Therefore, efforts which actually aim to improve social cohesion and trust in the police/legal system could really help. On a macro-level, renewed economic dynamism might be the biggest help: ‘hard’ racial barriers aren’t nearly as high as they used to be in the US, but growth is a lot more anemic than it was also.
Or more micro level (govt spending) programs that try to do this might help. In that regard sure some of the resistance to ‘programs’ of the welfare state is racially driven. But proponents should be honest with themselves and realize that a lot of the resistance is because a lot of the ‘programs’ of the past haven’t actually worked, and the cumulative weight of more taxation, spending and general govt interference is among the reasons for economic sclerosis, which itself tends to reduce societal cohesion.
You can’t call somebody a ‘racist’ for expressing skepticism about the latest type of ‘inner city’ focused social program. The burden of proof is rightly on the program proponents.
But the point is that your “getting snippy” has real (social) consequences for your neighbors. So if the communal response to something is to get snippy, that has some impact. That has zero impact on Crips and Bloods, who could care less how snippy you are.
And the bigger point is, that the same dynamic is at play when you talk about your guns. A middle class neighborhood getting into a shooting war with inner city gang members has zero prospects for victory. Not because you’ll shoot more of them than they you, or because more of you will be arrested, or sued. But because every one of these things has far more significant consequences for the middle class people than it does for the drug gang members.
You can “not let” them all you want, but if it’s in their interest it will happen.
The reason inner city gangs are not shooting it up in your neighborhood is not at all about you not letting them. It’s because they have no reason to do it. If they did, they would.
I suspect it’s more about it being very erratic (plus, drug dealers may well like living with their mothers). But it makes no difference in any event. What’s relevant here is that these people have resigned themselves to this lifestyle and accepted the risks, and as noted earlier, the consequences are for the most part not as severe in their case. So they are not going to be put off by the consequences of that lifestyle to nearly the extent that a middle-class person would be.
Realistically, if their was ever a “war” between members of a middle-class neighborhood armed with their guns and some inner city drug gang, and the casualties were 8 dead thugs and 32 arrested, against 3 dead homeowners and 4 arrested (plus some lawsuits) or something like that, the drug gangs will be able to shrug it off and keep the hits coming to a far greater extent than the homeowners.
All true. But the point is that terrorism only works if it inflicts more suffering on the victims than on the perpetrators. And the reason why it does this is because the terrorists have accepted the risks upfront and the victims have not. So if terrorists succeed in killing 1,000 members of their target group and 5,000 members of their own group also die as a result, the pressure is on the target group to make concessions, because although they’ve suffered fewer casualties, they’re farther outside their threshold than the terrorists are.
I doubt an influx of violent crime would lead to the upper middle class taking a last stand with their $2000 rifles. What would probably happen is they would simply leave and go to a place that the criminal element couldn’t afford.
My reaction, and the reaction of my neighbors, is not going to be to get snippy. That’s why I mentioned that we have guns, and money.
I don’t believe this is true.
The consequences for me, if I shoot some inner-city kid who comes into my neighborhood to cause trouble, are going to be way less than for him. I’m a white, upper-middle class homeowner with a college degree, a responsible job, and no criminal record. I vote, I support my church, I pay my taxes. I am a fucking pillar of my fucking community. If there is such a thing as white privilege, I’ve got it coming out my ass.
The police are going to believe me. They’re not going to believe Jamal and his friends. Neither will anybody else.
It is in their interest - they could make a lot more money robbing here than pushing over local liquor stores, because the people here are a lot richer than they are in the inner city. But it doesn’t happen. Because, as I said, every man’s hand is against them.
A few years ago, my next door neighbor’s house was broken into while he and his wife were on vacation. The thieves were arrested within ten minutes. Why? Because the nosy neighbor down the street, who is a retired real estate developer (he actually built the subdivision) spotted the van parked outside the house, remembered that my neighbors were on vacation, and called the cops to report the license number and a description of the two burglars.
About two years ago, I was out walking Leet the Wonder Dog[sup]TM[/sup] one evening and spotted someone driving along looking in mailboxes, apparently seeing if there was anything to steal. I whipped out my cell phone and called in the license plate. I left my cell phone number with the operator. Sure enough, about forty five minutes later the cops called back to say that the guy had been busted. He also mentioned that he had received five other calls, all reporting the same incident.
My point is that my neighbors and I see the police, and the police see us, as being on the same side. And if someone were to come in from outside and starts trouble, the consequence is going to be, from me and my neighbors and the police, that We Don’t Want Your Kind Around Here.
