completely absent from, say, Wikipedia's account."
ReplyDeleteBeing a nice guy with an upbeat outlook on life, perhaps I interpreted the huge turnout at the Million Man March 13 days after the O.J. verdict overly positively.
I dunno.
Here's Henry Louis Gates' essay where he called up every famous black intellectual he knew and got them to free associate on the two events. It's not terribly conclusive, although toward the end Gates writes:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.britannica.com/blackhistory/article-9399838
Maya Angelou, who agreed to address the assembled men, views the event not as a display of male self-affirmation but as a ceremony of penitence: “It’s a chance for African-American males to say to African-American females, ‘I’m sorry. I am sorry for what I did, and I am sorry for what happened to both of us.’”
But different observers will have different interpretations. Mass mobilizations launch a thousand narratives—especially among subscribers to what might be called the “great event” school of history. And yet Farrakhan’s recurrent calls for individual accountability consort oddly with the absolution, both juridical and populist, accorded O. J. Simpson. Simpson has been seen as a symbol for many things, but he is not yet a symbol for taking responsibility for one’s actions.
So embarrassment is good for self-esteem? Somebody should relay it to the feminists.
ReplyDeleteIn Chicago the story was Mexican immigrants taking over black neighborhoods.
ReplyDeleteThe 800 lb. gorilla in the room is does the white rate include hispanics?
ReplyDeleteWhiskey:
ReplyDeleteThat's why Ma and Pa Skittles and Sharpton going to South LA for the 20th anniversary of the riots confounds me. I'm sure those areas are majority Hispanic by now. And I doubt they can preach about black civil rights in Spanish.
The current population of South LA is more likely to riot if Zimmerman gets convicted.
I think you're confusing things. Their culture is as demented and sick as ever. Mandatory minimums for both drugs and violent crimes have simply done a better job of locking up their criminal cohort, and the depo shot has probably reduced the additions of those born to the most screwed up familes.
ReplyDeleteBy the 1990s the segments of the economy benefiting from large scale incarceration (private companies running prisons, guards and other employees, spouses and dependents, businesses in prison towns, etc.) had gotten large enough to protect their state support. There are many negative things you can say the opportunity costs of not spending money on something more productive or about having imprisonment rates so far out line with Europe or the low crime 1950s America, but one positive part of the tradeoff is probably a reduced homicide rate.
ReplyDeleteI remember when I use to smoke crack in the SF Bay Area in the early '90s, as a skinny white guy with a shaved head, goatee and blue eyes wearing a Brooklyn Dodgers baseball cap, mind you, drunk off my ass. I would approach the old black dudes selling street sheets and they would score the rock for me. They were always telling me how crazy and violent those young black dudes were.
ReplyDeleteI miss alcohol sometimes - bullet proof and invisible. God really does protect the retarded, children and drunks.
God Bless,
---
I think liberals were subconsciously embarrassed by what happened in the Rodney King riots. I read the NY Times daily back then and there were no editorials on it for at least a week.
ReplyDeleteAnother interesting thing about the OJ Simpson verdict was the whites (especially women) who were cheering after the verdict was announced. I’ve had a few very discreet conversations with people over the years about it, and have heard that whites were cheering in places like O’Hare airport.
Any thoughts Whiskey?
A 1990s Black riot that seems forgotten is the 1991 Crown Heights riot in NYC.
ReplyDeleteThe blacks this time targeted the jews, even killing one. Big mistake, this incident elected Giuliani and gave him 'carte blanche' to do what should have been done 20 years ago to clean NYC.
It happened under the watch of David Dinkins, the first and probably the last Black Mayor of NYC.
In the mid-nineties didn't the 3 strike felony law become the latest racist outrage. I think it was only in California but putting away 3 time felons for 25 years would help homicide rates dip a little.
ReplyDeletePut crack and rap together and what do you get?
ReplyDeletePut meth and metal together and what do get? Nothing nearly as bad as crack & rap.
