Support for Black Lives Matter Movement Collapses Among Whites and Hispanics, Drops For Blacks
While the Black Lives Matter movement remains an incredibly powerful force, fueled by hundreds of millions of dollars, it is losing popularity across demographic groups, as the NY Times laments the lack of a “racial reckoning” after George Floyd’s death.
The NY Times, in a run up to the one-year anniversary of the death of George Floyd, is publishing a series of opinion pieces looking back at the death and aftermath.
One of those opinion pieces has some very interesting polling data, Support for Black Lives Matter Surged Last Year. Did It Last? The opinion part of the opinion piece is pretty much what you would expect from the NY Times, numerous malicious side-swipes at Republicans, such as casually describing it as “a party often characterized by its racial insensitivity and antagonism toward racial minorities.” So the opinion part is pretty worthless, but the data part is important.
The point of the article is that the nation has failed to follow through on a “racial reckoning,” and whites and Republicans are to blame, with BLM support plummeting.
“Like other racial groups, white Americans were more supportive of B.L.M. following Mr. Floyd’s murder. This sentiment, however, did not last long and, as with Republicans, support eventually plunged. This movement among Republicans and white Americans helps us understand why aggregate support for Black Lives Matter has waned since last summer.
In both cases, the deterioration in support is noteworthy because we do not merely observe a return to pre-Floyd opinion levels. Rather, since last summer, Republicans and white people have actually become less supportive of Black Lives Matter than they were before the death of George Floyd — a trend that seems unlikely to reverse anytime soon.”
But the other charts and data shed light that perhaps this is not just whites and Republicans. After Floyd’s death, support for BLM surged among whites and Hispanics to the extent that net favorability was higher for a period before falling precipitously in the following months. Here’s the chart:
The article does not even try to explore the precipitous drop in support among Hispanics, or “other” (which presumably includes Asians). Or the drop even among blacks, though not as pronounced as among other groups.
The answer might lie in another chart, which shows the peak of net support being in early June, when “protests” spread widely:
Of course, those “protests” included hundreds of riots and billions of dollars in property and business damage, in addition to over a dozen deaths and countless injuries. This sustained surge in violence, not just from the riots themselves but from the decline of law and order in cities under Democrat control, could “tip” upcoming elections towards “law and order” Republicans, argues liberal Ezra Klein.
Violence is the second most important issue to Democrats in the NYC mayoral primary. — behind coronavirus but ahead of housing affordability and racial inequality.
The politics of this could really tip, and not just in cities — if these numbers keep getting worse, then as with Nixon and Reagan in the 70s and 80s, it could bring “law and order” conservatives (including Trump) back to power in 2024.
Perhaps — and I think likely — the reality of the BLM movement in action did not meet expectations. That’s particularly true since the riots coincided with and were followed by a wave of racist actions under the umbrella of Critical Race Theory’s offshoot “antiracism.”
While the Black Lives Matter movement remains an incredibly powerful force, fueled by hundreds of millions of dollars, it is losing popularity across demographic groups.
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Comments
So, does this mean big-box stores will stop playing boom-chunka-thumpa-thumpa music on their PA systems? Or, “vocalists” screeching like cats in heat?
Does it mean Target will have non-blacks on their store posters?
Does it mean Netfiix will again produce original content with white folks in the lead or title part?
Of course not! Ever since you pointed it out, I’ve noticed that you are right. There are no commercials/ads/anything anymore with white people (or if there is a white person, there are at least three POC to make up for it).
The only way to stop this madness is to demand more of it. We must demand that there is no Democrat, no woke CEO of any business or in any industry, including Tech, that is not a POC. They must live up to their own rules, it’s not enough to play act at “diversity” by using POC as props. No, no, no! They must divest from all white leadership, tainted white money for investment, white stockholders, white shareholders, white everything must be eliminated. No more white Democrats can ever run for office, no woke company can employ a single white person (except maybe as a janitor, and only if there are no POC who want the job). The only reason to go to a Starbucks is to complain that there are white people working there!
The only reason to subscribe to Netflix is to demand that they immediately purge all white people from the top to the bottom. No more white actors/actresses, no more white writers writing their white supremacy into every script, which they do without even knowing it because they are born racist, don’t you know?, no more white investors, no more white management or employees. They all have to GO. Only then will we have real racial justice.
Clearly, this only applies to “woke” companies. Any non-woke party, company, business, service provider, etc. is certainly free to hire the best candidates for any job, accept investments and management from whomever they like, including white people. But you simply can’t be woke and still treat white people as if they have a place in your business, political party, or field . . . or even on this earth. Whites are born evil, born racist, born with pesky traits like being on time and (gasp!) thinking that working is better than sitting on your fat ass cashing Biden checks. Having anything at all to do with this evil is not just embracing racial injustice and perpetuating white privilege, but it’s actually celebrating it, cheering it on! It cannot stand.
Epic. Thank you.
I worked for a major automotive mfr in the upstate of SC when they launched the X7. The new model launch crew were all poc until the krauts had heard enough excuses and replaced the entire team with “the man”.
You are correct. Hand off operation to someone because of their skin color. Let’s see that Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
United Airlines is planning on hiring cockpit crew based solely on race and gender. Should make for some very exciting cross country and trans oceanic flights. I think I’ll stay home.
United Breaks Guitars. That’s reason enough not to fly with them. Now they are going to prioritize racial qualifications over competence and experience? I’d rather walk; better to arrive late and alive.
