I normally agree with Brian Beutler, but I think he fell short with The right’s black crime obsession. Which is not to say that the Right doesn’t have a black crime obsession; it certainly does. And I agree with some of Beutler’s points. But overall I’d say he falls short.
For example, in his analysis of why the killing of Chris Lane is not parallel to Trayvon Martin’s death, he leaves out the primary reason Trayvon Martin’s death became a national issue. Josh Martin explains,
For the last week or so, the right-wing racial resentment-o-sphere has been aghast about the horrific murder of Chris Lane, 22, a young Australian in the United States on a baseball scholarship. Lane was jogging when three young kids (two black, one either mixed race or white) decided to follow and kill him. The really sociopathic nature of the crime was brought home by the fact that one of the accused assailants allegedly told the police, “We were bored and didn’t have anything to do, so we decided to kill somebody.â€
In other words, it’s the Trayvon Martin case in reverse but now the liberal media is mum and President Obama isn’t rallying his gangbanger peeps to get all up in arms about it. Except of course when you consider that unlike the Martin case — where the press buzz and scandal was basically exclusively tied to the fact that George Zimmerman wasn’t arrested let alone charged with anything — two of the three boys allegedly behind Lane’s killing were arrested and immediately charged with capital murder. So young thugs kill an innocent man in cold blood and then get to walk free to death row or life imprisonment in the Oklahoma Department of Corrections.
Yeah, except that.
One more time — more than a month had passed after Trayvon Martin was killed, a month in which local police made it clear they were not going to investigate or charge Zimmerman with anything, before national media began to report on it. And what was reported was not that a white man (sort of) killed a black teenager, but that a white man had killed a black teenager and then walked out of the police station with a smile and a handshake, case closed. Had Zimmerman been charged with something within a reasonable amount of time, or if Trayvon Martin’s parents had received a reasonable explanation as to why no charges were being made, we never would have heard of Martin or Zimmerman.
Steve M has another quibble with what Beutler wrote.
Beutler is overlooking the fact that the angry right approves of the shooting of Trayvon Martin. The angry right doesn’t wish Martin were alive today. We know angry right-wingers don’t think it was an outrage, but they don’t think it was a horrible misunderstanding that led to tragedy, either. They interpret everything piece of evidence about Martin in the worst possible light, to portray him as a thug-in-development. They absolutely believe he was on the verge of killing George Zimmerman before Zimmerman killed him.
The allegedly angry left, on the other hand, does not approve of the shooting of Chris Lane. That he is dead is an outrage. I don’t know of anyone who says otherwise.
Steve M also nails it when he says RIGHT-WINGERS ARE WORKING REALLY HARD TO START A RACE WAR AND BLAME IT ON OBAMA. Apparently Fox News and the rest of the right-wing media machine has been pushing the belief that there is some kind of rising epidemic of black-on-white violent crime, and they are stoking fear and resentment of the black guy in the Oval Office as hard and as fast as they can stoke. They’ve even got the post-dementia Pat Robertson saying that President Obama is inciting black-on-white violence.
Of course, there is no rising tide of black-on-white violence. Rates of violent crime are going down, Josh Marshall also says,
Young black men commit murders in this country at a vastly disproportionate rate to young white men. But murder victims of both races are overwhelming killed by members of their own race. 86% of white murder victims were killed by other whites and 94% of blacks were killed by blacks. Those numbers are from 1976 to 2005, a period that includes the highest murder rate era of the late 20th century. The differential today is likely lower today since as murder rates have declined to historic levels over the last 20 years, the fall has been particularly sharp among black men – a small data point that among other things lends some additional credence to the theory that lead poisoning was a significant driver of crime rates in the late 20th century.
I’ve found that the hard racists can’t get past that first sentence in the paragraph above. You can tell them that, statistically, whites are far more likely to be murdered or raped by other whites. You can show them the data. It bounces right off them. I can’t tell if they think it’s a lie or if their brains just can’t process it at all.
I grew up with legal segregation, and I used to think I knew white racism pretty well. But now they are just unfathomable to me. I have no sense of why they think it was so outrageous for the President to say that if he had a son, he might have looked like Trayvon Martin, for example.
The thing is — most whites in the U.S. can be insensitive and oblivious about race, at least part of the time. But this element obsessed with black thugs in hoodies is way outside the current white racial oblivion norm. They’re more like relics of a bygone age; segregationist bitter enders. I believe most whites, on some level, recognize their knee-jerk hatred is irrational. And while there still are a lot of them left, I’d like to believe they’re now enjoying a last hurrah before white supremacy begins its slow fade into socio-cultural history.
