By Douglas V. Gibbs
Author, Speaker, Instructor, Radio Host
► In 1960 only 22% of families in the black community were single-parent households.
Now, that number is about 72%. Daily Signal
► According to the 1938 Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences, in 1938 about 11% of black children were born to unwed mothers. Today about 75% of black children are born to unwed mothers. Walter E. Williams
► In the decades following emancipation, poverty was widespread throughout the black community regardless of the status of the family. Today, about 22% of blacks in total live in poverty. U.S. Poverty Statistics
► Two-parent black families are rarely poor. Only 8% of black married-couple families live in poverty. Among black families in which both the husband and wife work full time, the poverty rate is under 5%. Poverty in black families headed by single women is 37%. As early as 1900, when racism was rampant, the duration of black unemployment was 15 percent shorter than that of whites. Today, in a time were we just finished two terms of the first black President, and experienced the candidacy of a black neurosurgeon named Ben Carson in the last election for the White House, it’s about 30 percent longer. Daily Signal
► In 2016, only 16 unarmed black men all year were killed by police. In 2015 the number was 36. Washington Post 2016, Washington Post, 2015.
► The black population in the United States is roughly 47 million (43 million "black only"), or about 14.5% of the total American population. Lightning strikes about 300 Americans annually. 14.5% of 300 is 43.5, which means if one was to stick strictly to the percentages, about 43 to 44 blacks are possibly struck by lightning each year. Taking into consideration that only 16 unarmed black men all year were killed by police last year, and 36 the prior year, based on the numbers a black is more likely to be struck by lightning than to be killed by a police officer. Black Demographics
► The National Review reports it's not true that black men are constantly stopped by the police for no reason. Indeed, black men are less likely than white men to have contact with the police in any given year, though this includes situations where the respondent called the cops himself: 17.5 percent versus 20.7 percent. Similarly, a black man has on average only 0.32 contacts with the police in any given year, compared with 0.35 contacts for a white man. It’s true that black men are overrepresented among people who have many contacts with the police, but not by much. Only 1.5 percent of black men have more than three contacts with the police in any given year, whereas 1.2 percent of white men do. Only 0.6 percent of black men experience physical force by the police in any given year, while approximately 0.2 percent of white men do. To be fair, these are probably slight undercounts, because the survey does not allow us to identify people who did not experience physical force during their most recent contact but did experience such force during a previous contact in the same year. Only 0.08 percent of black men are injured by the police each year, approximately the same rate as for white men. A black man is about 44 times as likely to suffer a traffic-related injury, according to the National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey. Moreover, keep in mind that these tallies of police violence include violence that is legally justified. Data from 2015 suggests that black men are three times as likely to commit violent crimes as white men. To the extent that cops are more likely to use force against people who commit violent crimes, which they surely are, this could easily explain any disparities, even though the differences are very slight.
The facts show us that racism and police brutality is not running rampant throughout the United States as we are being falsely advised by the media and leftist politicians. In fact, based on the poverty numbers as compared to the numbers regarding the family unit, it is apparent that the problem does not lie in the Democrat Party's false accusation of racism, but in the reality that the family unit has been devastated by some kind of interference that is plaguing the black community more so than other communities.
According to the Heritage Foundation, "The effect of married fathers on child outcomes can be quite pronounced. For example, examination of families with the same race and same parental education shows that, compared with intact married families, children from single-parent homes are:
⬝More than twice as likely to be arrested for a juvenile crime,[3]⬝Twice as likely to be treated for emotional and behavioral problems,[4]⬝Roughly twice as likely to be suspended or expelled from school,[5] and
⬝A third more likely to drop out before completing high school.[6]
The effects of being raised in a single-parent home continue into adulthood. Comparing families of the same race and similar incomes, children from broken and single-parent homes are three times more likely to end up in jail by the time they reach age 30 than are children raised in intact married families.[7] Compared with girls raised in similar married families, girls from single-parent homes are more than twice as likely to have a child without being married, thereby repeating the negative cycle for another generation.[8]
Finally, the decline of marriage contributes to declining self-sufficiency and increased official poverty in future generations. Children living in single-parent homes are 50 percent more likely to experience official poverty as adults when compared with children from intact married homes. This intergenerational poverty effect persists even after adjusting for the original differences in family income and poverty during childhood.