WHAT AN AWESOME PERSPECTIVE Miss Slippers! May I suggest we start with the White Democrat politicians? After all they’re the greedy masters of lies and deceit
TFG, I mean absolutely no disrespect (I did, after all, choose my nom de plume after you), but I don’t understand the question.
Please understand, I’m an American citizen who was taken (I was a military brat) overseas (Germany) when I was less than 6 months old and, with the exception of 3 30-day visits, had never set foot inside the US until I was 16, almost 17, years old. I’m now 47 years old and I **STILL** do not understand the “my skin color is better than yours” mindset.
What am I missing?!?!?!?!?!
You aren’t missing anything. Just look at ads, movies, store posters. Listen to the music stores insist on playing. Very little is white or Asian. Not much more is “brown” Hispanics. It is all black all the time.
This force-feeding has been going on for many years.
Not sure who is behind it.
Every time I log into my bank account there is some Black Woman staring into some kind of papers, She has glasses on so I guess that means she knows what she is looking at.
We have been being played by someone or something for years.
Ask your bank why you don’t see people who look like you in their promotional material. Don’t say white, but, “people who look like me”.
Madison Avenue advertizing folks are all woke. They are very very sensitive to being called racist – so they way over compensate. They convince their corporate clients that the way to avoid being called a racist is to use all Black models. The problem is that THAT approach actually is racist. So in an attempt to signal their anti-racist virtue – they actually do things that are racist. How very ironic and hypocritical.
and every couple is bi-racial.
Lol HBO has nothing but Black actors and I refuse to watch
Shocking nobody with a brain.
Normies are finally catching on to the fact that these slogans are stupid, idiotic, and accomplish ABSOLUTELY NOTHING towards their alleged goals.
By their own words, you either agree with 100% of BLM’s stated goals or you are totally opposed to them. Therefore, any agreement I might have with portions of their platform is moot. They do not want my support.
As a person who is mostly happy to be agreeable, I have decided to give them what they want, which is my opposition to their organization.
Not Pro Black as much Anti White. I refuse to be Race Shamed.
Last year over a two week period I had a long involved discussion with a local BLM supporter. It was stunning. I’ve never seen such a closed minded person. They were “the party line” all the way … they could provide absolutely no intellectual argument in support of BLM behavior or beliefs … they were as oblivious to nuance as they were to facts … and they were more than a little hot headed and disagreeable. BLM doesn’t want equality nor do they want blacks to take responsibility for themselves … they want everything handed to them without them doing anything to earn it. Until last year I used to be pretty much neutral on blacks … I have my life … they have theirs … but these days … until they behave like a civilized human being and start looking inward and taking responsibility for themselves … I want nothing to do with their world.
Anecdotally, my initial thought was basically… well hell, if y’all fell that you need to communicate the message that ‘black lives matter’ because you don’t think some people and LEO Agencies believe that… then ok. There probably were and are a few bad cops who discriminate, though cops are just a microcosm of the nation from which they are drawn.
Likewise with the stop killing unarmed black men message though that one was and remains unfounded. But it’s a free country so do your thing.
Of course the supposedly simple message morphed from peaceful rallies and marches into protests that became every more confrontational. Then devolved into
nothing more than roving, violent mobs bent on destruction, looting, arson and violence.
Along side that came the profiteers and grifters. The race hustlers and the low rent attorneys like Crump all more eager than the next to exploit the situation, extort the community and make a quick buck.
A year later and who is possibly surprised at the erosion of support? No one. Now comes the racial grievance angle from all perspectives. ‘They are doing this’ and ‘we are doing that’ or ‘our motives are pure’ while ‘their motives are suspect’.
The division along tribal lines based upon immutable characteristics like ‘race’ is IMO stupid, scientifically unsound and backwards looking. The rate of intermarriage among the ‘races’ has resulted in rendering these terms almost meaningless.
We are all American. Though I would be classified as ‘caucasian’ that doesn’t reflect the Cherokee and Creek bloodlines. As for being told that I must belong to a tribe…
Ok my tribe is American Combat Veterans who irrespective of some artificially imposed category were willing to endure hardship, fight alongside of and die for the person next to each other.
RACE-BAITERS STILL USING FLOYD – THE REAL “BIG LIE”
Al Sharpton and others have been using the 1-year anniversary of Floyd to stoke animosity and the MEDIA is 100% on board. In the last few days I keep hearing from media how racism was exposed in America by Floyd. WHAT ? Even the Minnesota AG said that race was not a factor in the officer’s actions. And there was ZERO evidence presented at trail that the offices was a racist or motivated by race.
This is the real “Big Lie” in America. 95% of people still think that Chauvin is a racist cop who is part of a racist police department and that racism pervades US law enforcement. None of that is true. But BLM and their media enablers have pushed that narrative.
The Floyd Trial was interesting – as much for what was NOT presented by the prosecution as for what was presented. They had to show motive to give the jury a basis for intent – and intent is required for the murder charges. I was expecting to see them make a case that the offices was motivated by race. They never did. Obviously they had no such evidence.
But the media does not go back and correct the record. They don’t say “sorry we misled America and caused socal up-heaveal by painting this as a racial incident – when it is not” Media made a deal with the devil (BLM and other race-baiters) ad they are determined to uphold their end (because it profits them) – even if it kills America.
Ben,
Well sure. Grifters gonna grift. Race hustlers gonna hustle. Propagandists gonna make propaganda.