I am a retired member of the US Navy who is on a mailing list of ex-Navy, mostly retired, also. The hate mail that is on that list is way beyond my comprehension. “Unfathomable” pretty well says it for me.
I will share some with you, if you think you can stomach it.
I guess what I was really trying to say is that the amount of “pure hate” these folks exude is well beyond my comprehension. Hate is not in my vocabulary. I do not ‘hate’ the Yankees. I do not ‘hate’ Walter O’Malley for moving the Dodgers from Brooklyn.
These folks that I am on the mail list with hate all blacks and most Hispanics. They are probably unaware that their current love, Sen. Cruz (R-TX), is Hispanic by virtue that his dad is/was a Cuban.
Zing ! ! Over their head.
In at least one study, the theory is that eliminating lead, not only in paint, but in gasoline, has ‘led’ to the decline in the overall rates of violence – especially, murder.
And, while that’s good news if it’s true, we still have a lot of people out there, either huffing exhaust fumes, or eating lead paint chips – after dipping them in mercury.
And it’s one thing when the fat, bald, and old, albino yakkers spew their hatred on Reich-Wing talk radio – it’s another thing when FUKS NOISE digitally alters photo’s, to make it seem as if all three for the kids involved in the hideous Lane murder, were black.
All of them are on THE PUBLIC AIRWAVES!!!
And, while our 1st Amendment Right is probably the most important one we have (F-U gun-loons!!!), I don’t believe being paid a huge salary by trying to incite race-riots, or wars, over THE PUBLIC AIRWAVES, should be covered.
If the racist loons want to stand on a soapbox, and shout “The N-word” over and over again at the park, that’s their right.
Have at it!!!
And good luck, Rush, finding a soapbox that can withstand the weight of your morbidly-obese ass!!! FSM, I’d pay $100 just to watch Rush fall on his fat ass, after he just crushed some poor soapbox!!!
But making money by yakking on broadcast media, radio or TV, and trying to “blacken” the discourse, ought to be looked at differently.
The smartest thing the Reich-Wingers ever did, and the worst thing that’s happened to our nation, was the elimination of “The Equal Time Rule.”
Back in the old days, for every Limbaugh, the radio station would have to counter with someone like a Thom Hartmann. For every O’Rally or Sean KKKlanity on FOX, there’d have to be a Maddow, or Olbermann.
What’s allowed on our airwave, THE PUBLIC’S AIRWAVES, is obscene!
We, in the public, can’t be shown private parts, or sex, and FSM knows, our tender ears almost never hear “The 7 Dirty Words!”
But we can tune to FUKS NOISE, and see digitally altered photo’s, trying to keep race as a wedge issue. And when we get in our cars, the racist, misogynistic, xenophobic, and homophobic, Reich-Wing bloviators, are ubiquitous on both the AM and FM dials.
What Rush does, what most of the FUKS NOISE @$$holes do, isn’t “FREE Speech,” it’s “HATE Speech!”
ENOUGH!!!
Either yank the licenses from the broadcasters if this bigoted sh*t continues, or reinstate “The Equal Time Rule.”
Yeah, like with the cowards and corporate shills we have in Congress, THAT’LL ever happen!
I can’t take it anymore.
I just can’t!
I really can’t…
The “TEH STOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOPID!!!!!”, is killing me.
In other words, it’s the Trayvon Martin case in reverse but now the liberal media is mum and President Obama isn’t rallying his gangbanger peeps to get all up in arms about it.
Obama didn’t rally the troops. He stayed out of it. But the left has their own black crime obsession. I think the left DOES care more about black victims than white victims, and are going through elaborate lengths to avoid it. All murders mean more to one demographic than the other.
jr — I feel heartily sorry for you. Your head must be a dark and twisted place.
I’ll make my apologies in advance for a subjective, personal comment and for the circumstance, that despite sufficient time, I am not quite awake.
My neighborhood is very “integrated”. The church my neighbors all belong to fosters the standard right wing line, updated, or not so updated, John Birch Society garbage. But, on race they tend to be pretty open, with several households having what used to be called “mixed marriages.” But, there is a “catch”. All the marriages are between a white man and a black woman. Their attitude toward women is problematic, to but it gently. They believe the woman should be subservient to the man. So, problem solved! The black person is not in a position to question Biblical and white authority. There are no marriages between a black man and a white woman. I shouldn’t assume that this would be unacceptable to them because there is no example. But, that lack of an example says something.