The War on Poverty and the Decline of Marriage
Throughout U.S. history, marriage was the norm. Prior to the mid-1960s, nearly all children were born to married couples. When the War on Poverty began in 1964, only 7 percent of children were born to unmarried women. However, over the next four-and-a-half decades the share of non-marital births exploded. In 2013, 41 percent of all children born in the U.S. were born outside marriage.The reality is two-fold. One, the problems that exist in the black community are not the result of racism or police brutality, but instead is directly related to the breakdown of the family unit. Two, the breakdown of the family unit began to occur at about the same time as President Johnson kicked the welfare system into high gear. The Democrat Party remains to be the party of government dependency. Under the presidency of Barack Obama, by 2012 (only halfway through his presidency, mind you) federal spending on welfare programs increased by 32%. The number of able-bodied adults on food stamps doubled from 1.9 million in 2008 to 3.9 million in 2010. Washington Times, Daily Caller.
The reason black lives did not improve during the Obama presidency is because President Obama was doubling down on the policies that have been destroying the black community, and keeping some blacks from realizing the American Dream. It takes strong family units, and working to do so without government dependency, in order to activate one's pursuit of happiness.
As for the call for equality, the people kneeling at football games are calling for "equality in results", which is Marxist at its foundation, and has no place in the American System. In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson did not write, "all men are expected to live with equal results thanks to government mandates." He wrote that "all men are Created equal." In other words, equality in the American System is not based on man's communist definition of equality, but God's definition of equality. After our creation, the equality stops, and our pursuit of happiness takes hold. Our individual talents and work ethics, combined with various environmental conditions, lead us all in different directions. Some of us achieve higher than others. I, myself, am still working to achieve some of my dreams and aspirations. Our happiness and achievements are ours to pursue, not government's to give us. In short, while the protesters in the black community has their "black-power" fists in the air with the expectation of government to somehow fix the woes of some members of the black community, the reality is, healing won't begin until the heart issues are resolved first.
As Benjamin Franklin so wisely said, "Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom." With an unwillingness to keep the family together, and a refusal to break away from the gifts of government that do nothing more than kill incentive, how can the percentage of blacks who remain in poverty ever expect to change their own conditions?
Democrats, with leftist progressive policies in place, have been running the big cities for generations, and nothing has improved. If anything, it's getting worse. Crime is escalating. Black on black violence is escalating. Education in the black community is in a state of dismal failure. Perhaps it is time for the black community that votes Democrat to realize that the liberal left does not have the answers to their difficulties, and if anything, are contributing to the woes of the black community. Perhaps the answer lies within themselves, and a form of government that is less intrusive than what the Democrats have to offer. Perhaps the encouragement for self-reliance, personal responsibility, and individual incentive through a free market system that is left alone by the government is what the black community needs.
The FBI agrees. Based on data recently released by the FBI, the truth is obvious. There is no epidemic of cops shooting black people
The lie was easily sold because the Democrat Party has convinced the black community that racism is running amok. If you believe racism is at an epidemic level, you will see racism in everything, whether it is there, or not.
The racial division that was put into high gear by the Obama administration is now at a crescendo. To be honest, I find it fascinating that the white nationalists and white supremacists were silent during the presidency of a black man, and now suddenly, under Trump, they are everywhere.
How odd.
Now, the NFL has jumped on the bandwagon of "racism is everywhere". They have decided that their way to protest the "oppressive American System" is to “take a knee” during the National Anthem. They tell us that it is not about disrespect to the flag or the country, but to unify everyone against the racist mistreatment of blacks by the police - that the FBI, and other statistical studies, say does not exist. Simply put, the racism they are claiming is out of control is simply not happening.
While the black community has been jumping to conclusions as they have been trained to do by the Democrat Party machine, real crime statistics states that the police brutality against blacks is nothing more than a politically driven message that has been sensationalized by a complicit media.
What is interesting, is that not only is there no such thing as a police brutality against blacks problem, but it is in truth the exact opposite.
When it comes to the deaths of black victims, the problem does not reside in white police, nor the police at all. The primary killer of blacks is other blacks.
While the black community has been jumping to conclusions as they have been trained to do by the Democrat Party machine, real crime statistics states that the police brutality against blacks is nothing more than a politically driven message that has been sensationalized by a complicit media.