This whole sh-t storm has moved beyond truth or evidence. People are being manipulated or pressed into choosing ‘tribes’. Overwhelmingly these ‘tribes’ are based on the false construct of ‘race’.
It’s a very seductive argument that if ‘this racial group’ does x and demands solidarity within or among that ‘racial group’ that every other ‘racial group’ should do the same.
As a rhetorical device to point out the absurdity of a proposal by using a ‘search and replace’ from one ‘racial group’ to another ‘racial group’…..sure, no problem. It isn’t hypocrisy or ‘what aboutism’ to do so. It’s a useful tool to clarify what people are doing or proposing.
I am simply not going to be forced or manipulated into a ‘tribe’ based upon immutable characteristics. I value the individual merit of each person. I could care less what their ‘race’ is. It simply doesn’t matter to me.
” low rent attorneys like Crump” More like Chump.
Crump is smart enough to to follow the money and transform a grievance into his personal gravy train.
IMO the chumps are the clients, the judicial system that fails to rein him in, the communities who pay settlements and the fawning media who don’t seem interested in questioning his history of hustle.
The problem is that most of the people who’ve stopped supporting them still think their basic premise is correct, that there is systemic racism and that ordinary black people going about their peaceful business have to worry about policemen shooting them. They just think the movement has gone too far. They’re against the rioting and looting, not seeing how that helps the goal. And they’re against the black supremacist “woke” movement. But they still support the cause of BLM. They still support inquiries into police departments, restrictions on policemen, a presumption of guilt for policemen, etc. Thus BLM has still won despite this.
This is true, particularly among indies, many of whom somehow seem to never have a clue what is going on or why, but they matter because there are more of them than of either Democrat or Republican voters. Indies are interesting because each and every one left their party for a reason, and that reason usually plays into their “take” on a given issue. Some left the Democrat Party because they weren’t far left enough, ditto the GOP for not being right enough, and some left because they just despise partisan BS, and some left because they aren’t single-issue voters–i.e. the “fiscally-conservative, socially-liberal” types and their latest incarnation as you describe here, the “pro-law and order, pro-police reform” types. They don’t see much wrong with a lot of the left’s police reform proposals (want to send out social workers to respond to domestic disputes? Sure, let’s try it, see what happens, who knows, it might work, right?) but draw the line at defunding (i.e. abolishing) the police.
The problem with your point, right as it is, is that BLM is not about police reform, it’s about undermining American values at every level and from every side. It’s a Marxist group, proudly self-proclaimed, that is using this one issue to drive a wedge into multiple segments of American society, with the goal of collapsing the government, economy, and culture. This is why they also advocate CRT, anti-racism, the destruction of capitalism, the revision of our nation’s real history, the destruction of the Constitution, the destruction of the American family . . . and pretty much every American value and creed. Have you ever visited their website? They are not only or even mainly about abolishing/defunding the police. That’s just their least divisive issue (or it was until their violent revolutionary goals as evidenced by violence, murder, and destruction overshadowed their faux cloak of fighting against police brutality).
To sum up, their goal is black supremacy.
NO. Their goal is a race war.
Race war? Yes. What is the goal? Do they not want to win?
Yes. Why? Black is Supreme.
They want Black capitalized. But inferior white is in lower case. Why? Because Black Supreme.
Do they not want more than they have? Deserve more than they have? Their lives matter more?
Why? Black is Supreme.
What is the sole reason for all of the above? Color of their skin. Black is Supreme. What color is the race card? Black. Black is Supreme.
They want a Race War? Yes. What is the purpose of the race war? To take over. To be SUPREME.
They don’t want a war just for the sake of having a war. They want it in order to acheive certain objectives. They want to be the masters. If you would like to turn over your property to them now and be their slave, then the war can be avoided.
@Milhouse I’d probably put myself in that indie bracket. I agree with your analysis to an extent with some modifications.
1) not really sure about critical race theory, makes me pretty uncomfortable. That goes too far. Certainly from a persuasion point of view I think it’s failed.
2) assumption guilt , no. Not at all I would say the issue here is qualified immunity. It’s given far to much protection to a small minority who have clearly done wrong.
The US definitively has an issue, how that’s resolved is an open question. There are far to many deaths from violent crimes, the criminal justice system doesn’t appear to work very well, and compared to many nations it would seem the US has a serious issue. More of the same hasn’t worked for a long time so reform is a necessary thing. The question is what should the reform be?
[I kind of went off on a tangent here; most of this is really not directed at @mark311, though I do use his bizarre statement about America having a “race issue” as a jumping off point.]
You think America has an “issue” with race? While I would have disagreed with this statement as recently as 2008, I would have to agree with you now. I’m supposed to, right? I’ve suddenly become a racist, after all. It happened rather quickly since circa ’08 when I was not a racist. Well, I was, but I didn’t know it because I was busy not caring about race at all and embracing all of my friends and co-workers of any and every race as my friends, as my peers.
Well! I was so wrong. They weren’t my equal, my peer, and they weren’t my friends. How could they be? I am white! I am already better than everyone and need to be handicapped with self-loathing and guilt before I can be trained to speak to a black person. I so get that now.
I also get that it’s so much easier to train whites to be lazy, tardy, useless sacks of crap than it is to teach black people the value of honest work and timeliness. Expecting any POC to be on time . . . well, if they even have a job, is racist and white supremacist. Also, 2 + 2 can equal whatever a POC says it does. If a white person suggests “4” as the answer, they should immediately be dragged from the classroom by armed federal agents and taken to a remote facility for “questioning.”
