The Vulnerability of Black Men In America

posted at 2:13 pm on July 24, 2009 by Doctor Zero

On the subject of his now-infamous arrest, Henry Gates said, “This isn’t about me; this is about the vulnerability of black men in America.” We are saddled with entirely too many arrogant people who think of themselves as icons, their lives needing only a sprinkle of controversy and media attention to blossom into historical moments. If this incident turns out to be “about” anything more than a rude man being treated rudely by a cop, it would be about the lack of responsibility and humility in our floundering President. Maybe the President’s unseemly haste to turn a legal matter he admitted to knowing nothing about into a major racial incident, along with an offhanded insult to the intelligence of police officers, will turn into a “teachable moment” for black voters, and make them less vulnerable to voting for shadowy con artists because of their skin color.

One thing black men are definitely vulnerable to is violent crime. Blacks represent about 14% of the general population, but they make up nearly half of murder victims. For decades, they have been thirty to forty percent more likely to suffer from violent crime than the general population. You will notice that white liberals are much more enthusiastic about springing black criminals from their “disproportionate levels of incarceration” than the law-abiding black citizens who must deal with them, once they’ve ditched their orange jumpsuits. The best things society could do to help innocent black men avoid being robbed and murdered are providing enhanced access to lawful, registered firearms for self-defense, more aggressive prosecution of the criminal element, and more police protection. Professor Gates is not doing black men any favors on the latter count, and I doubt they can expect much help from President Obama on the first two, even if he can get through the rest of his term without calling the police “stupid” on national television.

Another thing black men are vulnerable to is unemployment. The black male unemployment rate runs about 5% higher than the national average. According to this report, it stood at 15.4% as of June. Some of this high unemployment rate seems likely to come from the high concentration of black workers in urban areas, which tend to be hit hard by recessions. Another factor could be the relatively low median age of black males, which is about six years younger than the national average – putting a high number of black workers in the sort of entry-level jobs that evaporate most quickly in a recessionary climate. The political party that enjoys over 90% support from black voters is currently pushing a cap-and-trade energy bill that would cause a recession lasting decades. I would suggest that black men who wish to improve their economic fortunes consider a change of voting habits.

A major factor in high black unemployment rates is their high vulnerability to receiving horrible educations from the public school system. The greatest obstacle faced by black parents who want to secure a better education for their children is Barack Hussein Obama, who wasted no time killing a successful school voucher program in Washington D.C. The Democrat Party stands ready to fight school choice to the death, thanks to the dominant influence of the teachers’ unions. Perhaps some concerned black voters will catch a Democrat some day, while he’s picking up his children from their expensive private school, and ask him what it would take to get him to stop blocking school choice for his loyal constituents.

One other thing black men are vulnerable to is racism. White racism, the obsession with white racism, and black racism are all toxins that can damage their chances for success. Blacks are not well-served by the sort of racial paranoia stoked by the Gates incident, or Obama’s high-profile reaction to it. They are also injured by serious white racism, of course. There is only one tonic that can reliably dispel every form of racial hatred, without injuring the liberty of any citizen, of any race: commerce. The first steps in achieving black equality may have been necessarily political, but the last dregs of racism can only be drained away by men and women united in common effort for mutual gain. Irrational hatred can never survive familiarity…. it lives only in the abstract, in the darker halls of the mind, where it can feed on illusions and memories. Every day in America, someone begins working side-by-side with a partner of the “wrong” color, and forgets how to hate him.

Commerce cannot completely purify the human heart… but it doesn’t have to. The heart only needs to be softened a bit, just enough to let people offer each other a chance for success, or have the wisdom to accept the offer. In the unity of our quest for prosperity, we learn how wasteful violence and ignorance are. No government program or draconian law can ever duplicate the cleansing power of the bond that forms between two people, when one of them needs something built, and the other one has a hammer. No decent person of any color would sacrifice the welfare of his family to indulge foolish hatreds.

Black men are vulnerable to a politics of government control and withered liberty, whose final insult is that it destroys the economic vigor that has the power to make racism irrelevant. Based on what we have learned about the background of Police Sergeant James Crowley, who has taught classes in how to avoid racial profiling, and fought to save dying black basketball star Reggie Lewis from his fatal heart attack in 1993, it seems he could teach this lesson to Professor Henry Gates… if the professor had the wisdom and humility to listen.

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