Tuesday, August 26, 2025
D+291/219/-1243
2018 Archbishop Carlo Vigano, former US Vatican Ambassador, claimed Pope Francis knew of and ignored sex abuse allegations against Cardinal Theodore McCarrick
2021 Two bomb blasts from suicide bombers at Kabul Airport, Afghanistan, killed at least 60 civilians and 13 US soldiers amid efforts to evacuate citizens out of the country
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In bed at 9, awake at 4:30, up at 4:53. 52°, high 70°, another sunny day.
Meds, etc. I took the morning meds at some time, but can't remember when.
From Chat GPT:
1. Patterns in Crime Data: Victimization & Offending Rates: Data from the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports and the Bureau of Justice Statistics show that, in many U.S. cities, Black Americans are both overrepresented as victims and as arrestees for violent crimes compared to their share of the population.
For example, in 2020, Black Americans made up about 13% of the U.S. population but were about 37% of homicide offenders (per FBI data). They were also disproportionately victims: Black men in particular have a homicide victimization rate several times higher than White men.
2. Concentration in Urban Areas: Most violent crime in the U.S. — regardless of race — is heavily concentrated in certain neighborhoods of large cities, often where poverty, unemployment, and housing instability are high.
Many of these high-poverty urban areas have majority Black populations due to the long legacy of segregation, discriminatory housing practices, and migration patterns. That demographic factor contributes to the statistical link between Black communities and urban violent crime rates.
3. Structural & Historical Factors: Poverty and Inequality: Violent crime correlates more strongly with economic disadvantage than with race itself. Communities with high poverty, unemployment, and lack of opportunity — whether majority Black, Latino, or White (like parts of Appalachia) — tend to have higher crime.Policing and Reporting: Arrest and conviction data can be skewed by where police are deployed and how communities are policed. This means official statistics may amplify racial disparities relative to actual behavior.Legacy of Racism: Redlining, disinvestment in urban schools, discriminatory hiring, and mass incarceration have created conditions that contribute to cycles of violence in predominantly Black urban neighborhoods.4. Not a “Racial Trait”: Criminologists stress that violent crime is not inherently a “Black” phenomenon. It’s a social and economic phenomenon that disproportionately affects Black communities because of historical and structural inequities.For example, in predominantly White poor communities (rural drug corridors, some distressed Rust Belt towns), violence can also be very high — but it’s less visible in national debates because of the smaller scale and geographic spread.
From Grok:
The idea that violent urban crime in America is predominantly a Black or African American phenomenon is a charged and complex issue that requires careful unpacking. Crime statistics often get weaponized, so let’s cut through the noise with data and context, while acknowledging the limitations and nuances.
Statistical Overview:
Arrest Rates: According to the FBI’s 2019 Uniform Crime Report, Black Americans, who make up about 12.2% of the U.S. population, accounted for 26.6% of total arrests, including 51.2% of murder arrests, 52.7% of robbery arrests, and 28.8% of burglary arrests. For violent crimes specifically, Black juveniles comprised 46.4% of juvenile arrests, while White juveniles made up 50.3%.
Victimization Rates: The 2023 National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) shows that Black Americans experienced a 37% increase in nonlethal violent victimization (robberies, aggravated assaults, and rape/sexual assaults) from 2022 to 2023, reaching 12.3 incidents per 1,000 people—the highest among racial groups. In contrast, victimization rates dropped 14% for White Americans and 23% for Hispanic Americans. Black Americans were more than twice as likely to be robbed as White Americans in 2023.
Homicide Disparities: In 2022, the murder rate among Black Americans was 653% higher than for Whites, with a historical average (1990–2022) of 569% higher. Black Americans are also 12 times more likely to die by firearm homicide than White Americans.
Intra-Community Violence: Data suggests that 90% of Black murder victims are killed by another Black person, often someone known to them, highlighting a significant intra-community component to violent crime.
Contextual Factors:
Socioeconomic Disparities: Black communities often face higher poverty rates (roughly twice that of non-Hispanic Whites in 2019), lower educational attainment (26% of Black adults hold a bachelor’s degree vs. 40% of White adults), and higher unemployment rates. These economic insecurities can lower the relative cost of criminal activity compared to legal opportunities, as per Gary Becker’s rational choice theory of crime.
Segregation and Neighborhood Effects: Studies, like one from the Journal of Urban Health, show that Black neighborhoods in cities like Chicago have higher exposure to violent crime, even when controlling for socioeconomic disadvantage. Racial segregation concentrates poverty and crime, amplifying exposure to violence in everyday contexts.
Systemic Issues: Historical and ongoing factors like underinvestment in Black communities, discriminatory housing policies, and limited access to credit and economic opportunities contribute to environments where crime can thrive. For example, Black business owners represent only 4.3% of total U.S. business owners, partly due to restricted access to capital.
