Murder Ink
June 2, 2006 12:52 PM Subscribe
Murders this week: 4; Murders this year: 105 The Baltimore City Paper tracks murders in Charm City week to week. (Check the archive on the right of the page for previous weeks.) Of course, in a city where the most popular underground video is called "Stop Fucking Snitching, Vol. 1," the murder rate can be tough to control.
The new Ice Cube album has several songs on snitching. It's a good album overall but I'm beginning to see anti-snitching as a response to the disproportionate number of minorities in jail. I wouldn't so quickly associate it as a bullying tactic to keep people from talking about murder.
posted by geoff. at 12:58 PM on June 2, 2006
posted by geoff. at 12:58 PM on June 2, 2006
Population Baltimore, 2004: 636,251 (^1)
Population Vancouver, 2001: 546,000 (^2)
Murders in Baltimore this year: 105
Murders in Vancouver this year: 14 (^3)
posted by Kickstart70 at 1:00 PM on June 2, 2006
Population Vancouver, 2001: 546,000 (^2)
Murders in Baltimore this year: 105
Murders in Vancouver this year: 14 (^3)
posted by Kickstart70 at 1:00 PM on June 2, 2006
Stop snitchin Kickstart or I'll murder ya.
posted by Falconetti at 1:11 PM on June 2, 2006
posted by Falconetti at 1:11 PM on June 2, 2006
“To all you rats, snitchers, lucky enough to cop one of these DVDs, I hope you catch AIDS in your mouth and your lips the first thing that die. Bitch.”
Wait... wait, what?
posted by brundlefly at 1:13 PM on June 2, 2006
Wait... wait, what?
posted by brundlefly at 1:13 PM on June 2, 2006
I wouldn't so quickly associate it as a bullying tactic to keep people from talking about murder.
It's a drug thing more than a murder thing, but it's absolutely a bully tactic.
posted by SweetJesus at 1:15 PM on June 2, 2006
It's a drug thing more than a murder thing, but it's absolutely a bully tactic.
posted by SweetJesus at 1:15 PM on June 2, 2006
Compelling stuff, OmieWise. It's incredible how so many of the victims are pregnant women and kids.
posted by brain_drain at 1:15 PM on June 2, 2006
posted by brain_drain at 1:15 PM on June 2, 2006
B'more is a scary, effed up place and has been for several decades. A bombed out post-industrial wasteland left to rot in its own excrement. Sure they've got the inner harbor, Fells, Camden Yards and a mish mash of gentrification patches and posh neighborhoods, but that is only a small percent of the actual city. The rest looks like an effing war zone and has all my life.
There's been a lot of gentrifying lately, and not to be pessimistic, but I think that it is not going to end well. I can already see the headlines. Speaking of headlines, Liz Bowie's feature On Their Own is a good read and very depressing.
posted by shoepal at 1:18 PM on June 2, 2006
There's been a lot of gentrifying lately, and not to be pessimistic, but I think that it is not going to end well. I can already see the headlines. Speaking of headlines, Liz Bowie's feature On Their Own is a good read and very depressing.
posted by shoepal at 1:18 PM on June 2, 2006
geoff. that isn't the tone of the Skinny Suge DVD at all. There's nothing at all political about it, it's much more concerned with "if you can't do the time, don't do the crime." I'd like to hear the Ice Cube record, I've always like him, but it sounds like a pretty lame argument. No more "Stop The Violence," just stop snitching.
posted by OmieWise at 1:18 PM on June 2, 2006
posted by OmieWise at 1:18 PM on June 2, 2006
I'm beginning to see anti-snitching as a response to the disproportionate number of minorities in jail.
Oh, please. Yes, I'm sure it's dispassionate social protest, having nothing at all to do with the possibility that the threatener—excuse me, commentator—might be snitched on and have to take time off from his lucrative activities.
posted by languagehat at 1:20 PM on June 2, 2006
Oh, please. Yes, I'm sure it's dispassionate social protest, having nothing at all to do with the possibility that the threatener—excuse me, commentator—might be snitched on and have to take time off from his lucrative activities.
posted by languagehat at 1:20 PM on June 2, 2006
Bal'mer also has one of the highest rates of venereal (sp?) disease, doesn't?
posted by inigo2 at 1:29 PM on June 2, 2006
posted by inigo2 at 1:29 PM on June 2, 2006
inigo2 writes "Bal'mer also has one of the highest rates of venereal (sp?) disease, doesn't?"
