The top cause of death (2010 statistics) in young black males from ages 15-34 is homicide - actually causing >50% of deaths in the 15-19 age group. It's the number two cause of death in male black children ages 1-4 (~15%).
This is horrible, and should be the topic of a national debate, with the goal of finding solutions. This is not caused by disparities in access to health care. It is not caused by white on black race-based crime. It's not caused by a lack of gun laws, as it happens in cities in which guns laws are the strictest.
I don't know what the answers are, but for this administration to ignore this issue - or refuse to discuss the real contributing causes, is cowardice. It's the kind of cowardice that comes from not wanting to confront the real problems.
I don't personally know all the factors that contribute to this. Clearly gang activity is a big contributor, but this begs the question of why do enough young black males wind up in gangs such that these statistics are on the books? Hopelessness? Well, if so, why, and what are we doing about it? There are significantly larger percentages of young white males committing suicide in these age groups, so if it's just hopelessness, why are the homicide statistics different in these groups.
Is there a contribution of culture? I don't know, but I personally haven't seen a lot of people trying to ‘take down’ the violence-ridden entertainment industry that peddles gang-life glorification. Is it because gang-life gives young black males a sense of ‘family’? If so, why is there this need for a surrogate family - especially given the traditional strength (many decades ago) of the black family?
We could go on and on here, but the point is that we won't do this publicly - because the answers are not always going to fit the narrative that the race-baiters have made their careers pushing. They should be called out, loudly and incessantly, for allowing young black men, and the black community in general, to suffer because their so called leaders, like Holder, lack the courage to have honest discussions and embrace honest fact finding. It appears that their ideology and their personal and political narratives are more important to them than what actually happens in the communities they claim they are representing - and that they claim the rest of us are suppressing.
Shameful.
Note that this was BEFORE welfare broke up families, BEFORE drug gangs, BEFORE violent video games. The black crime rate has ALWAYS been high.
Why???
For an answer, a strong insight, get hold of and watch the TV series THE WIRE . The program has 5 season and 60 or so episodes depicting the disparate black cultures of Baltimore
Although fiction, the various reasons for the murders are depicted. There is pretty much a culture of death dwelling within what amounts to isolation. A tribal culture that must be genetic has developed and is thriving in spite of the high death rate. It can be viewed as Darwinian survival of the fittest .
One attribute of being fit is cunning. Cunning overcomes fit. Fit can be bought.
There is in some a desire to leave but the desire to stay within the bounds of the known overcomes the fear of the unknown.
The end result is there is no solution. Deetroit is the end result and it takes a very long time for the decay to finally rot away the ability to live.