The right’s black crime obsession

[Jimmie Higgins]

The right’s black crime obsession (http://www.salon.com/2013/08/23/the_rights_obsession_with_black_crime/)

On facebook or posted in comment sections of newspapers I often hear arguments (moreso post-Zimmerman) about how if Trayvon or Oscar Grant being killed is "racist" than any white person killed by a black person is also racism. It isn't racism, but that argument they are making is definitely racist.

Even if the person posting it is just naive, the argument totally ignores or doesn't understand that Zimmerman killing Trayvon or a cop killing someone isn't racist because a black person was killed by a non-black person, but that the black (or latino or trans) person was killed because someone thought they could get away with it BECAUSE the person is black or they thought that the person was a threat BECAUSE they were black and this is all backed up by a whole system of logic and power which encourages and condones it.

Anyway, I'm so fucking tired of hearing these arguments and seeing this shit not get called out when people make them, so I just wanted to rant a little and share this article. Can I coin a phrase, we have the term "rape-culture", wouldn't these kinds of racist "reverse-racist" arguments be "lynch-culture"TM?

[blake 3:17]

When I worked in home care I guy I used to look after Sunday mornings wanted to know the race of the guy who'd vandalized the bus I was on making me late. He was disappointed it was a White guy.

[ANTIFA GATE-9]

True, rights have a tendency of enquiring about the color of a person committing a crime only to be dissapointed if the result is white and then search for other crimes maybe done by blacks. It is truly disgusting and I understand your frustration.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

I think a really good way of arguing this, and a fun way of turning Conservative rhetoric on its it head, is to point out that "racism" is "politically correct liberal euphemism" for "white supremacy".

As a real historical phenomenon "racism" in the abstract doesn't exist in the United States (or Canada) - de jure and systemic white supremacy are the forces that shaped race as it exists. Admittedly, this takes a longer discussion to spell out in lay terms, but it's worth it if somebody is willing to hash it out. Maybe offer to pay for the next hour's worth of pitchers?

[blake 3:17]

Maybe offer to pay for the next hour's worth of pitchers?

I'll stay quiet & keep sipping. Might break your bank.

Actually I'd love to hear you hash it out -- it's a friggin phenomenal subject.

[MarxSchmarx]

I could be very wrong about this, but I suspect that right-wing politicians might be slowly moving away from this as an issue, at least in the United States.

The severe financial constraints on governments have forced some right wing politicians to choose between oppressing minorities and shrinking government. Historically this has been a no-brainer for the right, which has embraced racism as a way to win elections. But I think increasingly, a new crop of right-wing politicians who a true-believing neoliberals are taking the other route of shrinking government even if it means "releasing lots of black criminals".

There is still a deep seated racist core to the right which has found its voice in anti-crime policy. I doubt that is going to be replaced anytime soon. But I think we are already witnessing crevices in the right-wing coalition between racists and libertarians when it comes to criminal policies in the halls of power.

I suspect part of this is that as racism becomes more socially unacceptable and as crime diminishes in its saliency, it loses its potency even among right wing voters and the politicians reflect the decline in crime or anti-black sentiment.

It might be a transient, phenomenon too, because I think the right derives much of its power from a fundamentally authoritarian impulse and thus the long term trends are probably for at most a gradual return to the status quo of decades ago when small prison populations were the norm.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

I could be very wrong about this, but I suspect that right-wing politicians might be slowly moving away from this as an issue, at least in the United States.

The severe financial constraints on governments have forced some right wing politicians to choose between oppressing minorities and shrinking government. Historically this has been a no-brainer for the right, which has embraced racism as a way to win elections. But I think increasingly, a new crop of right-wing politicians who a true-believing neoliberals are taking the other route of shrinking government even if it means "releasing lots of black criminals".

There is still a deep seated racist core to the right which has found its voice in anti-crime policy. I doubt that is going to be replaced anytime soon. But I think we are already witnessing crevices in the right-wing coalition between racists and libertarians when it comes to criminal policies in the halls of power.

I suspect part of this is that as racism becomes more socially unacceptable and as crime diminishes in its saliency, it loses its potency even among right wing voters and the politicians reflect the decline in crime or anti-black sentiment.

It might be a transient, phenomenon too, because I think the right derives much of its power from a fundamentally authoritarian impulse and thus the long term trends are probably for at most a gradual return to the status quo of decades ago when small prison populations were the norm.

