CIA Recruitment Video

[Belsnickel]

(05-26-2021, 11:56 AM)Wes Mantooth Wrote: Here's a simple cencus .pdf that shows percentages of married (and female householder, no husband present) for Black Americans from 1950 to 1991.

1950 - 78% were married
1960 - 74% were married
1970 - 68% were married
1980 - 56% were married
1990 - 50% were married
1991 - 48% were married

Source: https://www.census.gov/prod/1/statbrief/sb93_2.pdf

In 2016 that number now stands at 38.7%.

Source: https://afro.com/census-bureau-higher-percentage-black-children-live-single-mothers/

Yeah, I partially addressed that, above. Also, this is more of a class issue than racial (as with most things that people claim is a racial issue). We know this, because we are seeing this trend with white people, now, too.

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/family-structure-the-growing-importance-of-class/

So while it isn't 100% the prison industrial complex, it certainly plays a role, and with the addition of the structural efforts to prevent the black community from generating intergenerational wealth, it makes sense that class has this role.

[CJD]

(05-26-2021, 12:04 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: Yeah, I partially addressed that, above. Also, this is more of a class issue than racial (as with most things that people claim is a racial issue). We know this, because we are seeing this trend with white people, now, too.

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/family-structure-the-growing-importance-of-class/

So while it isn't 100% the prison industrial complex, it certainly plays a role, and with the addition of the structural efforts to prevent the black community from generating intergenerational wealth, it makes sense that class has this role.

Class issues and race issues often intermingle because your race has a rather large correlation to your class for systemically racist reasons that, while worse in the past, remain today and continue to ring through our society..

Class reductionism is useful in some ways, as I do believe a lot of race issues would be improved with class solidarity, and hurtful in others. For example, I honestly think it was the main problem Bernie had in relating to black Americans. He was even protested by BLM during his 2016 run because he attributed a lot of their issues to their class rather than race and implicitly wanted them to band together with people they felt antagonized by.

I do think single mother households are losing a large portion of their stigma, which is causing it to increase across all races, but I do think the war on drugs and the systemic jailing and longer prison sentences for black people (specifically black men) is also a reason for the higher rate for black people. It can be a little of both. The existence of one doesn't disprove the existence of the other.

[Wes Mantooth]

(05-26-2021, 12:04 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: So while it isn't 100% the prison industrial complex, it certainly plays a role, and with the addition of the structural efforts to prevent the black community from generating intergenerational wealth, it makes sense that class has this role.

That's putting it mildly.

Let's not sit here and pretend that today, in 2021, single parent households aren't more of cultural issue than they are simply an incarceration issue.

Need I list out a number of athletes with multiple children with multiple women, or further explore terms like "baby momma" and "baby daddy"?  Many of these exist completely seperate from the father being locked up.

Not sure what intergenerational wealth has to with it either.  I can think of many first and 2nd generation Americans who initially came here with absolutely nothing that have extremely high marriage rates.

[Belsnickel]

(05-26-2021, 12:14 PM)Crazyjdawg Wrote: Class issues and race issues often intermingle because your race has a rather large correlation to your class for systemically racist reasons that, while worse in the past, remain today and continue to ring through our society..

Class reductionism is useful in some ways, as I do believe a lot of race issues would be improved with class solidarity, and hurtful in others. For example, I honestly think it was the main problem Bernie had in relating to black Americans. He was even protested by BLM during his 2016 run because he attributed a lot of their issues to their class rather than race and implicitly wanted them to band together with people they felt antagonized by.

I do think single mother households are losing a large portion of their stigma, which is causing it to increase across all races, but I do think the war on drugs and the systemic jailing and longer prison sentences for black people (specifically black men) is also a reason for the higher rate for black people. It can be a little of both. The existence of one doesn't disprove the existence of the other.

Yeah, that whole situation is a mess thanks to decades of the wealthy elite doing their level best to keep racial animosity high by perpetuating racist stereotypes and fomenting distrust for the black community within the lower class white folks. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, usually, but let's just say it's highly sus that MLK was successfully assassinated as he started to switch his focus from the black community to the Poor People's Campaign and bringing together poor white people with the black community.

