Progressives Miss the Point of Baltimore

The Baltimore riots could be the beginning of a new black history in urban America. Too bad all so many people can see is “thugs.”

The supposedly sophisticated twitterati take on what has happened after Freddie Gray’s funeral is to essentially rationalize the riots by explaining that the looting we’ve seen on our TV screens was just collateral damage for institutional racism.

Put aside for the moment that many of the businesses and cars destroyed in the attacks were black-owned. Put aside also that Baltimore’s mayor and police chief are black. Nevertheless, there are indeed structural issues that have combined to create this moment—but they don’t fit the narrative being proposed as higher wisdom.

For example, several studies have shown that it’s an op-ed page street myth that mass unemployment is inevitable when factory jobs move away from a city as they did in Baltimore (sources here). No people who had accomplished the Great Migration went to pieces just because a factory moved to the suburbs, or even China.

Three key dynamics since the Civil Rights era 50 years ago created the inner-city misery we are now seeing urgently rise to the foreground today.

First, the Black Power ideology that proliferated in the 1960s and ’70s discouraged black communities from maintaining the old-time mantra that adversity meant that blacks have to try twice as hard. The wise insight was that after centuries in the United States, the persistent double standard was demeaning, and while that made basic sense, it changed black America’s orientation towards individual initiative. That helps explain, for example, why only in the ’60s did it become common for poor blacks to burn their own neighborhoods in protest. Even amidst Jim Crow, black people did not do this.

Second, in the late ’60s, partly in response to the riots of the Long Hot Summers, welfare was transformed from a time-limited program intended for widows to an open-ended program that didn’t care whether recipients ever got jobs. This had the unintended consequence of discouraging marriage, and made it easier for women to raise kids without the father around. This, a story too little told (read it here), decisively impacted the black experience nationwide.

Finally, the War on Drugs created a black market alternative to legal work for poor black men underserved by bad schools. Frankly, The Wire explained this dynamic better than any academic analysis.

Racism is too simplistic an explanation for all of this, as is an idea that “it’s complicated” where what’s really meant is “complicated racism.” Welfare was opened up by liberals who thought they were doing black people a favor, often at the behest of black protesters. The Rockefeller drug laws that ended up penalizing crack over powdered cocaine were supported by black Congress members.............

More - http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/05/01/progressives-miss-the-point-of-baltimore.html

 

Just need some more laws, better top men, and spend more money. We just haven't went far enough with our intentions, and if you don't agree with our intentions you're racist

 

Conservatives- "it's the Libs' fault."

Woo! Right on the money again!

 

Is that what that said?

 

Agreed. If they'd just agree with us and stop being obstructionist

 

McWhorter characterizes himself as "a cranky liberal Democrat". In support of this description, he states that while he "disagree sustainedly with many of the tenets of the Civil Rights orthodoxy," he also "supports Barack Obama, reviles the War on Drugs, supports gay marriage, never voted for George Bush and writes of Black English as coherent speech"

 

I fully support equal opportunity, but trying to create equal outcome is total bullshit

 

The title by it's nature implies that Progressives are unique in not "getting it." That's stupid. I've yet to hear a conservative opinion that isn't just blaming liberals.

 

get the hell out of here. First and foremost, conservatives place the blame for any person's plight on said person. Liberals go to any length to absolve the individual of responsibility for his or her outcomes. Personal responsibility would be perfect place to start. You first.

 

Wait... Baltimore has a black mayor, a black police commissioner and a black deputy commissioner.... And 50% of the force is black. If there is "institutionalized racism" in Baltimore, where is it coming from?? This whole deal puts the lie to the complaint about Ferguson's force being mostly white... Having black leadership isn't going to stop bad things from happening. We've had a black president for six years now and the country is as divided as ever.

 

I hate the hijacking of the world liberal. Progressives have hijacked it.

 

Liberals/progressives are responsible for transforming welfare to an open-ended program

Conservatives are responsible for the war on drugs

 

Don't forget about their state and federal elected officials.

 

I'm not sure which of those is more damning. It's close.

 

The issues with police abuse aren't about racism, but a reflection of the force of government. You can't have all of these laws and policies for petty crimes and pushing morals through governmental enforcement without force.

The issue is more of a poverty one than race because they're going to be disproportionately targeted due to them being easy victims.

 

both probably borne of good intentions, but both disastrous.

 

They both [itch bay] about both issues, but only double down on each while in power.

Both major parties are built around lots fascism.

 

Fascism is a pretty loaded word.

 

Don't sell or use this substance in your own body or we'll imprison you.

Treating poor people like children to receive assistance

 

Don't be fatuous, Jeffrey.