I went from feeling completely at ease around black people to feeling on edge and skittish around them. I would have told you that I am not a racist a mere couple years ago, but now, I think I really am worried about being near black people, being all white and all. /sarc
I’m supposed to feel this way, right, to shun my fellow Americans for fear of saying the wrong thing? That fear of “other” is the whole point, right? That division, that fear is really important to the struggle, right? I have to wonder, What if they attack me with baseball bats and bricks because I’m white and all full of privilege and stuff? I’m white, so my family never fled the potato famine, none of my family were sold as slaves, and none of my family members ever saw a “No Irish” sign the windows.
But hey, white, I’m JUST AS PAMPERED AND PRIVILEGED as Bill Gates, Nancy Pelosi, and Patrice Cullers. Oprah, by contrast, is a failure and constantly held back by RAAACIST America and stuff. Oprah = oppressed and discriminated against all the way to her billion dollar bank; white Joe Deplorable = privilege. Sure, he can’t afford for himself the latest iPhone, but he sure is glad that homeless people have theirs and can post vids of their plight on Facebook. Why wouldn’t he be happy with his flip-phone when his hard work is paying for others to have better than he can afford for himself?
He’s totes privileged, being white and all, and living in that trailer and talking on his flip-phone for 120 mins a month (when his cheap-o plan starts charging for per minute he can’t afford to chat). He’s white. The bastard cracker slave-holder! He shouldn’t have that flip-phone that was built on the backs of black people! He lives in a TRAILER?! What the hell? That is unacceptable, he needs to live in a lean-to because reparations and stuff.
The reform we are experiencing is so awesome! I’m a racist squared (white and conservative), so I’m expecting to be among the first dragged from my home and taken off to a gulag. But hey, being imprisoned and required to do forced labor is the least I can do since . . . erm, no one in my family ever owned a single slave either in America or anywhere else, and some were, literally, enslaved. Too bad, so sad, I am white. I must pay!
In short, the only serious issue America has with race is the lunatic nutters like yourself who falsely claim that we are a racist nation. We are not. What mistakes we made regarding slavery (along with every other nation on earth, including present day countries that still have a booming slave trade) have been corrected, and we were well on our way to racial harmony until Democrats realized their socialist “tax the rich” crap wouldn’t sell and resurrected racism to divide and conquer. It’s still Marxism, the struggle is supposedly race, now, not class.
Now, I cannot just see people as people (SO racist!). I’m supposed to second guess my interactions with black and brown people, right? I’m supposed to loathe and shun them, right? Well, I need to loathe them while still somehow accepting that I, a white person, am the literal devil and am thus even more hated by everyone, including myself (because white).
Weird. I hate other races, and I hate my own race. Where is my loyalty? My value to the new state? Oh, wait, I get it.
I’m pretty much a hater time-bomb the Democrats have deprived of work (no whites need apply) and anything that goes with it (paying my own way, etc.). Pressed into a corner, I’m supposed to react, to blame and hate POC and go on some crazed Charles Manson Helter Skelter rampage.
Stop and think for a moment that we’re being manipulated into Charles freaking Manson’s race war by aging ’60s hippy radical relics associated with the Weather Underground. I’m thinking that whatever they want me to do, whatever they are “nudging” me to do, is the exact opposite of what I should (and will) do. Color me not-a-freaking-hippy-terrorist-nutter.
I can see, clear as day, who is attempting to pull my strings, who is attempting to “nudge” me into hating my fellow Americans if they are not white, and I reject that with all my heart and soul. To them, I smile. Sorry, you will not turn me into the very thing I hate, and I will not read your race war script or play your race war game.
I’m white and female, but I can’t control that (and wouldn’t change a thing if I could). But my race and biological sex is not the sum total of WHO I am.
Isn’t that the real goal of the incredibly toxic and overtly racist CRT and “antiracism” training? Eliminate individualism, crush free thought, demolish sense of self. Divide and conquer, stir up unrest, spark a hot race/civil war?
Yeah, no. I’m not good at being a puppet for anyone, particularly not for anti-American, unhinged commie lunatics who are clearly and overtly orchestrating a national blood bath.
Yeah. No. I will never ever succumb to this crazy. I will not hate based on skin color, and I will never feel guilty or “less than” for something I cannot control (my skin color, biological sex). I will never ever play into the Marxist commie hands by allowing them to infest my heart and mind with hate, and I will never ever in any way aid in either the demoralization of our great country nor in its destabilization.
The commies fail if we don’t deliver the demoralized, destabilized goods. I’m good with that.
@Fuzzy Slippers
“You think America has an “issue” with race?”
I didn’t actually say that I said the US has an issue. Defining the substance of that issue is tricky, race might be a component. I’m not willing to exclude race as a substantive cause but neither am I willing to frame the debate in terms of Critical Race Theory.
If you are going to go into rant mode you might want to understand what I’m saying first. Its a bit disappointing that you went down the path you have given I even frame the first part of my response as being uncomfortable with CRT.
Racism is a personal failing, and then, really, only if the racist acts on it.
The judicial system acts as it always has: you get the “justice” you can pay for. To the degree that black Americans have been forced into poverty through segregation and Jim Crow, you can say that the courts are, in effect, “racist,” but the truth is, as it has always been, that vigorous legal defense is a high-dollar commodity. Everyone without sufficient capital stays in jail until a PD advises them to plea bargain, despite a defendant’s actual guilt or innocence.
