I thought BLM was a serious thing

[cliffs]

CHICAGO – The nation's second-largest county has recorded more homicides this year than in all of 2019, the majority of which – 95% – were people of color, the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office announced this week.



Chicago accounts for most of the deaths, with much of the violence occurring in a handful of neighborhoods on the city's south and west sides.



The Windy City – like others across the country – has seen an uptick in violent crimes this summer amid the coronavirus pandemic, mass layoffs and nationwide unrest. Murders and shootings are up 52% from the same time last year, according to police data, and dozens of children under 10 years old have been shot, some fatally.




I guess blacks shooting blacks is okay?

[ErixonStone]

This is such a bad-faith argument. The biggest issue is systemic racism, not simple individualistic racism (which does exist and is a real problem, but to a lesser extent).

Crime is a function of poverty. More poverty, more crime. When banks and governments shoehorn certain people into lower-income neighborhoods. First, it was with slavery. Then by legal segregation. Then by redlining.

Schools are primarily funded by property taxes. When the residents of a neighborhood are collectively poor, the schools fail, resulting in lower-educated residents.

When people are poor and uneducated, and schools are bad, and they all live on top of one another - personal space is a function of wealth - they become desperate. Why is any of this surprising?

Then, because more crime exists in the poor (i.e. black) neighborhoods, the government response - especially in the 1980s and 1990s - is to deploy more police. More police in a higher crime area results in increased arrests, and a higher number of stories about arrests that push the narrative that people living in these poor neighborhoods (again, black people) are predisposed to crime and are less worthy of help.

We can't talk about systemic racism honestly in this country. That's why Bernie Sanders completely avoids it and just talks about class warfare. It also explains why older black people don't identify with his agenda. Instead, they identify with Biden - the Vice President under a black President. Young black Americans recognize that Sanders is, indeed, talking about them when he talks about the working class. Sanders is favored heavily, across all racial lines, among voters under the age of 44. Those voters are also the ones least likely to be plugged into politics at all.

So, no, black people shooting black people is not OK. However, suggesting that BLM - the movement, not the organization - is hypocritical is a non-sequitur. The issue that BLM addresses is the disparity in the treatment by police, government and media between black and white people. The issue of crime within black communities is that there are designated black communities at all (as opposed to fully integrated communities) and that they're predominantly poor.

We need to solve two issues: the issue that people are as poor as they are, and the issue with policing and the obscene use of force (and the obscene force available to police).

an uptick in violent crimes this summer amid the coronavirus pandemic, mass layoffs and nationwide unrest.

[Not Trump 2020]

Excellent post above.

"So blacks shooting blacks is ok?"

What?! How does that even relate?? That's not racial crime, it's just crime.

Maybe if black people stop suffering from racism, in all areas of society, not just policing, they might stop shooting each other. But that's entirely separate to the issue of race (relations,) and certainly police brutality.