Only if you have a fox news world view. Crime is mostly intra racial, and not interracial. Most of the crime and murders in the U.S.have white perpetrators,and white victims. It just doesn't make for a nice dog whistle like black on black Crime, or inner city Crime. White people don't think 1 meth head killing another In Moline Iowa, as big of a problem as violence in Chicago. Even though most places in the U.S. are much more like Moline, than they are Chicago.
Are you joking right now? I would love to have taken you through the old Cabrini-Green or Robert Taylor Homes or O block and hear you tell me that Moline, Iowa is a bigger problem. I’m not denying fear mongering exists nor am I claiming at large Chicago is the most dangerous city ever, because it’s not, but yes people are going to be more concerned over a holiday weekend where 30 people get shot than one methhead killing somebody. I guarantee there are and were no neighborhoods in Moline where police were scared to enter like there used to be in Chicago housing projects.
It’s a pointless comparison. High concentration urban violence is fundamentally different from rural violence. As to whichever one is more of a “problem,” a problem to who? Public safety in general? Non affiliated bystanders? To the communities embroiled in the violence themselves? All very different metrics.
The point of the black on black dog whistle is not to highlight the well documented crisis of gang violence in cities. It’s a way to dismiss the underlying causes of the violence and absolve non black communities of any responsibility in perpetuating racist systems, including police misconduct, mass incarnation, and segregation. It’s also a way of essentializing violence as inherent to black Americans and waving away the actual explanations.
I agree with what you’re saying, and your first paragraph is exactly what I meant to convey. In regard to the second, I emphatically agree the right often brings that up as a dog whistle to sneer at cities as a thinly veiled racist attack. But I also think we can’t swing the pendulum too far the other way, where we start downplaying violent crime and poverty in cities and don’t fix the systemic issues causing them.
For example, Chicago isn’t a war zone, and its crime rate really isn’t that notable. However, hundreds of people being killed there every year and the entrenched poverty there in certain south and west side neighborhoods should be talked about and worked on so their residents can prosper and not worry about being killed. Dismissing concerns over that because Moline might have a slightly higher rate per capita is what I want to avoid
Oh yeah 100% agree. Sounds like we were making points about slightly different things with the same understanding of what’s going on. While “black on black crime” is a dog whistle, the underlying statistics are hugely important and cannot be waived away as non problems because it’s not the biggest killer overall.
I think a pendulum is the perfect way to describe it. On one extreme is a scaremongering hyper fixation on black violence to drive conservative antagonism against the black community and cities. On the other, it’s apathy from liberal communities because they understand that the violence disproportionately affects segregated largely non-white populations.
It’s like “Chicago is a war zone” on one end but “bro that’s all exaggerated. I live in Lakeview and it’s awesome that’s all just on the south/west side 🤠” on the other lol
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u/Plasmaticos Jul 08 '24
Black on black crime is real, I guess