[Belsnickel]

(05-26-2021, 12:45 PM)Wes Mantooth Wrote: That's putting it mildly.

Let's not sit here and pretend that today, in 2021, single parent households aren't more of cultural issue than they are simply an incarceration issue.

Need I list out a number of athletes with multiple children with multiple women, or further explore terms like "baby momma" and "baby daddy"?  Many of these exist completely seperate from the father being locked up.

This started with your "chicken or egg" question, though. So it may be cultural, now, it became cultural in response to their situation in generations prior. There was a change, you pointed to it, yourself.

(05-26-2021, 12:45 PM)Wes Mantooth Wrote: Not sure what intergenerational wealth has to with it either.  I can think of many first and 2nd generation Americans who initially came here with absolutely nothing that have extremely high marriage rates.

Anecdotal evidence while ignoring the systemic issues we've been discussing this whole time. Yeah, don't care.

[Mickeypoo]

(05-26-2021, 11:37 AM)Wes Mantooth Wrote: Just wanted to quickly focus on this part...

Would you care to elaborate a bit on the limted access to decent jobs statement?

I'm not sure how one could argure that a location or it's proximity limits job opportunites on it's own.  I can think of plenty of "ghettos" in Cincinnati that are closer in proximity to decent paying jobs than those in the suburbs.  Also, if you had a decent job lined up, and your location was an issue that prevented employment most people would move in order to lessen their commute.

I'm not saying this was part of your argument, I'm only pointing this out to eliminate this as an explanation.  Actual physical location of residence should not prevent employment.

Now we can move on to the schools.  Perhaps the schools aren't good enough to acquire a quality education.  Maybe that's what you're getting at.  That coming from these areas puts you into poor schools, which in turn affects your ability to secure decent work down the line.

Most major cities public schools systems are spending an incredible amount on their students.  Here in Cincinnati the public schools are costing around 19.5k per year per student. 

Comparitively, some of top performing parcohial schools (St. X, Moeller, St. Ursala, Mercy, McNicholas, etc.) have tuitions that all hover around 14k.  Top public schools which consider to be in the burbs, like Forest Hills and Mason have reported spending of 10 and 12k per student.  The state average for ALL public schools is around 13k.

So I think we can surmise that money, or the investments being made to put into the education is not an issue.

We could now move on to higher education, but I feel we already know where this headed.  With federal student loans, grants, scholarships and everything that goes along with it, I don't think we can argue access to this is being restricted.

So where does all of this leave us?  I think that the answer is what was brought up earlier, there are "cultural" problems that exist in certain communites.  The opportunites are there, the accountability or responsbility is not.

I wish I knew the answer on how to fix this.  But maybe that answer isn't going to come from anyone outside of these communites.  It very well might be a problem that only they can truly fix.

Sorry for the long winded reply.  I could have just as easily just have written "Actual location itself doesn't limit job opportunites.  Culture does."

This 100%.  It's always excuses and never personal accountability.

[Mickeypoo]

(05-26-2021, 11:55 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: The trend of single-family households graph looks a lot like the graphs showing the growing percentage of incarerated individuals in our country thanks to the prison industrial complex, which was fed by laws targeting the black community disproportionately as well as disproportionate application of enforcement within the black community (i.e. similar numbers of marijuana users in white and black communities, but black individuals disproportionately represented in convictions for those crimes).

Again, personal accountability.  If you don't commit criminal acts you don't go to jail.

[Belsnickel]

(05-26-2021, 01:13 PM)Mickeypoo Wrote: Again, personal accountability.  If you don't commit criminal acts you don't go to jail.

Yep. We'll just ignore the systemic inequalities in the criminal justice system.

[Mickeypoo]

(05-26-2021, 01:15 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: Yep. We'll just ignore the systemic inequalities in the criminal justice system.

