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6/26/2025, 9:53:09 AM
>>17792390
If 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.
If 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.
6/20/2025, 7:13:36 PM
>>17777616
There was also an overall increasing in purchasing power so there was more money to buy drugs as well. The 1970s had economic trouble but people had more cash than their parents or grandparents growing up in the Great Depression.
I'd add another factor -- the rapid and spectaculator disintegration of the family. And also the decline and fall of labor-employing industries. A lot of young males, particularly black males, saw themselves as an outlaw society. They might have banged a bit as youth in the 1940s but it was easier to get a factory job in an American city with only a rudimentary education. De-industrialization is talked about a lot lately but one of the fastest periods of job losses in manufacturing and industry was in the 1970s.
>>17779052
Conservatives are not really wrong to identify the left-wing cultural revolution of the 1960s as contributing to crime or being bound up in it in some way. But they get the cause/effect wrong I think. That social/cultural movement did embrace drugs because it's what their parents and what the authorities said not to do, so they did it. But I think that movement wasn't totally in control of itself, but being produced by rapid changes that are ultimately economic in nature. Think of rapid mobility enabled by cars and motorcycles, which became much more widespread after World War II (to purchase a car in the 1920s/1930s in a small town meant you were one of the wealthier members of the community), and demobilized military veterans joining groups such as:
https://youtu.be/mciTSBS_uVE
Mainly what that whole left-wing thing seemed left, but it was really about one's own personal desires and extreme individualism pushed to its limits. Politics became less about a specific goal to accomplish but how you felt about what you were doing. What 60s radicals really wanted was very compatible with a kind of libertarian ethic and the emerging mass consumer economy.
There was also an overall increasing in purchasing power so there was more money to buy drugs as well. The 1970s had economic trouble but people had more cash than their parents or grandparents growing up in the Great Depression.
I'd add another factor -- the rapid and spectaculator disintegration of the family. And also the decline and fall of labor-employing industries. A lot of young males, particularly black males, saw themselves as an outlaw society. They might have banged a bit as youth in the 1940s but it was easier to get a factory job in an American city with only a rudimentary education. De-industrialization is talked about a lot lately but one of the fastest periods of job losses in manufacturing and industry was in the 1970s.
>>17779052
Conservatives are not really wrong to identify the left-wing cultural revolution of the 1960s as contributing to crime or being bound up in it in some way. But they get the cause/effect wrong I think. That social/cultural movement did embrace drugs because it's what their parents and what the authorities said not to do, so they did it. But I think that movement wasn't totally in control of itself, but being produced by rapid changes that are ultimately economic in nature. Think of rapid mobility enabled by cars and motorcycles, which became much more widespread after World War II (to purchase a car in the 1920s/1930s in a small town meant you were one of the wealthier members of the community), and demobilized military veterans joining groups such as:
https://youtu.be/mciTSBS_uVE
Mainly what that whole left-wing thing seemed left, but it was really about one's own personal desires and extreme individualism pushed to its limits. Politics became less about a specific goal to accomplish but how you felt about what you were doing. What 60s radicals really wanted was very compatible with a kind of libertarian ethic and the emerging mass consumer economy.
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