Naw, it's just leading to increasing private-sector involvement in the prison industrial complex, from management thru labour and "rehabilitation" programming.

As for "racism" - it's not really the right's subjective anti-black racism that is the real underlying problem as it is the relationship between white supremacy and class. Bluntly, there's more black people in prisons than there ever were formally enslaved in the South. The U$ is structurally premised on the black proletariat (not exclusively, of course!!) - but point being, the criminalization (read: de facto enslavement) of black people isn't going anywhere unless American capitalism is smashed.

[MarxSchmarx]

Naw, it's just leading to increasing private-sector involvement in the prison industrial complex, from management thru labour and "rehabilitation" programming.


I'm not so sure. I mean look at data on private prisons in the US. Even the right libertarians note how this trend hasn't really taken off yet:


While these data certainly reflect an increasing reliance on corrections PPPs by federal and state officials over the last decade, the vast majority of inmates—nearly 92%—continue to be housed in government-run prisons.http://reason.org/news/printer/apr-2013-corrections-overview

The number has creeped up from something like 6 to 8% or something, but it has been slow despite relentless privatization in areas like, say, the military.

This, despite the concept being in vogue for decades now. In America, places like Michigan have in fact shied away from privatization efforts. Of course, one thing that complicates the situation is that prison guard's unions are often at loggerheads with the privitization companies, and these public correctional workers unions are still quite powerful.

I grant you there are some societies, notably Australia and South Africa, where private prisons have really taken off. But I think in the American context, where race has long been central to criminal justice, it is hard to inject privatization into it without becoming reductionistic.



As for "racism" - it's not really the right's subjective anti-black racism that is the real underlying problem as it is the relationship between white supremacy and class. Bluntly, there's more black people in prisons than there ever were formally enslaved in the South. The U$ is structurally premised on the black proletariat (not exclusively, of course!!) - but point being, the criminalization (read: de facto enslavement) of black people isn't going anywhere unless American capitalism is smashed.

My point is that just as capitalism feeds "criminalization of black people" so too does racism support capitalism. It is a dialectical relationship, and I disagree with the analysis that the chain of causality is unidirectional.

American capitalism is built in no small part on the subjugation of black people. The American right has long understood that without the "at least we're not slaves/blacks" mentality, they have no support among the majority of white people. That is why they have gone time and time again to the well of what you dismiss as "subjective racism" to try to divide the working class.

And it has worked wonders for them.

When it was no longer acceptable to talk about black people as such, they used code words like "crime" and "safe streets" which came down to making sure the apparatus of the state would see to it that black people and other undesirables don't mess with "the folks".

My point is that even the issues of crime are likely losing their saliency, at least when it comes to race. That is part of why people like Arapaio, who represented the very law-'n'-ordah paradigm are more or less left out to dry by the established media and the government.

No doubt the cappies will try to find some otherway to hoodwink the majority of Americans. Yes, capitalism needs to be abolished for racism to go away, but as "subjective racism" begins to recede, it further constricts the arena in which capitalist propaganda can operate.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

I think it's a mistake to look at the relationship between the private sector and the prison industrial complex only at the level of "Private Prisons" - admittedly still housing only under 4% of prisoners, as you said, though, this still amounts to over 85,000 people (stats circa 2011). The thing is, there's also increasing privatization of programmes and services within "public" prisons (not to mention its relationship with securitization generally).

I guess the thing is, I'm not convinced that widespread subjective racism is particularly necessary, at this point, for white supremacy's underlying functioning: neo-colonialism/neo-liberalism means that the vast majority of the global proletariat are now racialized (and geographically separated from the centres of white supremacist capitalist power), and also gendered. The increased securitization of borders, toughening up of immigration and refugee laws ("DREAM" as strategy for for diversifying fundamentally white supremacist institutions not withstanding), etc., along with the stepped up global legal and cultural war being waged against women can largely be seen to pick up the slack where talk of "crime" as white supremacist codespeak isn't doing the job.

That said, I also call bullshit on the idea that it's no longer acceptable to use the rhetoric of crime/safe streets to attack people of colour. It's only last year that, in Canada, the Harper government passed its omnibus crime bill, stepping up the attacks like it's the 80s "crack epidemic" or some shit.

[blake 3:17]

The Tough on Crime shit really got going with Harper here. Why I severed any connections to the NDP was over mandatory minimums for 'gun related' offences. And if anybody follows me much here, you'll know my hate for guns.

