Posted on 05/03/2015 12:07:27 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
The race riots that followed the recent murders of unarmed black men by police in places like Ferguson and Baltimore have liberal commentators and politicians placing the blame on poverty, specifically among inner-city African-Americans. This is an American tradition: progressives wrote similar editorials calling for antipoverty programs, and politicians issued (empty) promises to enact them, after the Rodney King beating in Los Angeles provoked rioting in the South Central neighborhood in the early 1990s, and following the even bigger urban conflagrations of 1968 in Detroit, Newark and Watts.
I grew up poor, and I have struggled financially. I hate poverty; I’m all for any government program that tries to mitigate the pain of not knowing whether one will be able eat, keep the electricity on, or avoid homelessness. Still, the poverty-causes-race-riots tautology is weird. What about the cops?
Baltimore was in trouble long before six police officers arrested Freddie Gray without cause, snapped his spine, gave him a so-called “rough ride” (handcuffed, unbuckled, driven wildly in order to bang you around) in a paddy wagon, and refused his repeated entreaties for medical attention. Too many of its citizens were dark-skinned, impoverished, underemployed, disenfranchised and victimized by gangs and drug dealers.
But it wasn’t a spontaneous outburst of class warfare that caused the riots — it was Gray’s murder by the police, and the authorities’ non-response. Ditto for Ferguson: no killing of Michael Brown by a cop, no riot.
Not that the liberals aren’t onto something: the police in Beverly Hills don’t shoot that many unarmed guys in the back, as they’re running away. Cops in the Hamptons don’t choke fat dudes, who aren’t going anywhere fast, to death on sidewalks in broad daylight. Police don’t mess with you if you’re rich and therefore powerful.
Cops in Baltimore kill unarmed non-suspects because they think they can get away with it. They think they can get away with it because they always have. They always have because unarmed non-suspects in Baltimore are poor.
The victims are poor because they’re black.
Pundits get it wrong when they try to explain the roots of poverty. “The real barriers to social mobility,” writes moderate Republican columnist David Brooks in The New York Times, “are matters of social psychology, the quality of relationships in a home that either encourage or discourage responsibility, future-oriented thinking, and practical ambition.”
In the same newspaper on the same day, Johns Hopkins history professor N.D.B. Connolly gets closer to the truth, pointing to structural racism with its roots in slavery. “The problem rests on the continued profitability of racism. Freddie Gray’s exposure to lead paint as a child, his suspected participation in the drug trade, and the relative confinement of black unrest to black communities during this week’s riot are all features of a city and a country that still segregate people along racial lines, to the financial enrichment of landlords, corner store merchants and other vendors selling second-rate goods.”
But Connolly falls short with his proposed solution when he calls for a “state of emergency” on “the problem of residential discrimination, by devising a fairer tax structure, by investing in public space, community policing, tenants’ rights and a government jobs program.” These would all be moves in the right direction, and I support them, but to pronounce window-dressing reforms “solutions” is ridiculous.
Yesterday, the day Baltimore’s dynamic young black district attorney filed charges including murder against her city’s six killer cops, was May 1st: International Workers Day. Which ought to have reminded editors at places like the Times — which has employed numerous far-right opinion columnists, but never a leftist — that poverty is caused by capitalism.
Liberals believe capitalism is a good system prone to excesses, which they propose to mitigate via reform and regulation: poverty, income inequality and racism associated with class are flaws in an otherwise laudable economic model.
But that’s not true. Poverty, and the racism that goes with it, are features, not bugs. The ruling classes require a permanent underclass to exploit directly, and serve as a warning to workers not to ask for big raises, shorter hours or other improvements in workplace conditions — be quiet, lest you wind up like them.
I was wondering what happened to Ted Rall. I was starting to think that he was on the receiving end of the knockout game and going on how he deserved it due to his white privilege.
It goes back 150 years, to the failure of assimilation. When the Civil War ended, there was a massive population with little in common with the mainstream culture at the time. 150 years later, the same situation persists; I guess the closest they came was the 1950s. While oppressive laws still persisted in some areas, the military was desegregated, more families were intact, and education went a lot further despite less money for it.
You bethcha! I grew up poor and so did my husband. We had good moms and dads who taught us to work and to repect our laws. The reason black communities are crime ridden is because liberals replaced the family structure with social programs, the very social programs that are cited in this article as being their saving grace. Baloney, at one time in my life I qualified for food stamps. I never got them because I was not raised that way. I have worked as many as three jobs at a time and I have never gone hungry a day in my life. I am reminded of the scripture, “I once was young, but now I am old, yet never have I seen the righteous forsaken nor his seed out begging for bread.” Believe It!!