What is interesting, is that not only is there no such thing as a police brutality against blacks problem, but it is in truth the exact opposite.
When it comes to the deaths of black victims, the problem does not reside in white police, nor the police at all. The primary killer of blacks is other blacks.
Black on black violence is out of control, yet the black community refuses to recognize that reality.
Dan Calabrese wrote: In 2016, the police fatally shot 233 blacks, the vast majority armed and dangerous, according to the Washington Post. The Post categorized only 16 black male victims of police shootings as “unarmed.” That classification masks assaults against officers and violent resistance to arrest. Contrary to the Black Lives Matter narrative, the police have much more to fear from black males than black males have to fear from the police. In 2015, a police officer was 18.5 times more likely to be killed by a black male than an unarmed black male was to be killed by a police officer. Black males have made up 42 percent of all cop-killers over the last decade, though they are only 6 percent of the population. That 18.5 ratio undoubtedly worsened in 2016, in light of the 53 percent increase in gun murders of officers—committed vastly and disproportionately by black males. Among all homicide suspects whose race was known, white killers of blacks numbered only 243.
The black community should not be fearing violence by the police, the police should be fearing violence by the black community.
Calabrese continues: Violent crime has now risen by a significant amount for two consecutive years. The total number of violent crimes rose 4.1 percent in 2016, and estimated homicides rose 8.6 percent. In 2015, violent crime rose by nearly 4 percent and estimated homicides by nearly 11 percent. The last time violence rose two years in a row was 2005–06. The reason for the current increase is what I have called the Ferguson Effect. Cops are backing off of proactive policing in high-crime minority neighborhoods, and criminals are becoming emboldened. Having been told incessantly by politicians, the media, and Black Lives Matter activists that they are bigoted for getting out of their cars and questioning someone loitering on a known drug corner at 2 AM, many officers are instead just driving by. Such stops are discretionary; cops don’t have to make them. And when political elites demonize the police for just such proactive policing, we shouldn’t be surprised when cops get the message and do less of it. Seventy-two percent of the nation’s officers say that they and their colleagues are now less willing to stop and question suspicious persons, according to a Pew Research poll released in January. The reason is the persistent anti-cop climate.
Football player Michael Bennett claimed he was arrested for running while being black. Except, the release of a video showed otherwise, proving Bennett’s claims were 100 percent false.
The black community should not be fearing violence by the police, the police should be fearing violence by the black community.
Calabrese continues: Violent crime has now risen by a significant amount for two consecutive years. The total number of violent crimes rose 4.1 percent in 2016, and estimated homicides rose 8.6 percent. In 2015, violent crime rose by nearly 4 percent and estimated homicides by nearly 11 percent. The last time violence rose two years in a row was 2005–06. The reason for the current increase is what I have called the Ferguson Effect. Cops are backing off of proactive policing in high-crime minority neighborhoods, and criminals are becoming emboldened. Having been told incessantly by politicians, the media, and Black Lives Matter activists that they are bigoted for getting out of their cars and questioning someone loitering on a known drug corner at 2 AM, many officers are instead just driving by. Such stops are discretionary; cops don’t have to make them. And when political elites demonize the police for just such proactive policing, we shouldn’t be surprised when cops get the message and do less of it. Seventy-two percent of the nation’s officers say that they and their colleagues are now less willing to stop and question suspicious persons, according to a Pew Research poll released in January. The reason is the persistent anti-cop climate.
Football player Michael Bennett claimed he was arrested for running while being black. Except, the release of a video showed otherwise, proving Bennett’s claims were 100 percent false.
The problem is, the media released what Bennett had to say, but they did not discuss the evidence that showed everyone he lied about it.
Andrew McCarthy wrote that the whole narrative is a giant fraud.
The NFL players are kneeling based on a false premise.
Police killings, as the Wall Street Journal’s Jason Riley notes, are at historic lows.
Andrew McCarthy wrote that the whole narrative is a giant fraud.
The NFL players are kneeling based on a false premise.
Police killings, as the Wall Street Journal’s Jason Riley notes, are at historic lows.
Therefore, that means there is a different motive than what we are being told.
Could it be that the liberal left wants racial division? Could it be that they are using a divide-and-conquer tactic to give themselves a chance to return to power?
If that is the case, it makes the protesting members of the black community nothing more than witless pawns serving the Democrats for the purpose of giving them political power.
-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
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