Ok, sounds good.  Less excuses. Sounds to me like you are saying non criminals are being rounded up and thrown in jail. Don't commit crimes, don't go to jail.

If you have morals, integrity, respect for others and don't break the law you will be fine.  Why is this so difficult?

Look at all these pro athletes that have everything and still act like thug dipsh!ts.  That's not because of "systemic inequalities", that's just not understanding how to function in a civilized society.

[Dill]

(05-26-2021, 12:45 PM)Wes Mantooth Wrote: Let's not sit here and pretend that today, in 2021, single parent households aren't more of cultural issue than they are simply an incarceration issue.

Need I list out a number of athletes with multiple children with multiple women, or further explore terms like "baby momma" and "baby daddy"?  Many of these exist completely seperate from the father being locked up.

Not sure what intergenerational wealth has to with it either.  I can think of many first and 2nd generation Americans who initially came here with absolutely nothing that have extremely high marriage rates.

Yow, the pots a cookin' an I'm late for dinner. Is that egg soup, or chicken? Smells good either way. Been gone all day and return to some excitement. Bels has answered some of your questions I think. To tag back in, I want to address the bolded first.

We are talking about culture and history, remember? So the thesis is not that there is an immediate, one-to-one cause/effect relation between locked up dads and sons having multiple babies with multiple women. 

Were my father locked up when I was 12, it is highly unlikely that would have spurred me to make a lot of babies everywhere, because of "cultural" prohibitions in my demographic, plus the fact no one else's father in my considerable extended family is in prison and my cousins tended to be monogamous. If you get locked up, I'll not bother advising your son to carry condoms.

Many of the Black families who moved north during the first wave of migration in the 1920s were "intact": married mothers and fathers whose kids were their kids. That was their "culture." And they were funneled into special places in cities and suburbs where it was felt they'd be happier with "their own kind"--and not affect "real" Americans' real estate prices. Some went into custodial/cleaning work; some got manufacturing/construction jobs (though still always last hired and first fired; union protection was iffy). As many as 10% were skilled tradesmen (e.g. bricklayers). How many become doctors, lawyers, owners of big business, in short, upper-middle class professionals? The answer is not many, and those that did tended to reach that "pinnacle" only in places with sufficient clientele, like South Chicago and Harlem. They lived in places which tended to lack police protection, and which suffered from higher unemployment. Few Jeffersons movin' on up. 

Malcom X came from one such family. His father, a Klan and Black Legion target, died in a suspicious streetcar accident which, if memory serves me correctly, was ruled a suicide by a life insurance denying pay out he'd provided for his family. His mother eventually began dating another man, became pregnant by him, and went crazy when he disappeared. X was put in foster homes, and eventually turned to criminality. Some of the most poignant moments in his Autobiography are when teachers praise his writing talent but urge him not to finish HS or go to college because he would not be needing it for the jobs he'd be getting. He records well how the combination of blocked legitimate opportunities and omnipresent illegitimate worked as incentives on everything from fashion choices (the "conk") to criminal behavior, such as selling drugs. Among the incentives lost, too, were desire for stable marriage and home. While reading his work, I admitted to myself that I would be just as susceptible to his "bad" choices in his circumstances. Thank heavens for my current "personal accountability" which prevents them. 

The paths of millions of black men and women in the 40s, the next generation, were linked to the same incentives. They grew up in a different environment than their southern-born parents. Many (including those who could easily be doctors or lawyers today) kept to their honest jobs as cab drivers, porters, house cleaners, and assembly line workers. Occasionally some tried college; few were accepted; fewer graduated. Their portions of cities became depressed and dirtier than other portions. With higher unemployment, and given the despair about not "movin' on up," they also became a magnet for drugs and crime, which sent a higher proportion of their demographic to prison--"personal accountability"*-- leaving more and more women to raise sons without fathers, teaching daughters how to cope without fathers.  So sure, at some point, in the next generation or the generation after that, there will be more unmarried parents. And sons whose main masculine role models are peers who brag about playing women, and don't plan to stay with any of them. In some neighborhoods, that will be "the culture."  For sure, it comes "last."*

For some of our white brethren, this is still about personal accountability. Theirs, not ours. Choices aren't as limited as they used to be. There is a Black upper middle class now. A rich celebrity athlete has "no excuse" for irresponsible fathering. The question here is not whether his father, specifically, went to prison, but who were his peers growing up, and who were their adult role models growing up? Did he choose that formative environment? I don't think my "choices," my life goals etc., have never been separate from an upbringing geared to exploit the resources open to me, and to avoid pitfalls like children out of prison and wedlock. Why should I suppose things any different for our rich athlete?  