“Systemic racism” in the US is one of the left’s Big Lies.
Of course it existed through segregation, Jim Crow, and pretty much ended with the revelation of “redlining,” though “white flight” itself, especially in many of the more dangerous and ugly cities, was a natural response to the poor and ignorant’s track record of fouling their nests, exaggerated only slightly by greedy real estate agents. Anyway, 1980 is a good ballpark year for approximating institutional racism’s fadeout. There may be relatively small holdouts in some of our Southern backwaters, in which newspaper editors and local police departments retain their Klanish fantasies, but this is speculation about a shrinking minority.
Now, anti-white neo-racism is the guiding principle of most of our institutions and a growing number of multinational corporations, for PR purposes. Race grifters will get their “reparations” one way or another.
All of this is an extremely convenient distraction from the ongoing fact of American Fascism, the symbiosis between gigantic multinational corporations and the USG (see the latest series of “bailouts” attributed to the Wuhan virus).
That’s your answer to Fuzzy? You come here and make rants and then accuse a Moderator who takes the time to give you a reasoned response of going off into rant mode?
mark,
You did in fact state that ‘the US has an issue’. You didn’t specifically identify what that issue was. You seemed to suggest that the issue was a combination of of qualified immunity and incarceration rates.
Incarceration rates – IMO, for pre 2015 I might be willing to agree that our system sometimes does fail and we over incarcerate truly nonviolent first time felons. Though that sentiment is tempered by my opinion that we have a serious failure to execute those convicted of murder, rape and child abuse/exploitation.
Qualified Immunity – as currently enacted, I could tentatively agree. IMO, this should be a much simpler process with a clear bright line test. Did the individual LEO act within agency policy and his training? If so qualified immunity should be extended. If not then why not? Was a new policy enacted, how many training hours were conducted to ensure compliance?
We can’t expect a two hour PowerPoint presentation on a new use of force policy to overcome the months of Academy training, years of refresher/sustainment training and years of experience utilizing the prior policy. It isn’t realistic nor show any commitment by the agency to the new policy if they refuse to devote the funds and time to counter the training and experience of a a 15 veteran LEO.
That lack of commitment for allocation of resources extends to the elected officials and their constituents. If it means pulling in officers for a few weeks initially with ongoing sustainment training to overcome the previous training under a prior policy then either the community ponies up the taxes or they just want a headline that the policy was changed.
In that event the individual LEO isn’t to blame for using his prior training because he has built that into ‘muscle memory’. He doesn’t think about what he is doing he simply reacts and executes the response his training hard wired. In this case the LEO, IMO, should still be granted qualified immunity.
@userp
My comment was hardly a rant.
My position was mischarchterised by fuzzy which was a long diatribe about something I’d never even argued and explicitly mentioned was not my position. That’s pretty annoying.
@commo chief
I did indeed state the us had an issue but I also stated that CRT was something I was uncomfortable with Fuzzys rant in its entirety related to her feelings towards the impact of CRT on her personally. That’s fair enough but her characterisation was that I had signed up to CRT which I had explicitly pointed out I had not.
With regard to qualified immunity and incarceration. I think we are in agreement in broad strokes. I’ve made my statements in a tentative manner also. I think there is an issue and it’s worthy of a serious analysis. From my understanding of the US system it looks pretty unsatisfactory. I’d say it’s a systematic issue but for clarity Im not sure I could link that to race. IMO the US has never really taken the time to investigate reform. More of the same isn’t working.
mark,
Very oversimplified, the US legal system is derived from the British. Evidence, jury trial ECT.
In broad strokes our Police concentrate their presence in areas of high crime. Mostly this is a function of culture rather than race. Bad decisions like dropping out of school and having kids outside marriage leads to problems.
In the US, statistically speaking, in order to enter and remain in the middle class economically one needs to do a very few things:
1. Graduate High School ( implied is that one actually received and earned the education represented by the diploma).
2. Get a job. Keep that job until one is offered a better paying job.
3. Don’t have children outside marriage.
4. Don’t have children until you have a household income to support them.
5. Get married and stay married.
People who follow this path have a better than 90% chance of entering and remaining in the middle economic class.
High crime areas have a culture that largely doesn’t follow this path. This is true for criminals of every ‘race’.
People who don’t follow this path enter a series of cascading bad choices and frankly despair. They see slinging drugs as their economic alternative.
The drug trade is dangerous. People fight and kill over territory. This creates revenge killings which beget more violence.
Petty crimes like shoplifting are small potatoes to these folks. Their behavior devolves as they sink deeper into crimes.
Poor decisions and apathy trap the criminals. Individuals do ‘get out’ and reject that lifestyle so it isn’t impossible. Others could do the same.
We have free healthcare, free education, food support, housing vouchers, ECT. At last count the US has in excess of 80 separate programs designed to lift people out of poverty.
The people who chose to reject mainstream values and social norms have made a bad choice. They are the only ones who can reverse their choices.
What does this have to do with incarnation? Easy, police patrol high crime areas. More police presence = more police encounter = more arrests. The system will provide a public defender. Like anything else, you receive what you pay for.
Historically, every legal system is designed by and exercised for the benefit of the middle class and the rich. We have lots of statutory, procedural and precedents based protection built in here in the US. We don’t set out to screw over the ‘poor’ and generally speaking our criminal justice system doesn’t do so.