It's so secret that there's not much evidence for it.
ReplyDeleteGod really does protect the retarded, children and drunks.
ReplyDeleteWhat else did you expect? Alcohol, and maybe also tobacco, is God's own drug. Unlike all the ungodly heathen anti-American stuff like crack.
Steve, I have yet to hear an explanation for the steep decline in crime during the first half of the 1980's. I have never even seen a discussion of it. Did the news media cover it at the time? It seems to have been overlooked completely. The mid 70's also saw a more modest decline in crime.
ReplyDeleteMany cities had their peak of crime in 1973 or 1980 rather than the early 90's.
What possible evidence is there that blacks were embarrassed?
ReplyDeleteOr that any black person who was embarrassed would otherwise have committed crimes?
Put crack and rap together and what do you get?
ReplyDeletePut meth and metal together and what do get? Nothing nearly as bad as crack & rap.
"Rap metal" ala Limp Bizkit and some other crappy bands from the 90s is pretty awful.
The 1980 peak in homicide is likely related to powder cocaine wars (e.g., Miami Vice and Scarface).
ReplyDeleteAlcohol, and maybe also tobacco, is God's own drug.
ReplyDeleteMaybe alcohol (cf. Cana), but tobacco is clearly Manitou's.
And how is crack 'anti-American', considering it was invented by us?
Put meth and metal together and what do get?
You get a white country boy beating his bastard baby daughter into permanent brain and bodily damage simply for having cried for too long. Both father and daughter will now spend most or all of their lives in 'institutions'-- different ones, of course.
Several of the ladies in my father-in-law's family work for the county government, and one was involved in this very case.
Fifty years ago that child would have been put up for adoption. Indeed, one of the aforementioned ladies is the only one she or any of the rest of us knows who was kept by an unmarried mother in the '50s. Weird then, the rule now.
Here's something I haven't seen anyone ask. How deeply has meth gotten into the black community and is it behind any of the recent violent crimes (mob or otherwise) that we've seen? The old stereotype of whites=meth and blacks=weed seems outdated for both now, as this 2006 article shows:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/stories/2006/02/06/story7.html?page=all
OT:
ReplyDeleteCharlie Cook says Obama is losing Iowa because he's too "metrosexual."
In related news, Ruth Marcus in WaPo talks about Obama receiving "second term" socks (salmon-with-pink squares) from Rolling Stone's homosexual publisher, Jann Wenner.
ATBOTL said...
ReplyDeleteSteve, I have yet to hear an explanation for the steep decline in crime during the first half of the 1980's. I have never even seen a discussion of it
----------
A major factor in the crime rate is the number of young males in the population. The early 80's corresponded to the last boomers hitting their 20's, and the bulk of that generation their 30's. The spike in the early 90's corresponded to the mini-baby boom that was the demographic echo of the baby boomers.
We are an aging country. One would expect a country with a median age of 37 to settle down a little bit.
Check this wikipedia page on incarceration.
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States
Look at the chart on the top right. Notice the incredibly upward spike that starts in the 1980s and continues moving on up, to the East side.
That's probably the biggest reason for any supposed improvement in black behavior. You know, the old NY Times headline about "crime down, yet somehow prisons more full." Shocking.
Possibly aided by fewer young blacks over time (thank you, taxpayer funded abortion!), and possibly superior trauma care in emergency rooms. Ya gots to die for it be a homa-side. I'd like to see numbers for "shootings" vs. homicides.
See countenance's comment above. Why are we still talking about this? The "collective" u-turn from the cliff Steve theorizes would have increased marriage rates, reduced infant mortality, improved student performances and all other hallmarks of a healthy culture.
ReplyDelete"The 1980 peak in homicide is likely related to powder cocaine wars (e.g., Miami Vice and Scarface)."
