>>17792390If it was purely racial then it wouldn't explain why there are African countries with relatively low homicide rates. Ghana's homicide rate is lower than Canada. Rwanda is not too bad, lower than Russia and the United States.
I think in some societies, blacks filled in a sort of underworld criminal niche in the economy, but not like the mafia, more like the point of distribution for retail-level drug sales. I do think there's a strong argument that this is the result of the black people having been slaves and then excluded from the formal economy in various ways. It seems like ethnic groups can sort of find these various "niches" in various industries in a given economy and society.
People make choices but those are also constrained in various ways, and people are funneled into certain choices to such an extent that it's almost not a choice.
There's a ton of black American culture that celebrates being an outlaw. This was formed among people engaged in a great deal of criminal activity over a long period of time, helping the activity reproduce and maintain itself over generations. One thing that is very important is that you can't go to the police or courts to resolve disputes, which leads to a very strong "face" culture and value system that encourages violence at any sign of disrespect, because to do otherwise is a sign of weakness that others can maneuver to exploit.
It's also easy for conservative whites to say "fix your culture." They're not really "wrong" about this but it's also more complicated. The Italian mafia was really undercut by corporations which took over everything. It's hard to run a protection racket on a Starbucks. That hasn't really happened with the illicit drug trade. But the legalization of marijuana in the U.S. will probably have a positive effect.