All beside the point. The piece is pushing racial nonsense from two socialist political parties.
The problem is with out-of-control, big government. Stop federal funding for the public school teachers, regulators, police, government-linked businesses,... Repeal and abolish all local impact fees, feminist laws and regulations against owner-builds of anything. Stop funding for all anti-family programs.
The DemonRAT “leaders” in these big cities are only concerned on how they can line their pockets. Much of the money comes from the illegal drug industry, which provides them the means to hide their money. There is no effort to fix the unemployment problem because that problem works to drive more people into the underground illegal drug industry. That makes more money for them.
MLK had some legitimate gripes (and many non-blacks agreed with him); Jim Crow laws were unacceptable and immoral. Today’s “black leaders” have no such gripes; they have excuses and outstretched palms.
Sowell (and others) persevered despite the oppression; today many see no reason to even try (they are kept comfortable without ever having to do so). If they were living in sharecropper shacks and going hungry, they’d be the most industrious students and workers.
“It isn't so much that liberals are ignorant. It's just that they know so many things that aren't so.”
Ronald Reagan
i guess you have to graduate from Columbia to be this stupid.
One question keeps going through my mind...
If whites held large, public, disruptive peaceful "Celebration Parties" in a dozen major cities to celebrate :
The arrest of every thug wearing masks and creating mayhem.
The arrest of every thug throwing lethal projectiles at anyone.
The arrest of every thug breaking store windows and stealing everything inside.
The arrest of ever thug throwing Molotov cocktails.
The arrest of every thug blocking major thoroughfares preventing normal people from every day activities, and life threatening necessary travel. The arrest of the thug who punctured the fire hoses of firemen trying to save life and property.
WILL THOSE CELEBRATIONS BE SHOWN ON CNN NATIONAL TV FOR DAYS?
Heck if I know. Have not had a TV in over 10 years. Lol.
Go to Venezuela. Capitalism has been stamped out for over 2 decades. The results are impressive. Massive bankruptcies. Totally empty store shelves. Caracas the capital is the most violent crime ridden city in the world. Car hijackings are very common. The government has nationalized everything including the only toilette paper factory which was taken over by the military. Street vendors have been shut down because they are accused of hoarding supplies and have been accused of making profits. They were directed to sell their products at a loss. There are no street vendors left.
Baltimore is a banana republic like Venezuela. Let them burn in hell.
Sure, capitalism is to blame for everything.
A good, suburban mostly white HS.
He definitely comes from money.
Ted probably has never known many black people, at least not enough to be friends with them.
But he's somehow an "expert" on inner city black life.
Uh, no.
He's the Vanilla Ice of political commentary.
Absolutely NO street cred.
Caused by Democrats. Democrat governor, Democrat mayor, Democrat police chief and Democrat police force (mostly black).
Great info. Thanks. Confirms what I was thinking.
Classic Communist religious doctrine.
It has to be that way because I say so.
Marxism simply fails all tests of rationality. It posits that things should happen a certain way. When they do not, it just comes up with another excuse to explain the failure of its theory.
It is just like Anthropogenic Global Warming. No matter what happens, the facts are altered to make the theory fit. It is a religious doctrine.
The LIEberal/Socialist/Marxist/Fascist thugs who have been gaining control of the Western World since WW II ended have very nearly succeeded!
We have less than two years to turn it around.
The coming tribulation the Western World will be subjected to over the next two years should convince even the most jaded person that the LIEberal/Socialist/Marxist/Fascist thugs are not only wrong in their world view, but are pure EVIL!
I believe that the Ferguson, Baltimore, Seattle, Oakland, LA, NYC etc., etc. “disruptions” are but the warning shots for a very difficult period in our History.
Stay safe! Stay armed!
The facts are that EVERY black man and woman who work at honest jobs give THE BIG LIE to this racist screed!
I’m not going to quote the numbers, but check this website out: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t02.htm
The blacks who want to work have jobs!
I feel the same premonition that you do about what’s coming. If we make the wrong choice for President, I expect an unprecedented, all out war on Christians and Religious Liberty. During the next two years we are going to see riots and destruction in our cities that will make the riots of the 60’s look like block parties. Obama and his Social Justice Dept. will preside over the destruction and send in orders to the local leaders through General Sharpton. Obama advised his cousin Odinga to riot if he didn’t win the election and blood ran in the streets. Like Satan himself, Obama has a short time and he wants to wreak all the destruction he can.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.