Our civil system is another matter. That is run by and for the rich. No real way to change the fact that if I can pay a team of a half dozen of the best attorneys $500 an hour, pay for 1st rate expert testimony and spend whatever it takes then I can basically buy a verdict. Very rare for a well heeled client to lose when they can drag out the process and fully utilize their economic advantage.
“My comment was hardly a rant.”
Really? Then why did you get 13 thumbs down? Cause you’re right and everybody is wrong?
@ UserP
I’m not really inclined to care about thumbs up or down. It’s pretty meaningless. Given I’ve described exactly why I think Fuzzys comments were a rant and my own statement was pretty short and to the point I’m not really clear rant would be an appropriate term.
@commo chief
Yeah you may well be right, I think the honest answer from my point of view is I don’t know nearly enough to make a comment. I think there are likely to be many factors some of which you mention. In terms of law enforcement I think the US is poorly equipped and stuck in a rut. It’s not really tried alternative systems as far as I can tell (correct me if I’m wrong)?
Ummm the US definitely doesnt have free health care?
Tricky set of problems , I’ve not read a lot about the issue and it’s certainly been politicised quite heavily. All I know with reasonable surety is that the current system is inadequate
Mark,
For the population we are discussing, the non working poor, the US provides free healthcare; Medicaid. Additionally every ER is required to treat everyone who shows up. Plus free clinics located in these communities staffed by volunteer nurses and physicians. Obviously this varies by location.
Alternatives to incarceration? Well lots of diversion programs exist for youthful offenders. No jail, but supervised probation and school or work attendance requirements.
Also lots of leniency for first time offenders and low level non violent offenders. Little if any jail time.
Since the mid to late sixties the US has spent untold billions on these alternatives to incarceration. Mild success. It boils down to this.
The individual offered leniency and help with finishing their abandoned education and in finding a job must commit to being disciplined enough to follow through.
The overwhelming majority do not and likely can not. They are beyond help. If an 18 year old kid started with petty theft and acting as a lookout for his drug slinging older relatives when he was 10 or 12, then by 16 he has dropped out of school and sunk deeper into the trade. By 18 he is a full gang member with the violent crimes that initiation required.
Now at 18 he got sloppy and got caught red handed. His juvenile record won’t count at trial but will for sentencing. He is now in adult court with adult consequences. Lets say a car jacking. He’s looking at serving anywhere from 2-10 years on a sentence of up to 15 years depending upon any enhanced sentencing guidelines.
That’s fair all things considered. Now he goes to prison and comes out PO at the world, determined to make up for lost time in his advance up the ladder of criminality.
He will be committed more high stakes crimes with more violence. He will get caught and sentenced again for 5-15 depending on space available in the prison.
When he gets out he will be mid thirties or older. Oh, and the child or children he fathered when he was 16 or 17, have now finished their last stint juvenile and have graduated to the next ring on the criminal ladder.
The individual is the only person who can actually improve his life. All the basic resources were present but were wasted. Free education, healthcare, housing, food assistance. All the basic needs met plus an opportunity to get an education. Ignored and wasted by these young people.
It’s sad but no outside entity can work a miracle of change if the intended recipient rebuffs it and refuses to grasp the opportunity being presented.
That ain’t a systemic problem. It’s an individual one.
@mark311
Gee Mark I’m surprised you took the time to go back and read the comments to this old post. That’s worth 2 thumbs up. Have a good day.
Um, Fuzzy, Mark didn’t say the USA has a race issue. He said we have an issue, which we clearly do. We have several issues, one of which is a violent crime rate that’s high by Western standards. We’ve always had that, for centuries, though lately European crime rates have started to rival ours.
But what many foreigners don’t understand is that crime in the USA is not evenly distributed. The vast majority of the USA is extremely peaceful, more so than most of Europe. There are a few pockets of extreme crime, which make the national average radically different from what that vast majority experiences. As Eric Raymond puts it, the USA is divided between Switzerland and Swaziland.
And the crime rate in the Swaziland sections is largely driven by a degenerate culture in those places that raises young men to be thugs. The culture that produces a Trayvon Martin or a Michael Brown, who feel entitled to do whatever they like and to do violence against anyone who offends them, much like young noblemen in medieval Europe. (The Kennedys are the product of a culture very similar in some important respects, and in fact there are historians who trace modern urban black culture directly back to the Scots/Irish Borderland culture.)
“degenerate culture”
Interesting , you take those facts and arrive at the conclusion of degenerate culture and others take those facts and see systematic issues driven by things like poverty, a system that has been historically oppressive. I’m not comfortable with CRT but I’m also not comfortable with the position you take which is blame the culture. That may be part of it sure but there are other factors of significance.
You mention historians tracing back culture to the Scots and Irish? Who might those be, sounds interesting
Mark, people in the 19th century who thought crime is caused by poverty had the excuse of being early and not having much in the way of data or analysis available to them, so they could be excused for having pretty delusions. Anyone who still thinks that in the 21st century is just soft in the head. If there’s one fact that two centuries of experience has shown us it’s that crime is not caused by poverty.
The same applies to “systematic oppression”. There hasn’t been any to speak of in a very long time. On the contrary, it’s crime that causes all the things that people point to as examples of “oppression”.
That black urban culture is degenerate is perfectly obvious. Anyone who demands proof or pretends not to know it is just dishonest. But it is an axiom of “anti-racist” ideology that there cannot be such a thing as a degenerate culture, that we must act as if we believed all cultures are of equal value. But they aren’t. They just aren’t. Some cultures are better than others, and some are so bad that they deserve to be destroyed.
