Korean Job Discussion Forums

[endo]

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/11/18/dangerous.cities.ap/index.html

[reactionary]

i think they should've compared cities of similar sizes as well. "Sugar Land"? Never heard of it, but a city of 80,000 (wikipedia) shouldn't be compared to a large city like Detroit.

Maybe only look at cities with 500,000 people and up.

[Bibbitybop]

[mehmeh]

The list is such BS. While I can't speak for Detroit, I feel obliged to defend my short-term home, St. Louis. First, St. Louis is divided in two parts: the wealthy county and poorer city. Since a majority of the crime happens inside the little area called "St. Louis City" the whole region is painted with the same brush. Furthermore, inside the city itself, a majority of the crimes take place in a few neighborhoods on the north side. Another fact conveniently left out of the study. Finally, digging a little deeper I'm sure you'd find that most of the crimes are not "random" acts of violence but violence between two parties associated with each other (i.e. gangs).

I'm not denying that crime is a problem in St. Louis but I think boiling down such a complex issue into a top ten list is foolish.

[stevemcgarrett]

endo imagined:

[endo]

[mistermasan]

i live adjacent to east st.louis in a little town called fairmont city. yeah, east st.louis is a tough place. heck, there is a two gunshot wound minimum just to get in.

east st.louis is mostly blacks. east stl used to be a major transit and mfg center. the factory owners would bring up train loads of blacks from the deep south to break strikes. the whites moved out to better housing. the factories moved elsewhere. the blacks remain. like everybody, if you know them one-on-one all is well but if you don't know em behave well and keep on going. not really a problem.

yeah, estl is in dire straits and nobody has any ideas how to turn the tide. the gambling casino and the nascar track aren't really panaceas for anything.

[reactionary]

[Bibbitybop]

[stevemcgarrett]

Sugarland, Texas in Fort Bend County to the southwest of Houston is part rural and part town--it is not a rich enclave or hamlet, although it has a disproportionate number of upper middle class families relative to adjacent Harris County. I know; I used to live there many moons ago.

endo sputtered:

[happeningthang]

Steve, always a class act.

Since some have pointed out that there's a lot of black gun violence (with varying degrees of subtlety) I wonder if it's more related to poverty and the association of crime that goes with it. The poorer a community, the more motivation for crime and violence.

If that's the case then why not describe these statistics in terms of poor communities being more prone to violence, instead of in racial terms?

[thepeel]

It is true that a "bad neighborhood" in polite conversation is a reference to an area with many blacks. A "good school" has few blacks. Etc etc.

Admitting this isn't racist. What is racist (and I'm not saying any of you fit this) is to assume that the blacks are responsible for their own situation, and the historical injustices don't play into it. I don't know what the solution to all this is, but pretending that blacks don't commit more crime (and are more than likely the victim of black crime) will not help the black empowerment cause.

I suspect policy number 1 is to end the war on drugs and policy number two is school vouchers that allow black kids to get an education outside of the ghetto. Beyond that, I dunno.

[endo]

[happeningthang]

Fair enough Peel, but in the spirit of plain speech, why is all this negativity prefaced as being "black", when the real issue is one of poverty?

[thepeel]

The history of the United States has created a hyper race sensitive and race aware culture. While the DNA project has taught us that race is a social construction, tell that to the white lady being chased home from the subway. The language of race is used because it is the most simplistic.

I'm reminded of a post from the Mother Jones blog (from a black lady).