Recent events in NC have been appalling. We were ready to look to greener pastures before all the “recent unpleasantness”. The southern culture has worn very thin. In a couple of weeks we will be making an exploratory trip, and we plan on relocating after retirement. I am too old and too tired to carry on the fight. Maybe I’ll get a second wind in time. But, “Against ignorance, even the gods struggle in vain.” The same can be said for the variations of ignorance that are so broadly displayed. One of the powers of ignorance is its ability to invoke a jaw dropping paralysis. It makes you wonder if they do it on purpose.
Yes, CUND, when I first read about the “lead theory” it seemed farfetched, but the data seems pretty strong, at least to my layman’s mind.
Let us hope that the line stops at @jr – and he won’t be raising another bigoted asshole, like his daddy.
jr – Barbara said it much better than I could.
goatherd,
May I recommend that you retire to NY?
Somewhere not too far from NY City, so you can go and enjoy what the Conservatives consider a Hell-hole, has to offer – things they hate, like culture, art, music, mass transportation, etc.
And pretty much every nationality, and religion, and sexual orientation, in the world, living in relative peace.
One warning, though – the rural parts of NY, are just like the rural parts of NC – only, colder in the winter. The red on their necks, is from the cold, instead of the sun.
Why? If a gay guy gets killed don’t you think it means more to them than others? That when children get shot up by heavy guns those advocating gun control are that much more frustrated? And that people who have been fighting racism for 40 years naturally show more outrage than those who are indifferent to such things?
By “them,” are you referring to “us”?
Context, son. If a person of any gender, sexual persuasion or ethnic/racial heritage dies or is injured as a result of ignorance and injustice, that’s an issue to “us.” But be clear — ignorance and injustice are the issues, not whether the victim was black or white, male or female, gay or straight. That you see nothing but racial or sexual scorekeeping where I see human tragedy tells me you’re a bigot.
@jr: The point is that every person matters, every life counts. You are arguing for a scoring of humanity that I hope is just a point in your thinking that you haven’t got thoroughly worked out yet.
I’m not “arguing” anything. I’m saying attacks and murderers on minorities like African Americans effects the left a lot more than it effects the right. I’m not saying that’s bad or unjustified. I’m saying there’s nothing with admitting it. Doesn’t mean you dislike other crimes LESS or are indifferent. Racial regression just happens to be the left’s pet peeve.
I googled “racial regression” and couldn’t find a definition of it, although I did find it mentioned in an old paper doing a linear regression analysis predicting achievement test scores using race as a factor. Somehow I don’t think that’s what you are referring to. But damn if I know what you mean by “racial regression.” It can’t very well be a “pet peeve” if I don’t even know what it is.
And racial AGGression, happens to be the right’s pet peeve!
The death of any one and every, person, diminishes all of us – though I’m willing to concede that point, when it comes to Dick Cheney.
I’m saying attacks and murderers on minorities like African Americans effects the left a lot more than it effects the right.
You’re right!.. That’s because people on the left are afflicted with empathy and compassion. How we suffer!
Recent events in NC have been appalling. We were ready to look to greener pastures before all the “recent unpleasantnessâ€. The southern culture has worn very thin. In a couple of weeks we will be making an exploratory trip, and we plan on relocating after retirement.
Eager to see where you end up, goatherd. I hope you cast your net widely, including locations outside the US. For quite some time, I had my eye on Asheville, but with the right wing takeover of NC, spending any time in NC would now be at most a stopover. I am pretty determined to leave the US entirely as soon as it’s reasonable for me. I’m also convinced there’s not a moment to lose.
OT, Brief interview with Supreme Court Justice Ginsberg. She says this court “is one of the most activist in history”, and vows to stay on and fight.
Um, Jr? I’m going to hope you are not a troll here to waste our time. I’m going to hope that your problem is that you are just not very practiced at expressing yourself clearly.
You wrote: I’m not “arguing†anything. I’m saying attacks and murderers on minorities like African Americans effects the left a lot more than it effects the right. Only, that’s not what you wrote at first. I don’t think anyone would disagree with this, (or if they did it might be to argue that the right focuses more on black murders to fuel their fear/anger/hatred machine. Which would lead to a different discussion about what it means to ‘care’ about black deaths. But I digress.)
BUT, what you originally wrote was: I think the left DOES care more about black victims than white victims, and are going through elaborate lengths to avoid it. Do you see where that’s quite different? You’re suggesting that the left cares more about the killings of one race than they do of the other, not that they care more about the killing of black than the right does. Here the meaning of what you wrote is that the left cares more about black deaths than white ones, which is, in my opinion, just completely wrong, and many would find it insulting to suggest it.