Given limitations of time and space, I am leaving out some important developments in the 50s and 60s which hasten and amplify this process, especially the liberating impact of the Civil Rights movement, and of pop culture, which affected the range of desirable role models for Blacks and Whites, not to mention life-style choices, adding "counter-cultural" inflections. But these impact "White culture" as well.

My mother had six brothers, all of whose marriages lasted over 60 years, as did hers. My generation is more like 40% got divorces (I've been married once, for 43 years). As far as the children of my cousins, I'm betting the divorce rate is higher than 60%, and with a some not getting married at all. (Anecdotes, properly processed, can be useful and revealing.) 

*I.e., if they had morals, integrity, respect for others and didn't break the law, they'd have been fine. Why was this so difficult, back when the law worked one way for Whites and another for Blacks?

[Dill]

(05-26-2021, 01:26 PM)Mickeypoo Wrote: Look at all these pro athletes that have everything and still act like thug dipsh!ts.  That's not because of "systemic inequalities", that's just not understanding how to function in a civilized society.

Do you think upbringing has anything to do with "understanding how to function in a civilized society"? 

[Dill]

(05-26-2021, 10:55 AM)Wes Mantooth Wrote: Here's a chicken or the egg type of question for you...

Is the culture created by the "ghetto", or is the "ghetto" created by the culture?

Fwiw, I'm tempted to really delve into this whole culture debate but I'm not sure it's even a conversation that can be had in today's climate without being immediately branded as racist.

Let me just say this, there are some serious problems that we either try to explain away or rationalize (make excuses), or we downright ignore.   It's doing no one any good, and especially not black people.  You can't fix problems without being able to properly identify said problem.

The Kings Island story from this past weekend (brawls shut down the park) is a perfect example of a cultural problem.  That type of behavior should not exist in a civilized society. 

Well, I'm going to brand people "racist" if they don't delve in. So watch out, buddy.*

To the bolded, you and I are on the same page there. Looks like you and Bels and Mick are pushing forward an inquiry into that problem today. Good work. 

I'm with Bels on the above--ghetto creates culture.  How could it not? True everywhere. First example comes to mind--Palestinian refugee camps which have been placed in Jordan since '67, strangling entire generations. Many people in those camps would kill me if they could. Haters gonna hate right? Some say it's their religion.

The big question then is going to be what happens once the ghetto's boundaries break up, and some enculturated there suddenly "move on up" into the middle class; how do they respond to the norms and mores which buttress its opportunities? Two interesting perspectives on this now--one from Black Conservatives and another from our CRT friends. They curiously dovetail on some points as far as identifying the problem, but they distribute responsibility differently. 

*In the history of this forum, people have not generally been branded "racist" for raising and exploring honest questions--at least by the "lefties." 
I have myself been accused of "real" racism and "soft" racism, which doesn't bother me much. 

[Vas Deferens]

Mind blowing that some people, no matter how many times it’s explained to them, cannot fathom the idea of privilege in 2021. I get that it’s easier to deny reality and bunker into a narrow worldview, but I sure as hell wouldn’t want to walk through life knowing I’m taking the easiest mental path possible. Sad really.

[Wes Mantooth]

(05-26-2021, 08:40 PM)Vas Deferens Wrote: Mind blowing that some people, no matter how many times it’s explained to them, cannot fathom the idea of privilege in 2021.   I get that it’s easier to deny reality and bunker into a narrow worldview, but I sure as hell wouldn’t want to walk through life knowing I’m taking the easiest mental path possible.  Sad really.