I hear that you can catch AIDS in your mouth and your lips there.
posted by mr_roboto at 1:31 PM on June 2, 2006
I hear that you can catch AIDS in your mouth and your lips there.
posted by mr_roboto at 1:31 PM on June 2, 2006
When I went to university there, this was popular vandalism on the bus benches:
Baltimore: The City ThatReads Bleeds
posted by Mr. Six at 1:33 PM on June 2, 2006
Baltimore: The City That
posted by Mr. Six at 1:33 PM on June 2, 2006
I'm beginning to see anti-snitching as a response to the disproportionate number of minorities in jail. I wouldn't so quickly associate it as a bullying tactic to keep people from talking about murder.
holy shit! ice cube either found a way to audioify weed and kick it out through the speakers, or he's mastered some kind of subliminal technology, but damn! even the criminals themselves would laugh at that one
posted by troybob at 1:35 PM on June 2, 2006
holy shit! ice cube either found a way to audioify weed and kick it out through the speakers, or he's mastered some kind of subliminal technology, but damn! even the criminals themselves would laugh at that one
posted by troybob at 1:35 PM on June 2, 2006
cavalier, hilarious. That it couldn't sustain 180th place on the list cracks me up.
posted by jonson at 1:37 PM on June 2, 2006 [1 favorite]
posted by jonson at 1:37 PM on June 2, 2006 [1 favorite]
It's going to be okay; we're trading in our old, surreal visual campaign for something new.
posted by sidereal at 1:38 PM on June 2, 2006
posted by sidereal at 1:38 PM on June 2, 2006
I'll take this opportunity to pimp the brilliant and under-watched HBO show The Wire (mentioned in the second link), all about drug crime in Baltimore. Season 3 dealt specifically with the murder rate and political pressure to keep it down.
Mr. Six During the opening credits of the last season, there's some graffitti on a wall that read "Bodymore, Murdaland." Is that real?
posted by papakwanz at 1:39 PM on June 2, 2006
Mr. Six During the opening credits of the last season, there's some graffitti on a wall that read "Bodymore, Murdaland." Is that real?
posted by papakwanz at 1:39 PM on June 2, 2006
What an awful new slogan. We should have a meetup to drown our sorrows in a pint or three.
posted by Faint of Butt at 1:40 PM on June 2, 2006
posted by Faint of Butt at 1:40 PM on June 2, 2006
Better still, have that meetup in Chevy Chase or Silver Spring.
posted by jonson at 1:43 PM on June 2, 2006
posted by jonson at 1:43 PM on June 2, 2006
Silver Spring? That's right next to DC! We'll all be killed!
posted by Faint of Butt at 1:43 PM on June 2, 2006
posted by Faint of Butt at 1:43 PM on June 2, 2006
Yeah, The Wire is very true to life here, as was Homicide. It's a wacky city, and there's a lot that's great as well. John Waters movies are also very true to life, although in a different and equally wacky way.
(The new slogan does suck, and reminds everyone I've talked to as some kind of strange drug slang. At least BELIEVE was, indeed, surreal.)
posted by OmieWise at 1:44 PM on June 2, 2006
(The new slogan does suck, and reminds everyone I've talked to as some kind of strange drug slang. At least BELIEVE was, indeed, surreal.)
posted by OmieWise at 1:44 PM on June 2, 2006
My wife and I went on a Caribbean cruise for our honeymoon a couple of years ago, which ended at Baltimore. We had a few hours to kill before our flight back to the UK, so we embarked on a Baltimore city tour by coach. I knew we were in for a good time when the tour guide said, with considerable pride, that Baltimore was second only to Detroit in the US' murder statistics!
posted by metaxa at 1:50 PM on June 2, 2006
posted by metaxa at 1:50 PM on June 2, 2006
Mr. Six, when I visited my college buddies going to Hopkins, they always pointed out the benches that had been vandalized to say: "The City that Breeds."
