the ghetto

It may be useful to think of blacks as just another immigrant group-- just that they're internal immigrants, moving from the South to the North. In that sense, 'the ghetto' could be thought of as just another 'immigrant neighborhood,' like the Lower East Side of New York, the North End of Boston, etc.

These neighborhoods typically were populated by people of the same ethnicity or nationality. As the immigrants moved into the second and third generations the more talented and energetic moved 'up and out.' What remained was a kind of 'left-behind' subculture. The South End of Boston, if you've ever been there, is a fairly depressing area. It's odd to see white people living in housing projects and youth loitering on streetcorners, but there it is.

Now there is an educated, somewhat affluent black middle class, although my sense is that it's somewhat smaller than that of other groups (and consists almost entirely of public-sector employees). Yet this population seems dwarfed by the 'left-behinds,' and what gets me about this latter group, compared with other immigrant groups, has been their stubborn unwillingness or inability to assimilate into the larger culture.

Granted-- and I shouldn't underestimate this-- blacks have faced unique obstacles in this country, right from the beginning, and those obstacles persist today. Yet I find myself increasingly of the feeling that 'That was then and this is now.' Why don't these people just get with the program?

I'll be blunt. I think of 'ghettoes'-- meaning the non-middle-class, welfare/underclass areas as basically third-world enclaves in a first-world nation. I'll go further than that: I think of them as cancers that shouldn't be allowed to metastasize.

What are the things that set 'the ghetto' off from the rest of society, or even from other traditional immigrant neighborhoods? The most obvious thing is the level of crime, and of violent crime in particular. And there are two other factors, directly related to crime but only slightly less obvious. The first is the near universal illegitimacy of the children, which is to say the nearly universal unwillingness of black men in these areas to accept the responsibilities of fatherhood. The second is the inability to use the public schools as a means of getting 'up and out.' Not only is the dropout rate extremely high compared to that of other groups (with the exception of Hispanics), but the performance of those who do remain in school is extremely low.

Add to this the Hip-Hop youth culture, which, again, I view as espousing a basically third-world set of values. First-world nations are created by first-world people, people who are civilized, educated, and responsible. Many, if not most, denizens of this underclass ghetto are none of these things, and that is why ghettos appear to me to be third-world enclaves in a first-world country.

detroit

The media is doing everything it can to avoid the obviously racial nature of Detroit's 'decline.' They put it in terms of industrial decline, the Rust Belt, etc. But the auto industry didn't really decline, it just went elsewhere. And Detroit made no serious effort to create a new economy. Compare to Pittsburgh, where the steel industry was in genuine decline. That city has made a successful transition to an IT/healthcare economy (thanks in no small part to the presence of a top research university, Carnegie-Mellon). I put the word 'decline' in quotes because it really doesn't do justice to the spectacular nature of Detroit's descent. 'Nosedive' would be more like it.

The fact is, the riots of the 1960s drove the productive, tax-paying white working and middle classes out of the city-- and amazingly quickly. Black hoodlums then proceeded to burn down vast swaths of it in their annual Devil's Night festivities. This is why there are thousands of vacant lots in this city that encompasses over 140 square miles. The houses, apartments, and other buildings that used to sit on them didn't just magically disappear one night.

The result is the Detroit of today, 'the hole in the doughnut': a vast urban wasteland surrounded by prosperous, orderly suburbs.

rachel jeantel

I hesitate to say what follows, but what the hell:

I found this woman so depressingly inarticulate. Granted, she didn't ask to be thrust into the spotlight this way, yet she opens a window onto a world few of us see or hear from directly-- what I think of as, frankly, the barbarian, third-world 'culture' of the inner city.

She is a product of 11+ years of public education there at the taxpayer's expense yet can barely form words into sentences. She's got to have a very low IQ. I think we need to try to bring such people up to some minimal level of literacy and numeracy so that they can more or less function in daily life and maybe even hold down some kind of job. But don't expect miracles-- and don't bet the farm on it.

I gather this woman has now been offered a college scholarship by radio host Tom Joyner. We'll see.  Perhaps Pygmalion lives.

vigilantism

The question I ask about this Zimmerman verdict is, 'Has justice been served?'  The answer is unquestionably, No.  The thing that gets me about this whole affair is that there were things going on at both a micro- and macro- level.  The jury verdict had to do with the micro-level stuff-- the actual scuffle that took place between Martin and Zimmerman.  Given the eyewitness testimony that Trayvon was on top, there's essentially no doubt in my mind that the bloodcurdling screams for help on the 911 tape were indeed Zimmerman's.  And on the basis of that, it's hard to believe that he didn't genuinely fear for his life.  Hence the acquittal.

However, at the macro-level, Zimmerman did things that he shouldn't oughta done and created the situation that resulted in Martin's death.  Hence it seems to me that the prosecution should have looked for charges against Zimmerman at this macro-level, where they probably would have stuck.

But first, let's take a slight digression and talk about this 'neighborhood watch' business.  I've heard two versions of this, and I don't know which is correct.  One version is that Zimmerman was a member of an 'official,' police-sanctioned group, along with other people.  The other version is that, no, he just took this upon himself and simply became the 'neighborhood watch guy.'  This makes a difference, because I believe that a police-sanctioned group would have certain rules, and primary among them would be that neighborhood watch people ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE ARMED.  They are not surrogate policemen; they are just the 'eyes and ears' of the police.  If they see something suspicious, they report it to the police, and at that point their job ends.  The police take it from there.

And that was precisely the position Zimmerman was in when he called 911.  The dispatcher basically told him that his job was over, that the police would take it from there.  This is the point at which the situation changes totally.  Zimmerman not only disobeys this order, he goes back out into the night, and HE HAS A GUN.

At this point, was he not taking the law into his own hands?  Isn't that called vigilantism, and isn't that a crime in itself?  Indeed, given that he was armed and that this fact resulted in the death of an innocent person, couldn't he be charged with something called 'reckless' or 'aggravated' vigilantism?  Aren't these crimes punishable by long prison sentences?  I really don't know.  But if Zimmerman could have been charged with something like that, a jury would undoubtedly have found him guilty and put him away for 20-30 years.  Justice, then, would have been served.