I have to be totally honest, I think it's comments like this that discourage conversations like these.

This thread started out with a video that the CIA of all places made, that was cringeworthy levels of pandering.  Since then it's kind of morphed into different conversations about home appraisals, neighborhoods, and culture.  At no point do I recall the idea of privilege even being discussed, much less dismissed, or ignored. 

It seems you've set a moving target.  When specific issues are being discussed I think it's very important to address them individually.  When you enter into the conversation using a term like privilege, as means to refute pages and pages of individual stances on individual topics, it seems both lazy and insincere.

The very least you could do is to actually quote a post and explain how you think privilege is being ignored, or how you think it fits into the conversation.  But, by just casually bringing it up, it seems like just another person looking for a buzzword to ignore healthy debate.

Would you like to elaborate a bit on how privilege is being ignored?  Perhaps you could single out a specific person, post or topic and explain how it relates.  I think that may help, no?

[CJD]

(05-26-2021, 12:52 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: Yeah, that whole situation is a mess thanks to decades of the wealthy elite doing their level best to keep racial animosity high by perpetuating racist stereotypes and fomenting distrust for the black community within the lower class white folks. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, usually, but let's just say it's highly sus that MLK was successfully assassinated as he started to switch his focus from the black community to the Poor People's Campaign and bringing together poor white people with the black community.

What was the old LBJ quote?
"If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket."

I'm sure those black people noticed and resented the "lowest white man" for this behavior. 

Much like the southern strategy, this division of the lower class was almost certainly an intentional strategy to keep power in the hands of the few.

[Mickeypoo]

(05-26-2021, 06:55 PM)Dill Wrote: Do you think upbringing has anything to do with "understanding how to function in a civilized society"? 

So their parents don't know how to act civilized and fail their kids?  So their parents don't have a basic understanding of right and wrong?  

Killing, violence toward innocent people, abusing animals, theft, destruction of property, etc.  Sorry, I don't care what your upbringing is, it is a basic human understanding that these things are wrong.

Almost all people know right from wrong.  The problem is not having the self control, morals, ethics, respect, whatever to do right instead of wrong.

A culture of glorifying gang banging, pimpin' hoes, murder, violence and drugs has some serious soul searching to do.

[Mickeypoo]

(05-26-2021, 08:40 PM)Vas Deferens Wrote: Mind blowing that some people, no matter how many times it’s explained to them, cannot fathom the idea of privilege in 2021.   I get that it’s easier to deny reality and bunker into a narrow worldview, but I sure as hell wouldn’t want to walk through life knowing I’m taking the easiest mental path possible.  Sad really.

You mean fathom personal accountability in 2021?  It's much easier to blame privilege for your problems and be a victim then be a good person and work hard to succeed.

[Dill]

(05-27-2021, 10:27 AM)Mickeypoo Wrote: So their parents don't know how to act civilized and fail their kids?  So their parents don't have a basic understanding of right and wrong?  

Killing, violence toward innocent people, abusing animals, theft, destruction of property, etc.  Sorry, I don't care what your upbringing is, it is a basic human understanding that these things are wrong.

I think a lot of parents don't know "how to act civilized." And there is no "basic understanding of right and wrong" shared by everyone and separate from upbringing, separate from history, and separate from power relations between dominant and dominated groups. "Right and wrong" for the powerful are often very different from right and wrong for the weak and dominated. The liberal concept of UNIVERSAL human rights, and the conceptions of right and wrong appropriate to it, are the consequence of thousands of years of political development responding to this insight.

If we could really count on a "basic human understanding" that "kllling, violence toward innocent people" etc. is wrong, the U.S. government would not have backed violence towards and forcible theft from non-white people in North America. It would not now be backing the subjugation of Palestinians in the Middle East.

