Black crime

While civil rights leaders have raised their voices to speak out against this one tragedy, few if any will do the same about the larger tragedy of daily carnage that is black-on-black crime in America.

The most recent comprehensive study on black-on-black crime from the Justice Department should have been a clarion call for the black community to take action. There is no reason to believe that the trends it reported have decreased since 2005, the year for which the data were reported.

Almost one half of the nation’s murder victims that year were black and a majority of them were between the ages of 17 and 29. Black people accounted for 13% of the total U.S. population in 2005. Yet they were the victims of 49% of all the nation’s murders. And 93% of black murder victims were killed by other black people, according to the same report.

Less than half of black students graduate from high school. The education system’s failure is often a jail sentence or even a death sentence. The Orlando Sentinel has reported that 17-year-old Martin was recently suspended from his high school. According to the U.S. Department of Education’s Civil Rights Office, in the 2006-07 school year, 22% of all black and Hispanic K-12 students were suspended at least once (as compared to 5% of whites).

This year 22% of blacks live below the poverty line and a shocking 72% of black babies are born to unwed mothers. The national unemployment rate for black people increased last month to over 13%, nearly five points above the average for all Americans.

A few black intellectuals have explored this theme in my lifetime, but you couldn’t call Walter Williams, Thomas Sowell, Shelby Steele, Ward Connerly and other black conservatives “leaders.” You pretty much have to go back to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to find a credible leader who would have offered a forthright response to Juan Williams’ line of questioning, rather than ignoring him and hoping he’ll go away. I wonder what Booker T. Washington, Medgar Evers, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and other African-American heroes of the past would think of today’s poor imitation of black leadership. 

Here, by the way, is Walter Williams’ variation on the same theme.

Any chance one or more of today’s black leaders will submit to the Journal a response to Juan Williams? Will any of them offer an explanation for their high-energy attacks on the (statistically small) problem of white-on-black crime, and silence on the epidemic of black-on-black crime? I’ll be watching, but I won’t be expecting much.