ReplyDeleteMy understanding is that the 1980 crime peak involved record high murders not only in South Florida, but in cities like Newark, Dallas, Houston, New Orleans and others. The spike in crime in 1991 only went slightly above 1980. Overall drug use peaked in 1980 too and went down steeply in the early 80's. But when crime shot back up, drug use only increased moderately.
Actually, the 1980's crime rate peak was due to the crackdown on cocaine.
ReplyDeleteRemember Scarface? Cubans in Miami cornering the market on cocaine in the late 70s/early 80s? Then the feds and locals do a huge crackdown (Miami Vice, a mid-1980s show, was based on this earlier crackdown). The supply drops. But dealers still want to sell, and addicts are desperate.
Enter crack, where you could sell 1/10th the cocaine and get someone 10 times as high. With the supply low, it was a godsend invention---out of necessity by dealers, not by the CIA, as many "serious" blacks will contend.
The epic violence of the 80's caused this. Because it took so little to make crack and the addiction was so much more powerful, you couldn't really crackdown on the supply.
What made it all ok was the Colombians who supply the stuff. When Miami was shut down, they spent years re-integrating through Mexican gangs. When the gangs became powerful enough to get big supplies over, the cocaine supply jumped, and people no longer had to turn to the more dangerous and less pleasurable crack and it's ensuing violence.
"Proliferation of CCW, mandatory prison sentences, better ER medical technology that meant that homicide victims aren't homicide victims..."
ReplyDeleteBullshit. We've already had this argument. Homicide deaths fell because shootings fell. Actually, shootings fell even faster than homicides which, if anything, suggests that ER's have gotten worse at saving victims over the last 20 years.
It would be nice to believe it, but I am dubious about any explanation for a decline in crime that relies on the moral (re)awakening of an entire population. Did black high school graduation rates increase over the same period? Did illegitimacy rates decline?
Removal of lead, fighting the drug war, increased penalties all seem more likely explanation.
"Joe Six-Pack said...
ReplyDeleteA 1990s Black riot that seems forgotten is the 1991 Crown Heights riot in NYC.
The blacks this time targeted the jews, even killing one. Big mistake, this incident elected Giuliani and gave him 'carte blanche' to do what should have been done 20 years ago to clean NYC.
It happened under the watch of David Dinkins, the first and probably the last Black Mayor of NYC."
That is an d'uh moment, one which I haven't seen. Congratulations on connecting the dots...
A statistical artifact caused by an enormous rise in black incarceration rates (contra the 'advice' of social scientists)and advances in medicine that have allowed many of the near-dead to survive (although in wheelchairs and with colostomy bags).
ReplyDeleteBlacks being embarrassed? - Shame and embarrassment are just not 'black things' as any trip to a mall will tell you.
"f by "embarrassed" you mean "getting arrested in droves by suddenly overzealous Police Departments"."
ReplyDeleteI have to agree with this, in 1986 only 8 states were shall issue for concealed carry, and only 1 state was unrestricted carry. Today it is the complete opposite, only 8 states are may issue, and only 1 state is no issue. There is an excellent graphic that shows the progression of gunlaws and the liberal anti-gun lobby's collapse(if they want to regain power on this issue they might want to think about restrictive covenants, safe neighborhoods tend to be important things for people for some strange reason).
Gun rights, prison populations, etc skyrocketed. Likewise medical technology is saving lives that would have otherwise been lost. PK has several articles on how our inner cities are being used as training ground for military doctors.
The government also sent 13,000 troops into the city, including the Marines. Maybe it made rioting look hopeless.
ReplyDeleteAt a McDonald’s in Des Moines, 20 to 30 unarmed juveniles of undetermined race surround a man and woman of undetermined race, throw rocks at them, rob them
ReplyDeletehttp://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/022302.html
"But, I think the aftermath of the Rodney King riot was the moment when blacks collectively stared into the abyss of where they were headed and started to take a few halting steps back toward collective sanity."