They don’t have to be put off by it - we are not talking about deterrence. Suppose they accept the consequence that, if they come into my neighborhood to rob it, or to set up an open-air drug market, that they will go to prison, or get shot. That’s fine - because they will.
It wouldn’t be 8 dead thugs and 32 arrested vs. 3 dead homeowners and 4 arrested and some lawsuits. The 8 dead thugs and 32 arrests is realistic, and so is the 3 dead homeowners. But nobody is going to arrest homeowners for shooting a drug gangster in my neighborhood.
Besides, like I said, we are nearly all white and Asian. The first time the news teaser “INNER CITY DRUG GANG ATTACKS QUIET SUBURBAN NEIGHBORHOOD - ELEVEN DEAD!!!” runs on local TV and the anti-gang/anti-drug units of every police department in the county is going to come down on them like the wrath of God.
Maybe you got less to lose than I do. But you can bet your sweet little ass you are going to lose it.
Cities is a broad term. You can live “in Houston” and really live somewhere in the metro area, and in particular, live somewhere as super-white and crime-free as the Woodlands, Sugar Land, Piney Point Village, Friendswood, Katy, Cypress, etc… Or you can live somewhere like Acres Homes, 3rd Ward, 5th Ward, Hiram Clarke or Sunnyside.
Probably only 15 miles apart at the closest, but light-years apart in experience, especially of things like gun violence.
Same thing for most cities- are you really claiming that some guy who lives in say… Far North Dallas or Plano really has any kind of inkling of how things are for a black guy who lives in Pleasant Grove, S. Oak Cliff, or DeSoto? Or on a smaller scale,how does an upper-middle class college educated white guy who lives in a single-family home in Lake Highlands relate to a super-poor uneducated black guy who lives in the low-income apartments a mile away?
The short answer is that he doesn’t. Even though it’s literally a mile away, it’s like another planet. People get killed over in those cruddy apartments all the time- but it seems like a totally alien thing, because ALL the people I know aren’t getting shot, despite having large arsenals for fun and defense.
It really does appear first-hand (myself being the guy above) that it’s not a gun issue, but some fundamental difference in the communities, and the knee jerk reaction is essentially one of “Why should I consent to regulations on the guns or ammo that me and my people can buy- the problem lies with those people in the apartments across the creek or across the freeway. They’re the ones who can’t manage not to murder each other, not the people in my community.”
Another kind of gut reaction is that the answer isn’t really to restrict what the millions of law-abiding gun owners can or can’t have, or when they can have it, but rather that the communities that have gun violence problems should solve their own problems, or deal with the consequences of not doing so.
It really does come across very much like everyone in the class having the ability to bring pencils to school, until a couple of the dumb-ass troublemaker students start stabbing each other with them. The gun control arguments are basically that nobody gets to have pencils at all, or that they can’t have mechanical pencils, or they can only bring one pencil to school each week. The gun rights people have the view that the teachers should punish the knuckleheads who stab each other, and leave the rest of us alone, because those idiots aren’t representative of the rest of us, and we shouldn’t be punished or restricted on account of their stupidity.
I’m going to have to disagree with you on this one. Gang banging is not the same as prostitution and IV drug use. Gang banging is glorified in certain subcultures. There is no “Hoe Rap” or “Junkie Rap”, but “Gangsta Rap” is big business. How many rappers making good money have gone to prison for living the lifestyle they sing about? You ever hear the phrase, “keeping it real”? Maybe some don’t choose it. Maybe some would get out. Maybe some wouldn’t go back. But let’s not pretend there isn’t an element of choice here.
I don’t know. I tend to be skeptical of these white privilege claims (and you yourself seem to be hedging as well). A lot of people didn’t believe George Zimmerman or DSK or the Duke Lacrosse kids etc. etc. You get one homeowner possibly overdoing it and you’re going to have the DOJ etc. picking his actions apart to see if he was legally justified and so on. And then he needs to spend his life savings and possibly refinance his house to pay legal bills, and even if he beats the rap his life is ruined. And if he doesn’t beat the rap it’s ruined even more.
Meanwhile the drug punk who goes to jail – well it’s not like he’s looking forward to it, but he’s expecting it, he has buddies in there, he comes out with some more street cred, and he doesn’t have life savings and a career to squander and a family to leave without support.