For historians drawing a connection between the Scots/Irish Borderland culture, the Southern US white culture, and Southern US black culture which became urban black culture and then gangsta culture, I believe Thomas Sowell has written about it.
@Milhouse
Umm I’m not convinced of your argument that poverty isn’t linked to crime? You seem to be asserting that without much in the way of evidence? I’ve not really delved into the issues before but a quick google seems to indicate a lot of literature pointing to a link between crime and poverty. I’m not really sure you can dismiss it out of hand.
With regard to systemic oppression, obviously historically there has been a lot but I’ve no idea whether that remains true or not. Im simply not in a position to comment
Black urban culture. Again I’m not really comfortable drawing such a generalisation. I can see you have an argument to an extent, Clearly there are elements of a subset of cultures within the black community that are negative but I don’t know how broad it is. As my previous para i simply don’t know nearly enough to reach any kind of conclusion.
Regarding Thomas Sowell … thanks, he isn’t really a historian but looking at his books might be Black Rednecks and White Liberals – a collection of essays. Could be an interesting read. Thanks.
Don’t be ridiculous, Milhouse. This is a post and discussion about the plummeting support for BLM, and you want to play semantics with @mark311 not specifically using the word “race” in his statement that the US clearly has a problem. What do you imagine he meant? Switzerland? What?
Look, sometimes, you are interesting, but when you are being nitpicky pedantic just for the sake of it, you just seem like a silly old man. Stop it. OF COURSE he meant a race problem, what else could he possibly mean in a discussion about RACE and BLM? /sigh
“In short, the only serious issue America has with race is the lunatic nutters like yourself who falsely claim that we are a racist nation. We are not.”
You misspelled “now.” We weren’t before. But here we are, now, as a result of all this “anti-racism.”
“Pressed into a corner, I’m supposed to react, to blame and hate POC and go on some crazed Charles Manson Helter Skelter rampage.”
Well, here’s an interesting thought experiment. If you had a little button on the desk in front of you that could immediately disappear an American destroyer of America, and it worked as many times as you cared to push it, whose names would pop into your mind?
The names that immediately come to my mind are Pelosi, Schumer, Lemon, Maddow, Newsom, Lightfoot, Whitmer, Walz, Frey, Feinstein, Ted Wheeler, Kate Brown, Northam, Sulzberger, AOC, Omar, and a big ol’ double-tap for George Soros.
You’ll notice only one black person on that list, and she’s not at all a token.
White people aren’t fooled as to who the enemy really is. Blacks are, though.
When people are life long criminals, an assumption of guilt is reasonable, and it is also reasonable to believe that they will use anything they can to avoid being held accountable.
It is also likely that they will dislike and feel entitled to try and punish those whose job is to reign them in.
When being arrested it is common for criminals to make false claims about their health. So if liars die as a result of their collective bad behavior, tough.
A presumption of guilt is alien to a justice system. That justice 101. So no that is a terrible idea, making someone a criminal based on there past leads to miscarriages of justice and let’s face it the US has a history of that.
Again the health of a criminal is still important, having committed a crime doesn’t suddenly make them less of a person.
You strike me as someone who would basically perpetuate the issue further. The US policy has always been (as a general rule) to increase sentences, more enforcement, it hasn’t worked that’s been the trend (with few exceptions) for a long time. The only exception to that I can think of is the zero tolerance policy in New York. As I understand it that worked well in part because the low level crimes were picked and it stopped the escalation into more serious ones. It’s that later part which the US hasn’t gotten to grips with on a systematic basis. That’s my tentative view anyways
“They still support inquiries into police departments, restrictions on policemen, a presumption of guilt for policemen, etc. Thus BLM has still won despite this.”
Well, I still support those, too. Because bad cops are damaging and destroying the lives of “people who look like me” just as much — if almost certainly more than — they do to black people.
It’s like the way so many people think Hamas has gone too far in trying to murder as many Jews as possible, but their underlying cause is still a just one. They still think the “Palestinians” are victims of an unjust occupation, and are entitled to a state of their own on all the land that Israel “stole” in ’67, and they should get it as soon as they agree to stop murdering Jews. And the only reason they think that is because of all the violence the Arabs have used over the decades. If not for that nobody would ever give their “cause” a moment’s consideration, since it so obviously lacks merit.
What I don’t get is why Hispanic support spiked up so much to begin with?
Life matters. You wouldn’t know that by the way socialist liberals celebrate abortion.
I wonder if black fetus parts bring a higher price than pink fetuses. Maybe it depends on what “they” do with those body parts.
Is there any price that Jane, Nancy, Cher or Babs might not pay to live another day?
Well, there’s “life” and there’s “inconvenient life.”
If the right-wing were truly racist and employed the left’s rules about “inconvenient life,” the left would know it.
It’s too easy to forget that there was once was a time in America when black lives were legally not human. It’s amazing what atrocities you can normalize via law. Yet we are not inclined to pursue them.
Jeff Bezos (and his ex wife), Tom Styer, Soros, that Swedish psycopathic billionaire Hansjörg Wyss, Bloomberg, Gates, Zuckerberg – they’re probably cranking out the money to these dangerous people overtime.