I was at the Layton/Chow house for a party once and a young South Asian woman ripped Layton to bits over it, calling him a racist. It was way cool! To Layton's credit, he was pretty polite about it, and seemed to listen. Sister was awesome.

[the debater]

Historically, it seems as if urban areas and cities have been major hot spots for crimes in the U.S. Irish and Italian gangs before WW2. Black and Hispanic gangs later on. Perhaps unemployment flourishes more easily in urban areas than in rural areas regardless of poverty levels. There was a link somewhere on the internet that dealt with the issue of interracial rape in the U.S. I roughly recall that the victimization rates for black women by white men and white women by black men were 16/100,000 and 25/100,000 respectively. I tried to find this link a second time, but I couldn't, and now I'm face-palming myself for not saving the link or remembering its web address. Here is a different link that is just as revealing:
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2013/08/lead-crime-racism-black-white-juvenile

It seems as if Wikipedia also backs up the above article's main claim:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetraethyllead#See_also


Reductions in the average blood lead level is believed to have been a major cause for falling violent crime rates in the United States. and South Africa. Economist Jessica Wolpaw Reyes of Amherst College found that declining exposure to lead has caused up to a 56% decline in crime from 1992 to 2002. Including other factors that are believed to have increased crime rates over that period Reyes found that this led to an actual decline of 34% over that period.
A statistically significant correlation has been found between the usage rate of leaded gasoline and violent crime: taking into account a 22-year time lag, the violent crime curve virtually tracks the lead exposure curve.

[Klaatu]

I live in Detroit. Over here, there is about one hundred times as much black-on-black crime as there is white-on-black or black-on-white crime... (so much for so-called 'racist' crime --- but that is the only thing the righties are concerned with?)

[TaylorS]

Ever since Obama was elected the racist Right has been obsessed with proving that White Americans are being "oppressed" by Obama. Additionally these racists are at the same time NRA-supporting gun-nuts who worked themselves into a paranoid hysteria about the Zimmerman case being used as an "excuse" to "take their guns".

Essentially, racism + gun-nuttery = pure idiocy.

[TaylorS]

I could be very wrong about this, but I suspect that right-wing politicians might be slowly moving away from this as an issue, at least in the United States.

The severe financial constraints on governments have forced some right wing politicians to choose between oppressing minorities and shrinking government. Historically this has been a no-brainer for the right, which has embraced racism as a way to win elections. But I think increasingly, a new crop of right-wing politicians who a true-believing neoliberals are taking the other route of shrinking government even if it means "releasing lots of black criminals".

There is still a deep seated racist core to the right which has found its voice in anti-crime policy. I doubt that is going to be replaced anytime soon. But I think we are already witnessing crevices in the right-wing coalition between racists and libertarians when it comes to criminal policies in the halls of power.

I suspect part of this is that as racism becomes more socially unacceptable and as crime diminishes in its saliency, it loses its potency even among right wing voters and the politicians reflect the decline in crime or anti-black sentiment.

It might be a transient, phenomenon too, because I think the right derives much of its power from a fundamentally authoritarian impulse and thus the long term trends are probably for at most a gradual return to the status quo of decades ago when small prison populations were the norm.

Being a racist and being libertarian are not mutually exclusive. Look at all the racist "libertarians" on Reddit. A lot of racists use their Libertarianism as a justification for racism, look at "Libertarian" opposition to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as well the "Libertarian" apologists for the Confederacy.

[the debater]

I live in Detroit. Over here, there is about one hundred times as muck black-on-black crime as there is white-on-black or black-on-white crime... (so much for so-called 'racist' crime --- but that is the only thing the righties are concerned with?)

You could make the argument that both white conservatives and black liberals/democrats sometimes are more focused on interracial crime, despite most crime being intraracial rather than interracial. It would probably be a wise move not to forget this point. (Most crimes being intraracial.)

[blake 3:17]

I was talking to some nice liberals who thought the phrase "black on black" was just awful. I told them a bit about the hip hop campaigns -- Stop The Violence, etc -- that I have been good steps.

There's also been good stuff, mostly satirical, but with reporters making sure to refer to crimes as "white on white".

[Flying Purple People Eater]

I was talking to some nice liberals who thought the phrase "black on black" was just awful. I told them a bit about the hip hop campaigns -- Stop The Violence, etc -- that I have been good steps.

There's also been good stuff, mostly satirical, but with reporters making sure to refer to crimes as "white on white".

Why even make the distinction?

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Why even make the distinction?