I don’t know if it never happens in your neighborhood, but there are a lot of robberies committed in middle and upper class neighborhoods by inner city people. What’s less common is drug turf wars, and that’s because such people don’t set up shop there. That’s not where the main action is, and is far away from their home turf.
If it’s clear cut, then they won’t. If it’s not clear cut then they might. And if some homeowner makes a mistake – as will inevitably happen – between some drug gangster and some kid who looks superficially like a drug gangster, then he goes to jail, and all the other tough-talking homeowners get a bit more gun shy.
This does not reflect reality.
Some of these guys might lose it. And some won’t. But the thing is – in their home neighborhoods they are already losing it. You and your middle-class pals are not going to put a bigger whupping on these gangsters than they’re already dealing with on a regular basis for their fellow and rival gangsters. And yet, they keep at it. You’re not going to put the Fear of the Lord into them any more than that. Any guy who is willing to take the risks of fighting it out in Crips-vs-Bloods gang wars is not going to be deterred by some middle-aged guys with their weapons and police connections.
My problem with Richard Parker’s logic would be a bit different though maybe related. He seems to assume across sex workers, drug users and gangsters that the only issue is whether government assistance, including cash, to leave those situations would encourage more people to enter them in the first place.
But that’s not the only issue and especially for gangsters. The problem with gangsters is if they accepted the government assistance yet remained gangsters. This is a serious issue in countries which have actually tried something like this, the government brokered gang truce in El Salvador had some element of promised aid to build new lives for example. But in fact the gangs are still gangs, racketeers, and playing off such programs just another of their rackets. Of course the idea would be to construct the programs so that doesn’t happen, and in the US the power of the gangs isn’t as great relative to the govt and other public institutions. Still, it’s a big assumption to make in case of paying people to avoid a life of petty hustling that leads to violence, that their new hustle wouldn’t just be scamming that system.
I think maybe you’re misinterpreting that particular point of Shodan’s.
I don’t think he’s saying that the Legion of Suburban Dads armed with shotguns, 22s and pistols is going to somehow violently eliminate or fight the gangbangers outright.
I got the impression that what he’s saying is that there would be armed resistance to home invasions and the like in their own community, AND most importantly, his community has lots of clout with the local government and law enforcement, so that any sort of abnormal uptick in crime from the gangsters in his neighborhood would likely be met with a much more disproportionate response relative to a similar uptick in gangster-related crime in a lower income, blacker or more hispanic neighborhood. Not necessarily disproportionately violent, but disproportionate in the sense of a lot more resources would be expended to set things right.
But what I was saying is 1) that he’s overestimating the amount of armed resistance that his kind could bring to bear, and 2) (somewhat related to the above) that even with all that disproportionate resources etc. it would not be enough to deter the gangs if his neighborhood was as convenient and profitable for them as their home turf.
The key points being 1) that gang members are not deterred by the prospects of being jailed or shot to nearly the same extent as middle-class people are, and 2) that this very fact itself will tend to significantly hamper any armed resistance that the middle-class people might otherwise put up.
Although what Fotheringay-Phipps says is correct, about the consequences of going to prison being a lot higher for me than for some gang-banger. And that the perceptions of that gang-banger towards violence and the value of human life are going to be quite different from mine. The subculture in my neighborhood and his are different, IOW.
But that goes to what Richard Parker thinks might be racist - the fact that I care a lot more about enforcing the subculture in my neighborhood than that in the inner city. I have a lot more to lose from threats to me and mine, and therefore much more stake in enforcing the subculture of my neighborhood. And since my subculture has a lot in common with most of the rest of my area and practically everybody with whom I come into contact day-to-day, I have natural allies when it comes to enforcing that subculture against outside trouble-makers.
And the fact that I have more to lose means I have more to fight with, too.
Yes but I think the aspect of more resources is often overblown. It’s like a lot of the clucking about ‘underfunded schools’ in urban areas. But I live in an urban area where the spending per pupil is the highest in the state, and performance is still mediocre at best. The students and what they bring to school from home is a huge part of the equation, which government resources applied directly the schools can’t do that much to change.
Likewise in normal circumstances the claim that ‘nice’ neighborhoods get more policing is the wrong away around mostly. The policing tends to go where the crime is, that’s where the patrol cars drive to respond to the much greater number of 911 calls. Likewise upscale suburban towns with their own police forces tend often smaller ones per capita, they don’t need as many police.