ReplyDeleteI can hardly think of a less self-aware ethnic group than blacks. I sincerely doubt they did much soul searching after the Rodney King Riots or the OJ verdict. Getting a black to feel embarrassed or ashamed is virtually impossible; any attempt only unleashes a beligerent tirade of non-sensical self justification. Indeed, a black female manager in my cousin's place of work, a state agency, threw an office party celebrating OJ's acquittal, something in the height of bad taste -- most whites were offended and stayed in their cubicles and kept working. The manager was having none of it and boldy proclaimed all her white subordinates were "racist crackers."
The reason for the nearly 50% decline in homicide offending by blacks probably has more to do with the explosion in surveillance cameras and mobile phones. Would-be killers feel somewhat more restained by anonymity killing technology. Notice the white rate also drops by half. It could also be that most black killers are a small subpopulation of blacks with an inherited gene for ultraviolence and depravity who go through boom and bust cycles due to self predation. As for the overall downward secular trend for all races, I'm guessing that the rising rate of obesity in the US is hormonally feminizing both blacks and whites, which may be playing a role in reducing homocide rates.
If you flat field the black statistics by the white control you definitely see that the rate for blacks is cyclical, and may be back on the upswing with the election of our "post racial" president and the installation of a black Immelda Marcos as First Lady.
Oh, stop. I grew up in NYC, and was a young man there back in the late 80s and early 90s before the Giuliani wave, and had my life ruined accordingly, and my city transformed into something unrecognizable thanks to them.
ReplyDeleteBlacks ruin everything they touch, and spoil every single place they go. I have no sympathy whatsoever for these creatures. Who cares if they were embarrassed or not? I don't believe it. They're incapable of shame. My whole life was made impossible* by having to spend so much time and effort, which could have been used for other purposes, simply trying to insulate myself from these animals.
You can't put enough of them in cages. Think of what a paradise this country would be without them.
* -- cum grano salis
Looks like it's ticking up...
ReplyDeleteJeffrey and Kimberly Easton were getting food at the drive-thru of the McDonald’s at 3000 SE 14th St. around 5 p.m., Des Moines police said. As the couple was leaving, a group of 20-30 juveniles allegedly spilled out of the restaurant and blocked the Eastons from leaving.
ReplyDeleteAnd people wonder why gun sales are surging under Obama?
If this had been me in the drive-thru there would have been a much different result, thanks to Georgia gun laws.
"On a more conscious level, blacks were even more embarrassed three years later by their celebration of O.J. Simpson getting away with murdering those two white people."
ReplyDeleteYes, we can see this in the amount of black chagrin following the murders of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsome. Sharpton, Jackson, et al all warned the black community that should the black defendants be found not guilty, arson, rioting and other forms of celebration should be avoided.
Meanwhile, back on Planet Earth, my observation has been exactly the opposite--that blacks are still pleased as punch that one of their own got away with killing the pretty blonde white woman and the Jew.
Black teen birth rates have fallen dramatically since the early 90s.
ReplyDeleteBlacks being embarrassed? - Shame and embarrassment are just not 'black things' as any trip to a mall will tell you.
ReplyDelete***********************************
Sure, not when the progressives who control the media give you excuses for your behavior.
"Homicide deaths fell because shootings fell. Actually, shootings fell even faster than homicides which, if anything, suggests that ER's have gotten worse at saving victims over the last 20 years."
ReplyDeleteThe number of shootings fell faster than the number of deaths probably because of the decline in drive-bys by gangsters taking no particular aim with smaller
caliber semi-automatics. Drive-bys produced lots of senseless deaths, but they probably produced a relatively larger number of senseless-but-not-fatal woundings.
Larger caliber weapons seem to have gotten a lot more popular over the last 20 years, and shooting sprees with semis seem to have all but diappeared.
Still, the decline in homicides has very little to do with improved response times or medical treatment.
"FredR said...
ReplyDeleteBlack teen birth rates have fallen dramatically since the early 90s."
