July 22, 2013 by David K. Sutton
Racializing Black-On-Black Crime, A Means To Demonize African-Americans
To listen to many on the Right, we are never to include a racial component in any crime until we eradicate so-called “black-on-black” crime. Conservatives believe the liberal media should not focus on a black victim, portrayed by conservative media as the guilty party, and should instead focus its attention on inner-city black-on-black crime. According to conservative media, we aren’t talking about blacks killing other blacks enough. Until we meet our quota in reporting blacks being murdered by other blacks, we are not allowed to talk about any other crime and the potential that race may have played a role.
But here’s the problem. Most crimes are committed within the same race. Most crimes against whites are committed by whites and most crimes against blacks are committed by blacks. I know that does not comport with how many want to view the world, but it’s still true nonetheless. Because most whites are murdered by someone who is also white, that means whites need to stop racializing so-called “black on black” crime like it deserves special scrutiny.
What deserves special scrutiny is the reason people resort to crime. What are the circumstance and conditions that lead people to believe there is no other way to live?
If we are to look at so-called black-on-black crime, we should put great emphasis on economic conditions. It’s the financial health of a given neighborhood that is the biggest factor. Neighborhoods with greater economic mobility tend to have less crime. When people have better prospects, they tend not to resort to crime. It’s not that blacks are somehow pre-programmed to be criminals, as some on the Right seem to believe, it’s that the average black person’s economic prospects is lesser than that of the average white person. Obviously this is not an easy topic to talk about, and one should tread carefully, but everything I’ve said here is objectively true.
So we don’t need to put a spotlight on black-on-black crime, attempting to figure out why it happens, like it deserves a special classification that white-on-white crime does not. It serves no purpose other than to demonize the African-American community to say black-on-black crime is a different kind of crime altogether. Until such time that we racialize white-on-white crime — that will be never — we should stop doing so for black-on-black crime. If you don’t have a reason to say “white-on-white” crime then you also don’t have a reason to say “black-on-black” crime.