Also, if you are just “saying” something that is highly debatable and is, in fact, your opinion, then yes, you ARE “suggesting” something.
It looks like the thread has become a whole lot more interesting than my early morning, cobweb clearing post. —But, good suggestions, We like Asheville too, and we had a dairy farm near Delhi, when I was a small boy, so yeah, we are looking for something closer to a city.
But, what is happening in NC is just an indication of what seems waiting to happen in many parts of the US, if only because the demographic tide is turning in the opposite direction and even the whackos can see that without some desperate measures, their days are numbered. Let’s hope so anyway.
@jr: I just checked back in and read your further responses. Nobody even had to say “Please proceed.”
Read this and see if there is not something problematic in it:
“I’m saying attacks and murderers on minorities like African Americans effects the left a lot more than it effects the right. I’m not saying that’s bad or unjustified. I’m saying there’s nothing with admitting it. Doesn’t mean you dislike other crimes LESS or are indifferent.”
And you follow it up with “racial regression” which I’m sorta kinda thinking means something like racial inferiority, since regression is going backward/lower.
Really?
I know this is off-topic, but I just had to share this with someone…
I’m a US expat. I just received an email from my ex, who is remarried (to a real right-wing loon). She has also gradually turned into a right-winger, no doubt due in large part to his influence. They live in Texas.
Anyway, she asked me for information about emigrating. They want to leave the USA because “Obamacare is coming.” She contacted me for info on how to emigrate. The most hilarious (but sad) thing about it – the country they are considering moving to has full-blown socialized medicine. As I needn’t tell you, Obamacare isn’t socialized medicine by a long shot. But it is “socialism” that my ex and her hubby are terrified about.
Even though we couldn’t live together, I never thought of my ex as a stupid person. This just goes to show what a decade of listening to Fox News can do to a person.
OT!
OY!!
AND UH-OH!!!
Chris Christie is co-hosting the morning-drive sports show right now, on WFAN AM Radio, and MSG on TV.
And if I didn’t know what the man stands for as a politician, I’d really like the SOB!
Danger!
DANGER!!
DANGER, WILL ROBINSON!!!
DANGER!!!!!
His opponent, NJ State Senator Barbara Buono, just ran an ad on TV during a break. And, sad to say, it was pretty dull.
OY, again!
Christie is a huge (pun intended) NY Mets fan.
And Craig Carton, one of the regular hosts of this morning-zoo show (Boomer Esiason, formerly a very good NFL QB, is the other co-host, but he’s on vacation), is trying to convert NJ’s Governor to being a Yankee fan.
And so, he just handed Christie a Yankee jersey, with his last name, and the number 2016.
Carton asked if he’d wear it, or hang it in his office.
And Christie said he’d never do that, because he’s loyal to the Mets.
If he runs for President, I’m afraid a lot of people would rather have a beer with him, than Hillary – or whoever the Democrats run.
He is a likeable SOB.
We need to constantly show photo’s of him hugging President Obama, to remind the base of his apostasy.
Also three – OY!!!
Here’s an article, with a chart, of how Christie, if he ran, would be the most moderate Republican Presidential candidate, in 50 years:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/24/republicans-are-not-all-extreme
I don’t need this, this early on a Monday morning.
Maybe neither do you – in which, all I can say is, “Sorry.”
Nobody even had to say “Please proceed.â€
Nice. Probably wasted on an idiot, however.
OOOOOOOPS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
LOL!
Phyllis Schlafly lets the cat out of the bag, as far as NC’s and other states, changes in voting laws:
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/08/26/20197189-how-not-to-defend-voter-suppression-in-north-carolina?lite
Bless her sub-atomic particle sized heart…
I’ve found that the hard racists can’t get past that first sentence in the paragraph above. You can tell them that, statistically, whites are far more likely to be murdered or raped by other whites. You can show them the data. It bounces right off them. I can’t tell if they think it’s a lie or if their brains just can’t process it at all.
I think you’re giving us far too little credit. We’re well aware of the falling crime rates. Every time the gun banners start making noises about adding more gun control, we trot those very same statistics out and present them. Murder has been dropping since the 90s, despite (or possibly because) of the loosening of concealed weapons laws, the repeal of waiting periods, the introduction of Stand Your Ground laws, and the addition of something like 80 million new firearms into civilian hands.