This parody starts off very funny, but the truth of it begins to horrify. It sums it all up:
Hitler Freaks Out That The Swamp Is Exposed:
https://drcharlieward.com/viral-spoof-video-from-the-web-of-hitler-going-mad-and-the-masked-world/
So maybe giving Marxism another shot using America as the next guinea pig isn’t yet as popular as American Marxists thought.
Too bad for Obama, Pelosi, and the rest of The Party.
Guess they’ll have to try to ramp up the indoctrination and censorship of ‘misinformation’ and ‘lies’.
I want to know who those 10% of idiot Republicans were who they claim voiced support for blacks looting and burning down the cities just after Boy George got high on a neo-speedball, tried to pass counterfeit money and then died in police custody probably because he ate the rest of his drugs as the cops were approaching his car (that he was driving when he was high as a kite). Probably the same as the 35 traitors in Congress (more than 10%!) who voted for the Kangaroo Jan 6th commission …
Yes, I’m so friggin’ sick of seeing these articles talking about the “murder” of George Floyd.
George Floyd was not murdered. Floyd died while in police custody, under restraint. He did not die because of the restraint.
Dr. Baker, the Hennepin County Medical Examiner who performed the autopsy on Floyd (and the only one of the state’s medical experts who ever actually examined Floyd’s body) initially concluded that Floyd died from a drug overdose, complicated by his severe heart disease and the exertion of fighting with cops for several minutes. Baker’s conclusions upset black activists, and one of them, a Dr. Mitchell who used to be an ME in Washington, D.C., and is now a black activist, called Baker and basically threatened to ruin his professional reputation (and probably more) if he didn’t say that the police restraint caused Floyd’s death. Dr. Baker, after much pressure from prosecutors and “activists” like Mitchell, then caved and changed his determination about what killed Floyd.
George Floyd was not murdered, but the truth about his death was.
The Chauvin trial destroyed what little faith remained in me in the justice system.
Now I fear that despite all signs of having made a 100% “good shoot,” Kyle Rittenhouse is now almost certainly headed for the same railroad depot.
I’m afraid it’s time to check the “jury box” off the list of four boxes. Now only one remains.
While all lives matter, including black ones, no one’s life is more valuable than another’s because of any external attribute.
The BLM organization, and therefore anyone supporting it by using their registered trademark, is supporting the worst kind of evil that denigrates all life, including and maybe especially black life. Marxism is the worst kind of evil that has been seen on the face of the earth. All lives are reduced to the value they provide as a cog in the state machine to bring wealth and power to the ruling committee.
The sad part is that if the ruling class of Marxists were to take over fully, the leaders of BLM and the foot soldiers in Antifa would be just as worthless as those they hate so much. Only the very small party leadership has any value.
BLM is nothing but another emotional liberal hoax to stir up the electorate. Liberals should always be ignored! They are evil.
Marxists are more evil.
Of the tens and tens of billions of dollars that all those ‘woke’ companies promised to donate to BLM, only abut $500-million has shown up.
That’s still half a billion dollars more than those idiot corporations should have paid the BLM shake-down scammers.
Shown up where? in BLM’s books? Keep in mind that donations to BLM are often laundered through “ActBlue.” Lord knows how big the DNC tap on that pipeline is.
Two things I’d also say have contributed to the drop:
1) The major sports leagues doing all of the virtue signaling to the point their ratings cratered, especially the NBA’s. People stuck at home for months on end just wanted to watch some sports, not get preached at. It also didn’t help that you could have people out rioting without masks but nope, can’t outside in an open air stadium to watch a baseball game or a football game.
2) Something that is being seen in many more places than just the big cities: Jurisdictions having trouble recruiting and retaining new LEOs, and the ones who can retire doing so the instant they’re eligible, so you have more and more forces who are undermanned and with low morale. It’s happening where I live, and probably only going to get worse. That’s coupled with the Soros-backed DAs and prosecutors who do their best to do as little prosecuting as possible.
With the burning, looting, and rioting losing favor with the America citizenry, I hereby call on all my European-American WASPS to help strengthen our communities and preserve our heritage by supporting white-owned businesses and businesses that pander to our demands.
(I teach my children to flip the proverbial script and if it sounds racist, then the contrary probably is racist, also.)
Make a list, bro. I’m running out of good-faith suppliers.
Just found out about Epik from AR15.com; migrated all my domains there from GoDaddy due to GD’s toxic wokeness. But it took me months until I heard of a good alternative to escape to. I’ve left banks. credit cards. hosting providers, grocery brands, chain stores, you name it. The problem is always to know you’re not just jumping from the frying pan into another frying pan.
Heartening to see the backlash now upon us. I write to companies when I get ads and sweetly say that “you” are not marketing to me. Where are Latinos and Asians in your ads? I never do the”white” thing when I write them.
Also, Getty Museum, others always want to know your sex and race after a zoom lecture. My categories are never there. Of course, that is racist and discriminatory. I have a flexible background (Could be: Norwegian, Sami, Native American mix, one can never be certain of course what one “is” on a certain day. ) Therefore, by not having my category, I inform them they are discriminatory and racist and get indignant. At least it makes me feel better.
Every TV commercial has a pavmentApe as a leading figure nowadays. The thing is, these PA’s are never portrayed as they present themselves in public.
Accuracy would demand that the happy white woman in the TV commercial who is married to a pavmentApe be shown with two black eyes and a broken nose.
If we want to continue to present reasonable arguments my suggestion would be that we refrain from making racist statements.
Every time I hear the words “racial reckoning” I think of Rwanda.