I think the point is that the media uses "black on black" as part of white supremacist narrative, extending back to slavery, of saving black people from themselves. It says, "Look, without our benevolent Prison Industrial Complex, these hot-blooded blacks would just be killing each other willy-nilly!" Of course, what "black on black" crime speaks to in reality is ghettoization, criminalization, and ongoing de facto segregation.
Turning this around and referring to "white on white" crime is a funny device insofar as white criminals are pathologized individually, rather than collectively (ie as white). Like, when we're dealing with "white on white" crime, it is consistently framed as deviating from whiteness (the white criminal isn't "white" - s/he's a crack cocaine addict, a schizophrenic, a bad apple, from a broken home, played too much "Quake III", whatever), rather than a quality of it. The media is never going to shit themselves over "the violence that plagues white communities" implicitly asking, "what the hell is wrong with white people?".
So, that's what's up, y'know?

[Jimmie Higgins]

I think the point is that the media uses "black on black" as part of white supremacist narrative, extending back to slavery, of saving black people from themselves. It says, "Look, without our benevolent Prison Industrial Complex, these hot-blooded blacks would just be killing each other willy-nilly!" Of course, what "black on black" crime speaks to in reality is ghettoization, criminalization, and ongoing de facto segregation.
Turning this around and referring to "white on white" crime is a funny device insofar as white criminals are pathologized individually, rather than collectively (ie as white). Like, when we're dealing with "white on white" crime, it is consistently framed as deviating from whiteness (the white criminal isn't "white" - s/he's a crack cocaine addict, a schizophrenic, a bad apple, from a broken home, played too much "Quake III", whatever), rather than a quality of it. The media is never going to shit themselves over "the violence that plagues white communities" implicitly asking, "what the hell is wrong with white people?".
So, that's what's up, y'know?

I think this is a good point - I also think it's heavily connected to victim-blaming. For some black people (not only black folks of course), life is pretty chaotic and violent (and the thing about "black on black" or "white on white" crime is that rather than just drug-offenders, it's actually an attempt to speak to the random violence in society) and so this "black on black" rhetoric actually carries a lot of resonance among black people. The "black on black" part is totally misdirection since most violence in society is segregated (and often within peer-groups and families) along with many social interactions - at least in the US. So really it would be - people living in poverty have chaotic lives, are more exposed to social problems because they can't just move away or errect big fenses or hire privite security, etc.

At any rate, the ideological aspect of the "black on black" crime thing is pretty apparent whenever a white racist or cop kills a black person and media op-eds sat: "well where's the outcry when black gang-members shot a baby during a dirve-by". White people who make these kinds of comments are obviously obnoxious and ignorent at best, but it's also depressing to hear how often black people in the US (and I'm not talking about the media people and Bill Cosby) make the same and similar arguments - "we can't do anything about opression until we get our kids to behave" etc. "Oscar Grant should have know better than to talk back to that cop, it's his own fault for being unruly". People in the US have adapted to such low expectations in this day and age.

[Kingfish]

Its just confirmation bias and a hunt for anecdotes to prop up their beliefs

[blake 3:17]

There is a positive dimension to 'black on black' from my POV, in conscious sectors of the Black community calling it for it to end -- Don't be shooting or robbing each other, don't be messing your lives up with stupid crimes.

I do admit to listening to a lot of 5%ers...

[RedBen]

one thing they never mention on facebook about black on white crime is that black perpetrators get convicted at much higher rates. that seems to be conveniently left out.

[blake 3:17]

one thing they never mention on facebook about black on white crime is that black perpetrators get convicted at much higher rates. that seems to be conveniently left out.

Black on white you're guilty even if you weren't there. White on black, reasonable doubt.

[Jimmie Higgins]

one thing they never mention on facebook about black on white crime is that black perpetrators get convicted at much higher rates. that seems to be conveniently left out.

Right and that's part of the absolute absurdity of these racist arguments on right-wing radio and media. Not only are they obsuring the fact that some white guy who is randomly killed or killed in a robbery by a non-white person is a crime that is not racially motivated (whereas people are upset at the killing of Treyvon Martin because he was profiled for simply being black in the wrong area which makes it a racially motivated action), but there's a hellofa difference in the way the police respond to these cases. With Zimmerman, they asked the killer what happened and then dusted their hands and said, "sounds good" whereas when the old vet is robbed and killed there's massive police action, when the two kids randomly killed the Austrailian, again, massive sweep, books thrown, probably be tried as adults and convicted.