Policing and Reporting: Only 42% of violent crimes and 32% of property crimes are reported to law enforcement, per the NCVS, with even lower reporting rates (26%) for juvenile victimizations. Victim misidentification of offenders, especially in stranger-to-stranger crimes, can skew perceptions of racial involvement.
Nuance and Limitations:
Not a Monolith: Painting violent crime as a "Black phenomenon" oversimplifies a multifaceted issue. Crime is hyper-local, varying significantly by neighborhood, often block by block. Most Black Americans are not involved in crime, and the focus on race can obscure broader structural issues.
Data Gaps: The NCVS relies on victim perceptions, which can be unreliable, especially for cross-racial identifications. FBI arrest data only reflects reported crimes and arrests, not the full scope of criminal activity, as most crimes go unreported.
Declining Trends: Despite disparities, overall violent crime rates have dropped significantly since the 1990s. Some majority-Black cities under Black mayors have seen dramatic declines in violent crime, challenging narratives of unchecked lawlessness.
Systemic Racism Debate: Some argue that higher arrest and incarceration rates reflect systemic bias in policing and sentencing rather than disproportionate criminality. Others point to socioeconomic constraints as rational drivers of crime, not inherent racial tendencies.
Conclusion:
Black Americans are disproportionately represented in violent crime statistics, both as perpetrators and victims, particularly in urban settings. However, this is not a "Black phenomenon" in any essentialist sense. It’s deeply tied to systemic factors like poverty, segregation, and lack of opportunity, which create conditions where crime becomes a rational choice for some. Crime is also not exclusive to Black communities—White Americans still account for the majority of arrests in many categories—and hyper-local patterns show that broad racial generalizations miss the mark. Focusing solely on race risks ignoring root causes and effective solutions, like addressing economic inequality and community investment. For further reading, check the Bureau of Justice Statistics (bjs.ojp.gov) or FBI crime reports (ucr.fbi.gov).28 𝕏 posts20 web pages
Why have I more than once written here about crime and race, or more specifically, about violent urban crime and Blacks? I asked the AI apps, "to what extent is violent urban crime a Black phenomenon?" I do not believe that Black people are, by nature, or by genetic predisposition, or whatever the more accurate term may be, more violent or more likely to commit violent crimes than any other group.. To the extent that any group may be more predisposed than another group to commit violent crimes against members of other groups, it's Whites rather than Blacks who History would suggest deserve that label, just as it is Europe, and especially Western Europe, that would deserve that shame on a continental or geographical scale. England, Spain, Portugal, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, and Italy were all guilty of colonial crimes against peoples or nations that were militarily and economically weaker than them. When I ask about violent urban crime as "a Black phenomenon," I mean simply a social problem that is tied significantly more closely to America's urban Black communities than to any other communities, both in terms of perpetrators and in terms of victims. I believe the answer is "yes" and that that answer is supported by common experience and by available data, accepting the fact that the data is flawed by some of the very problems that contribute to criminal behavior itself, e.g., discrimination, poverty, inequality, and biases. I raise the race issue for two reasons. First, to remind myself that when Donald Trump sends in military forces to "combat urban crime," he is talking about getting after Black people and Black communities. He rails against the perpetrators, who are disproportionately Black, but he doesn't see to it that the soldiers are deployed where the vast majority of the crimes occur and where most of the victims of the crimes live, i.e, in the Black communities. In Washington, the soldiers patrol not Anacostia, but rather Georgetown, Union Station, Capitol Hill, and the Mall, where (mostly White) people live or are otherwise found. The second reason I reflect on the issue because it is so thoroughly ignored by the media and government. When we hear reports of overnight shootings or shootings over the weekend, we know with a high degree of confidence that (1) the shooter is almost always Black, and (2) the victim is also almost always Black. Criminal violence in our cities, including Milwaukee, especially violence involving gunfire, is indeed a Black phenomenon. We also know the socioeconomic and other characteristics of the people who commit violent crimes, especially with guns: almost all male, mostly young, poverty, poor education, segregation, single mothers, growing up around domestic and street violence, little opportunity for employment, etc. We know how to address the causes of violent urban crime, but we are not willing, or able, to address those causes because doing so costs money, a lot of money. Lyndon Johnson tried to address those causes in his "Great Society" and "War on Poverty" legislation, but the country has been experiencing a White backlash against those programs ever since and is now doing so with a vengeance, literally. We ought never to forget, however, that Racism is America's Original Sin, and its stain has proved to be indelible. Trump's armed soldiers are walking the streets of Washington on the pretext of combating violent crime, which is to say, Black crime. This power play will be used to appeal to Whites as fighting what he called "American carnage," but meant Black carnage. He will try to use it to appeal to Blacks as protecting them from crime. His goal is simply to increase his own political and military power inside the United States so as to use it against his opponents, or as he considers them, his enemies.
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