Wednesday, June 6, 2012

White guy sees too much black violence, black guy sees too much black violence, but....

Someone contacted me today to share an article he found in a New York publication about racial double standards ... According to the article, some (white?) politician in Baltimore pointed out the level of violence in black neighborhoods and got clobbered as a racist in the media, while a black politician in Philadelphia went into a church and asked his black peers to "stop the violence" and got nothing but positive press for essentially pointing out the same troubling trends.

Okay. Touche. Double standard. Agreed. I'm not familiar with either of these examples, but the article made a convincing point that white folks have a tough time pointing out concerns they have about problems in minority communities, while minority leaders get a high-five for holding prayer groups to "stop the violence."

But there's more to the story.

Yes, there is a disproportionate amount of violence in certain ethnic neighborhoods, including North Minneapolis, which is predominantly black, and that's a problem that needs to be addressed. At one point, North Minneapolis was host to something akin to a third of the homicides in the city, if I remember my stats right. A troubling trend, indeed, and not identifying that as a problem does no one any good.

There does need to be some leadership that says, "What's going on with young black men between the ages of 16 and 32 in urban areas, and how do we reach them?" I've spoken to state demographics folks about the numbers and the correlations are scary.

You can predict the percentage of young white males who will die this year in drunken driving accidents, hunting accidents or by suicide. You can predict the numbers of older black males who will fall victim this year to diabetes, or younger males who will die because of street violence. You can predict the number of Native Americans who will die of obesity-related diseases or alcohol-related conditions. I'm a realist. Rather than not see a correlation between a racial group and a life threatening problem, why not talk about it, fix it, and move on?

However, I think some of the defensiveness in communities of color comes from the fact that when a crowd of white kids gets into a fight, or there's a school shooting perpetrated by a white kid, or there's white collar crime, no one writes a story saying "white kid freaks out in school library" or "a white man named Bernie Madoff embezzled millions of dollars." Then, he's just a kid, or an embezzler, and his race is pretty much ignored. Only one group gets called out by race when there's wrongdoing. The media should be consistent, no?

The other problem is, to hear people talk, you'd think that if you set foot in an ethnic neighborhood you'd be shot and killed on the spot, and nothing could be further from the truth. There's a reason Bill Clinton bought an office space in Harlem. I know a married couple of attorneys -- blonde and blue-eyed, the both of them -- who bought a nice place in Harlem and are raising kids there. I've enjoyed a nice breakfast in a Harlem diner. Is there crime at night? You betcha. And by day, it's a pretty funky neighborhood and worth a visit.

North Minneapolis, which I mentioned earlier, has a nice little YMCA or YWCA (I can't remember which) where my girlfriend plays in a soccer league. Lake Street in Minneapolis, another ethnic neighborhood, has a fun destination called Midtown Global Market where plenty of upper middle class white folks go for brunch and jazz and chess. But to hear suburban folks talk, even some of my coworkers who live in St. Paul, their reaction is: "I have an appointment on Lake Street next week. Will I be safe? I've never been..."

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