Author: ariellakornreich

From school, I had always learned that poorer neighborhoods, higher crime, and lower college attendance for the black population  was the result of something called institutionalized racism, where limited resources and access to quality education and jobs, and the funding for these, begot those results, even if they were legally allowed to be successful, rich, and get a quality education. From my mother at home, however, she would tell me that they just had “different values.” She would say, and the CQ researcher echoed, that their family structure is weaker, and it’s not like something was stopping them from attaining the same stuff we had–it was that they didn’t work for it. I found myself disagreeing with her, but somewhat with my eyes closed–in my high school, a highly diverse place with a very large minority presence, few minority students were in my honors classes. It wasn’t proportional at all, even if we’d all had the same introductory classes the first year. When I was in the same classes as them, they didn’t seem to care. Maybe they didn’t.

I find it interesting how some conservatives blame welfare for single mothers for the falling apart of the family unit. I would like to question how Walter E. Williams, the economy professor on page 178, knows that the family unit a generation out of slavery had a family unit of more integrity, and what other factors may have been playing into those disparities between those then and the ones now.

While I do believe that unequal access to resources like funding and education are part of the problem, I’m not willing to believe that there isn’t a “moral” issue as well underlying these problems.

For much of history, gangs have formed of those individuals who are cast out of higher groups or cannot attain higher status, who form a pack and work their way to secure resources or success in whatever form, be it territorial, financial, or otherwise, often by violent, and usually by illegal means. For almost as long as there have been gangs, law enforcement have tried to eliminate them, and usually fail.

As the technology age dawned and the world adapted to it, so have gangs. The internet allows for more efficient recruiting and more covert communication, very much like terrorist organizations, namely ISIS, have. Law enforcement also has adapted to fight online crime, but gangs seem to always be one step ahead, becoming resistant to developed techniques to stop them. With something as vast, complex, and opportunity-presenting as the internet, it only takes a few steps to start an anonymous life in a community, and, depending on how good at it you are, make yourself incredibly difficult to track. In fact, that’s most of what something called the Deep Web or Dark Web is all about.

The answer to obliterating gangs must come from the root. People vulnerable to recruitment into these communities are often from underprivileged areas, low on the socioeconomic hierarchy, with limited access to needed resources to improve their quality of life, and often an insufficient education to boot. Gang formation is a troubling, often dangerous symptom of much larger issues in a society, issues that have persisted for thousands of years and probably to some degree will continue to persist. However, treating those issues and alleviating some of the burden on lower socioeconomic tiers may make a gang dilemma less acute.

Racial Profiling and the associated issues that branch from it have caused issues that have rocked this country multiple times in recent memory, and have been a nearly constant source of tension between ordinary minority citizens and the police supposed to protect them and enforce the laws that keep them safe. From the high-profile killings of unarmed black individuals by police to the controversy of stop and frisk, racial bias in law enforcement is not a trivial issue whatsoever.

I find it sort of baffling that although white people who are stopped and frisked are more likely to be carrying contraband (perhaps because the black constituents of the sampling are already generally more wary because of this issue), blacks are stopped and risked at increased numbers. If this were truly about deterring crime by statistics and reasonable thinking, I would think police would skew their checks toward white subjects, or at the very least even it out, but I guess old and irrational fears, or at worst racism, still drive their behavior in this case.

Regarding the killings; I believe that every case must be looked at individually, for it’s own details. I do not think all of the killings that have sparked protests were out of racism, although BLM may disagree with me. There is a danger in lumping cases like this together, especially ones so emotionally charged, and flying into outrage without looking at things individually. That being said, the culture between minorities and law enforcement certainly aggravates this issue, and inroads need to be taken to mend the ties between minorities and the people who are meant to protect them and enforce the law among them.