Black boys are chasing White girls
Perhaps because he has family obligations, perhaps because L.A. is so spread out, Steve doesn't seem to notice the things I do about blacks. Since the mid-90's, a lot of freebies have sprung up. The EBT scam might be the biggest. I've commented before about blacks riding public transit for free, both on BART and on SF and Marin buses. I see a whole lot of really fast driving by young blacks, suggesting that tickets might get disappeared within DMV. I've noticed that black b-ballers walk in free to UC Berkeley's recreation center, whereas other non-students have to pay a daily fee. I think I'd conclude that the time-tested racial peace tactic, i.e. the buy-off, is just better funded in California now.
ReplyDelete... hormonally feminizing ...
ReplyDeleteOK, that's my new moniker, "hormonally feminized."
"Actually, shootings fell even faster than homicides which, if anything, suggests that ER's have gotten worse at saving victims over the last 20 years."
ReplyDeleteMore like 40 cal and 9mm high capacity magazine pistols replacing small .380's and 22's.
BTW, Steve's utterance about black's being embarrassed by OJ and the LA riots is so bizarre I have to wonder if he's joking. I get the sense that Steve observes black's only through his television and has never spent significant time in a majority black environment. Most blacks are happy that OJ got off and proud of black rioting and violence.
"ATBOTL said...
ReplyDelete""Actually, shootings fell even faster than homicides which, if anything, suggests that ER's have gotten worse at saving victims over the last 20 years.""
More like 40 cal and 9mm high capacity magazine pistols replacing small .380's and 22's."
I wonder if there might not be another factor potentially at work here - an increase in so-called "execution style" murders, in which the victim is shot in the head point-blank. There isn't much that modern medical science can do about that.
This may be due to a general coarsening and brutality among lot the criminal and incipient criminal population. Also, how do street criminals learn to be street criminals? Being impressionable, and not too bright, they probably pick up a lot from TV and movies. 30 years ago, when a movie showed a shooting, the shooter and victim were usually some distance apart. Now, movies are full of people being shot in the head at point-blank range. Perhaps what people watch has some influence on them?
Guns have gotten more lethal both in terms of external ballistics and bullet designs. The 9mm has been largely replaced by calibers with much higher muzzle energy and larger bullet diameter. Criminals read Guns and Ammo too. Plus which, they tend to use stolen guns, which tend to mirror what is currently popular, and that includes the .40/10mm and .45 cartridge families. Before, they tended to wield 9mms and .38/.357 revolvers because those were the most stolen guns.
ReplyDeleteChris Roach seems to think your claims have serious problems
ReplyDeleteWell, blacks in LA even are behind asians, in places like Orange County that always had a handful they were even behind asians in 1940 according the census of 1940 asians were about 1.6 and blacks .2 in Orange County. La had a different history where blacks from about 1950 to 1990 outnumber asians. Us census shows blacks down to only 8.6 in La County and I bet even in a state like Texas the black population will also eventually be behind the asians since I think Houston is now about 7 percent asian and blacks will start to move to other southern states to get away from hispanics and asians.
ReplyDeleteI remember living in the suburbs of Atlanta in the 90s. I was in a restaurant in the city one time and all of a sudden all the employees (black) start cheering. I didn't know what was going on at the time, but I later found out that the O. J. Simpson verdict had just been announced.
ReplyDeleteCall me a quasi-Marxist, but I'm going to lean for a materialist (less lead?) explanation for the 90s drop in crime.
Do long prison sentences and high rates of dying young have an important evolutionary fitness effect? Even with widespread teen pregnancy, dying at 20 or spending from age 20 toage 30 in prison just has to decrease your number of offspring. I wonder if the effect is big enough to matter in terms of decreasing the tendency toward criminality among US blacks.
ReplyDeleteHas anyone worked through the numbers on this?
I'm old enough to remember the `68 riots. Then, the white response was, "We have to do something for these poor people."
ReplyDeleteA generation later, after the LA riots, the white response was -- nothing.
Another generation later, once we have experienced the Trayvon Riots, what will the white response be?