So let’s continue your examination of statistics. You quoted Marshall about how likely it is for murder to occur within the same race. Keep going. How likely is it that you will be murdered by someone outside your race? Is it more likely that black people are victims of white murderers, or that white people are more likely victims of black murderers? And when you find that answer to that question, put that in the context of the media circus around the Zimmerman case, and the less intense coverage of the Lane murder. For bonus points, examine the case of Roderick Scott shooting Christopher Cervini and ponder about how much media coverage we’ve seen on that case.
Come on. Don’t be afraid. Follow the numbers all the way.
Sorry, but crime has fallen as fast if not faster in New York City — still with strict gun control laws — than in the rest of the country. It’s also falling fast in nations in which hardly anyone carries a gun, such as the UK.
Correlation is not causation, and there’s simply no evidence that falling crime rates have anything to do with concealed carry. Please read, for example: Where have all the burglars gone? in The Economist; and A crime mystery. It’s going down, but no one really knows why in The Guardian.
If crime rates had dropped more sharply in concealed carry areas than in the rest of the developed world, you’d have an argument. But they didn’t, so you don’t. Indeed, according to the Harvard School of Public Health, Where there are more guns there is more homicide, not less.
As a white woman, I am well aware that just about 80 percent of rapes of white women are perpetrated by white men, just as about 80 percent of murders of white people are committed by white people, mostly men. So as far as I am concerned, if I am ever personally the victim of a violent crime, the odds are very, very large that the perpetrator will be a white man. I’ve lived in racially mixed neighborhoods — indeed, racially mixed apartment buildings — for many years, and I have never once been harmed or threatened by an African American. However, I’ve had a few encounters with angry white men that scared the stuffing out of me. Which is why I am amused when some white man tells me I’m supposed to be afraid of Black People. Yeah, right.
Regarding publicity surrounding the Zimmerman case, 0ne more time — and in the future please read posts before you respond to them — the reason that became a Big Bleeping Deal is that after the shooting, days turned into weeks turned into more than a month, and the local police were doing nothing. They wouldn’t even respond to Trayvon Martin’s parents and explain why they weren’t investigating their son’s death. And it was for that reason that the case became national news, because the shooting of a black teenager walking home from a store with a soft drink and candy was being shrugged off. And please, don’t be so tedious as to explain to me that the boy deserved to die because he may have tried to defend himself from the big guy following him. If that’s what you choose to believe, keep it to yourself.
Recent tragic cases of senseless murders of whites were quickly followed by arrests and indictments. So there is no need for me to comment. The criminal justice system is handling this.
What I find most disturbing is the similarities between our present societal state and that, which I hear from my relatives, existed in the early 30s in Germany.
Semper Why,
The drop in crime is also attributed by many experts to our government making sure that there no longer was any lead in paint and gasoline, decades ago.
Lead has long been known to cause brain damage.
The air in cities, was full of lead – due to the fumes from the ever-increasing amount of vehicles. And the soot, therefore, had lead in it. So, if you cleaned your windowsill, or swept your walkway, you got an unhealthy dose of lead.
And the paint in and on homes, had lead in them – because it made for better, cheaper, paint. Children in run-down homes, both in the cities, and in suburban and rural areas, sometimes ate the paint chipping off of the interior and exterior walls.
So, next time you’re in the mood for some lead chips, Semper Why, I would suggest that if you must eat them, that you at least skip the mercury dip.
Why have crime rates dropped? Well that’s a good question. Let me throw in my thoughts. Suppose your a scum bag, pick a color, any color scum bag..and you need money. Ok? So most people don’t carry cash anymore, they have plastic..no score there, and even if they do have cash – what the hell does a couple hundred bucks buy anymore these days? Total waste of time to anyone but the most desperate scum bag. So whats next? Rob a 7-11 for 50 bucks? You would have to rob 6 to afford a new cell phone. The “crime” we think of is obsolete and only the lowest on the food chain would even bother. Yeah, if I am a scum bag I want to break into your house and steal your barely working lap top to sell for 25 dollars, that’s gonna help.
And let me tell you how un motivate criminals are. I live in Iowa and car break in’s all but stop in the winter. Why? Here is a hint , it doesn’t have shit to do with our open carry gun laws..But do you think that ends the scum bags need for cash? NO
So this is why crime is down( but drug convictions are up): Why would a scum bag rob a person when it is easier to sell a few bags of crack/ meth/whatever and make A LOT? Or when they can steal identities or steal credit card numbers? “Crime” has changed. Please, try to keep up.Why is the type of crime you speak of down?For the same reason we don’t use a horse and buggy or slap our clothes on a rock anymore. If you think it is because of “guns” the lead in your ammo is seeping into your brain.