But people did/do back it--because their "upbringing" taught them they were behaving rightly. Slave owners had a right to their property. Emancipation was "theft." Israel has a right to the property it took from Palestinians, and a right to defend the theft; as for Palestinian resistance--is it a basic human understanding that "violence towards innocent people, abusing animals, theft, destruction of property" are wrong when Palestinians do it, but not when it is done to them? 

(05-27-2021, 10:27 AM)Mickeypoo Wrote: Almost all people know right from wrong.  The problem is not having the self control, morals, ethics, respect, whatever to do right instead of wrong.

You would probably agree that slavery and segregation were wrong. But would you frame their enforcement/toleration by white people and federal and state government as a matter of "not having self control, morals, ethics, respect, whatever to do right instead of wrong"? If you listen to the justifications of slavery/segregation, they are all about "civilization" and "understanding right and wrong." White supremacists represented themselves as having "self control, morals" etc., and that is what gave them the right to own/control people they claimed did not have that self control or those morals. From today's (liberal) perspective, their "self control and morality" was exactly the absence of that. It marked their choice to take value they hadn't earned by force, an inability to place others rights and interests above their own self interest.

People in the federal government who, in the '20s, '30s, '40s and '50s, built anti-Black "covenants" into federally funded housing projects, and the hundreds of thousands of contractors and realtors who enforced those covenants, forcing Black Americans into the worst and most depressed urban and suburban spaces--did they know right from wrong? What were they "respecting"? And what were they teaching THEIR children about "self control and morals"? What did it sound like to Black residents of those spaces, when Whites told them not to rely on "excuses," but accept "personal accountability" and "work hard to succeed"?

(05-27-2021, 10:27 AM)Mickeypoo Wrote: A culture of glorifying gang banging, pimpin' hoes, murder, violence and drugs has some serious soul searching to do.

I don't think a "culture of glorifying gang banging" etc. helps anyone. I agree it is a problem.

What I disagree with is framing that problem as if it were only "their" problem, that past and present policies limiting "their" rights and opportunities have nothing to do with existence of "gang bang culture" now.  As if people in certain urban spaces just decided to be bad one day, independently of their existence in an environment of legal double standards enforced upon them for generations. EVERYONE knows right from wrong so we are absolved from thinking about why "they" choose "wrong." We are tired of "excuses." Or "their" excuses, anyway. WE weren't raised in one of those depressed urban spaces by families whose opportunities had been limited for generations, but even if we had, by god, we'd still have made good choices and never failed our kids. Because everyone knows right from wrong. WE don't "make excuses." And that's what sets US apart, right? Our "personal accountability." 

As someone fond of studying history, I am often frightened and anxious at how fragile civilization is. It is always only a generation old. If the behaviors, lessons, and beliefs which foster it are not taught to every new generation, then civilization will not continue.  It will collapse until such time as enough people relearn those behaviors, lessons and beliefs. That's why I don't glorify "pimpin' hos" and such like. But by the same token I am equally worried about framing social problems as mere consequence of individual choices unaffected by history and social environment WE have controlled, thus perpetuating the kind of power imbalances which made "pimpin'" seem a reasonable career choice in the first place. 

People have to relearn precisely because there is no "basic human understanding" which doesn't have to be learned, and which, in absence of teaching, simply exists as something "all parents know" and share.  "Morality" may be understood quite differently by parents who grew up seeing how one interpretation of it limited their and their children's opportunities. Some may come to a very different idea of how not to "fail their kids" than parents raised to maximize the benefit of their unlimited opportunities. 

[Mickeypoo]

(05-27-2021, 12:15 PM)Dill Wrote: I think a lot of parents don't know "how to act civilized." And there is no "basic understanding of right and wrong" shared by everyone and separate from upbringing, separate from history, and separate from power relations between dominant and dominated groups. "Right and wrong" for the powerful are often very different from right and wrong for the weak and dominated. The liberal concept of UNIVERSAL human rights, and the conceptions of right and wrong appropriate to it, are the consequence of thousands of years of political development responding to this insight.