Anyway besides that I think the point is valid, if in slightly different terms. The gang bangers have a ‘sea to swim in’ in their own neighborhoods, people willing to or intimidated to not report their activities, friends and families’ houses to hide in etc. In upscale neighborhoods far from home they don’t have that and stick out like a sore thumb. In any case a lot of their quarrels are over the street drug trade. There’s illegal drug use in upscale places, but much less of such a street trade. So yes local police would come down like a ton of bricks on ‘invasions’ by gang bangers of upscale neighborhoods, but it would much easier and more effective for a given effort. It’s somewhat analogous to targeting the Iraqi Army on the move in the open desert ca. 1991, not trying to root out Vietnamese guerilla’s in triple canopy jungle ca. 1965, or even Iraqi insurgents in their urban ‘seas’ ca. mid 2000’s.
And I think that whole debate is kind of tangent. In fact a lot of the reason way too many people in the US are resistant to having their gun rights circumscribed ‘for the common good’ for strict national gun control to ever happen, is fear of high crime rates among some racial minorities, particularly blacks. That includes fear of people belonging to those minorities, but also a lot of whites who live in white neighborhoods. They don’t expect all out assaults from gang bangers on their neighborhoods, but still want a hedge against crime they’d expect to come mainly from outside their neighborhoods or towns. Trying to convince people they need to pay more tax to solve the ‘inner city’ crime problem because it threatens them, and simultaneously arguing for strict national gun control, which I suppose some people would tend to do, is arguing at cross purposes to yourself.
I think it is a good point because most white people, especially those who live in rural areas or suburbs, have never known anyone hurt or killed by gunfire. In fact for myself I never ever heard a gun fired in anger until I moved to the inner city.
However for many black and inner city residents gun violence is a real and daily occurring thing.
I don’t think that’s racist–certainly not necessarily so. My dispute was over whether what you describe is actually what drives the lack of interest.
I do think the sentiment you express is a little callous. Suppose a black man from North Philadelphia said in response to the massacres at Columbine and Newtown, essentially, “why should I care about this? My kids will never go to a fancy suburban public school where some deranged white kids might go on a shooting spree.” I would not describe that as merely being provincial. It also reflects a certain lack of empathy and a level of self-interestedness that I think is bad for society. But then, a liberal would say that, wouldn’t he!
There’s a big difference between saying “I* don’t care in the slightest about anything that doesn’t impact me*”, and saying “I care more about things that impact me than about things that don’t”. The first lacks empathy etc. The second is a) a much more practical and utilitarian approach to life, and b) basic human nature. (I think a lot of people who would disagree with the second statement are either self-deluded or victims of mental hangups.)
I agree. I’m not sure how to quantify it, but my sense is that discussions of policy solutions for the murders of thousands of young black men every year gets so disproportionately little coverage that it would meet whatever test you want to offer for the line between inevitable human nature and something unusually callous.
For my own part, until recently I was unaware of how big the numbers were or that there were even semi-promising policy solutions. I also had the view, which I now believe to be false, that most of the victims were assuming the risk in one way or another. I’ve only become more interested in the issue as my own ideas and understandings have changed. But, of course, that’s not independent from the lack of public discussion. If we talked about black murder the same way we talked about white kidnapping, I think I would have come around much sooner.
I live in a rural area far from any urban inner cities. There is very little gun violence despite a high rate of gun ownership. (Funny how that works…) So I frankly don’t give a damn one way or the other if gang members kill each other, because that has no impact on my life.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say I don’t give a damn, but the part about how it doesn’t impact me is true.
It is, in fact, somewhat like the Orlando shootings. They don’t impact me much either - except insofar as they are driven by Islamic extremism. Gun ownership? Not so much - I have guns in the house, my neighbors have guns in the house, we don’t shoot each other. Homophobia? That strikes a little closer - I have gay friends, and I know that there are other incidents of violence against gays, so this is another on a long and nasty list. Islamic extremism? That is, in some ways, worse, because it is nearly random, and it is human nature to fear random death more than death as a foreseeable result of some course of action. That’s why people are afraid to fly, but not to drive - they feel they are in control of the car, but they don’t fly the plane.
It’s less altruistic for me to fear Islamic terrorism more than homophobic violence, but it is natural to fear someone who wants to kill members of groups to which I belong than who wants to kill groups that I don’t. The very slight chance of being a victim of terrorism, in other words, is marginally larger than the chance of being a victim of homophobic violence. Probably equally slight as the chance that I will be killed in a drive-by over a drug deal gone wrong.