If we could really count on a "basic human understanding" that "kllling, violence toward innocent people" etc. is wrong, the U.S. government would not have backed violence towards and forcible theft from non-white people in North America. It would not now be backing the subjugation of Palestinians in the Middle East.

But people did/do back it--because their "upbringing" taught them they were behaving rightly. Slave owners had a right to their property. Emancipation was "theft." Israel has a right to the property it took from Palestinians, and a right to defend the theft; as for Palestinian resistance--is it a basic human understanding that "violence towards innocent people, abusing animals, theft, destruction of property" are wrong when Palestinians do it, but not when it is done to them? 


You would probably agree that slavery and segregation were wrong. But would you frame their enforcement/toleration by white people and federal and state government as a matter of "not having self control, morals, ethics, respect, whatever to do right instead of wrong"? If you listen to the justifications of slavery/segregation, they are all about "civilization" and "understanding right and wrong." White supremacists represented themselves as having "self control, morals" etc., and that is what gave them the right to own/control people they claimed did not have that self control or those morals. From today's (liberal) perspective, their "self control and morality" was exactly the absence of that. It marked their choice to take value they hadn't earned by force, an inability to place others rights and interests above their own self interest.

People in the federal government who, in the '20s, '30s, '40s and '50s, built anti-Black "covenants" into federally funded housing projects, and the hundreds of thousands of contractors and realtors who enforced those covenants, forcing Black Americans into the worst and most depressed urban and suburban spaces--did they know right from wrong? What were they "respecting"? And what were they teaching THEIR children about "self control and morals"? What did it sound like to Black residents of those spaces, when Whites told them not to rely on "excuses," but accept "personal accountability" and "work hard to succeed"?


I don't think a "culture of glorifying gang banging" etc. helps anyone. I agree it is a problem.

What I disagree with is framing that problem as if it were only "their" problem, that past and present policies limiting "their" rights and opportunities have nothing to do with existence of "gang bang culture" now.  As if people in certain urban spaces just decided to be bad one day, independently of their existence in an environment of legal double standards enforced upon them for generations. EVERYONE knows right from wrong so we are absolved from thinking about why "they" choose "wrong." We are tired of "excuses." Or "their" excuses, anyway. WE weren't raised in one of those depressed urban spaces by families whose opportunities had been limited for generations, but even if we had, by god, we'd still have made good choices and never failed our kids. Because everyone knows right from wrong. WE don't "make excuses." And that's what sets US apart, right? Our "personal accountability." 

As someone fond of studying history, I am often frightened and anxious at how fragile civilization is. It is always only a generation old. If the behaviors, lessons, and beliefs which foster it are not taught to every new generation, then civilization will not continue.  It will collapse until such time as enough people relearn those behaviors, lessons and beliefs. That's why I don't glorify "pimpin' hos" and such like. But by the same token I am equally worried about framing social problems as mere consequence of individual choices unaffected by history and social environment WE have controlled, thus perpetuating the kind of power imbalances which made "pimpin'" seem a reasonable career choice in the first place. 

People have to relearn precisely because there is no "basic human understanding" which doesn't have to be learned, and which, in absence of teaching, simply exists as something "all parents know" and share.  "Morality" may be understood quite differently by parents who grew up seeing how one interpretation of it limited their and their children's opportunities. Some may come to a very different idea of how not to "fail their kids" than parents raised to maximize the benefit of their unlimited opportunities. 

Even that little girl at Little Caesars knew right from wrong when she tried to stop her mom.  And her mom was failing her.  She still knew.  I'm not buying these excuses for bad behavior.  I may be wrong, but I believe that people are born with an inherent sense of what is right and wrong.  At least from a murder, violence, destruction standpoint.  They may choose to do wrong or make excuses for doing wrong, but I believe they still know it is wrong.

[bengaloo]

CIA is hard at work with our tax dollars solving crime around the world. We should give them all raises for it. In fact I make too much money and feel the need to give more to some government agencies. Bring on some tax increases!! And please load up the CIA with more emotion. They have been too hard for too long. They need some more anxiety. I was hoping they could help save the world from terror attacks and such.