I used to live just outside Bawlmer, and had a lot of love for the place, but as mentioned, I never strayed too far from Fell's Point, Federal Hill, the Ottobar (woot!), the art museums, etc. The suburbs aren't much better--lots of troglodytic racists bitching about the drugs and violence, but in some ways they have a point.
But hey, John Waters, David Byrne, Edgar Allen Poe, HL Menchken, Babe Ruth, Parker Posey, Spiro Agnew, and, for mefites especially, Das Hasselhoff all were born in or lived there. And anecdotally, it's believed 1/10 Baltimorons are hooked on smack. Oh, and then there was the time a few years back when, as kind of a joke, Baltimore applied for USAID funding as a third-world nation, and actually got it. So suck it, New Yorkers.
posted by bardic at 1:54 PM on June 2, 2006
I used to live just outside Bawlmer, and had a lot of love for the place, but as mentioned, I never strayed too far from Fell's Point, Federal Hill, the Ottobar (woot!), the art museums, etc. The suburbs aren't much better--lots of troglodytic racists bitching about the drugs and violence, but in some ways they have a point.
But hey, John Waters, David Byrne, Edgar Allen Poe, HL Menchken, Babe Ruth, Parker Posey, Spiro Agnew, and, for mefites especially, Das Hasselhoff all were born in or lived there. And anecdotally, it's believed 1/10 Baltimorons are hooked on smack. Oh, and then there was the time a few years back when, as kind of a joke, Baltimore applied for USAID funding as a third-world nation, and actually got it. So suck it, New Yorkers.
posted by bardic at 1:54 PM on June 2, 2006
...but I'm beginning to see anti-snitching as a response to the disproportionate number of minorities in jail. I wouldn't so quickly associate it as a bullying tactic to keep people from talking about murder.
Can you provide one little tiny shred of evidence for this claim?
posted by fugitivefromchaingang at 1:54 PM on June 2, 2006
Can you provide one little tiny shred of evidence for this claim?
posted by fugitivefromchaingang at 1:54 PM on June 2, 2006
Of course when I think of crime in Baltimore, my mind immediately jumps to the foot stomper.
posted by Hal Mumkin at 1:54 PM on June 2, 2006
posted by Hal Mumkin at 1:54 PM on June 2, 2006
Huh. Apparently there's an online database of snitches, for use in distributing stitches at a later date.
posted by jonson at 1:54 PM on June 2, 2006 [1 favorite]
posted by jonson at 1:54 PM on June 2, 2006 [1 favorite]
I'm really just not getting the "stop snitching" business: Our community is fucked up and if you try to stop it from being fucked up we'll fuck you up.
Way to climb the ladder. Down.
posted by kgasmart at 1:59 PM on June 2, 2006
Way to climb the ladder. Down.
posted by kgasmart at 1:59 PM on June 2, 2006
Can anyone give me tips on finding a copy of Stop Fucking Snitching, Vol. 1? A group of transplanted Muralanders and I are quite curious to see it.
posted by jrb223 at 2:00 PM on June 2, 2006
posted by jrb223 at 2:00 PM on June 2, 2006
Sadly, the murder rate is only part of the story. According to a Sociologist I know (sorry, he hasn't published his stuff on the web yet), the only reason that murder rates have fallen in most cities is because emergency rooms are much better at keeping gun shot victims alive.
Which I'm guessing also has contributed to the need for a "stop snitching" movement among inner-city gangs.
I'm beginning to see anti-snitching as a response to the disproportionate number of minorities in jail. I wouldn't so quickly associate it as a bullying tactic to keep people from talking about murder.
Don't make the logical mistake that because innocent african-americans are unfairly targeted/profiled by police departments (a true problem) that there is not a legitimate problem with crime in inner-city black communities (also a true problem).
Recently in Philly we had a well-publicized case of a child being killed in the corssfire of a gunfight right by his school. Even though tons of people saw it, it was difficult to get people to testify because of the "snitching" movement, which was pretty frustrating to the larger community where the child lived.
I'm pretty sure that the pressure put on the witnesses didn't have anything to do with the "disproportionate number of minorities in jail."
posted by illovich at 2:05 PM on June 2, 2006
Which I'm guessing also has contributed to the need for a "stop snitching" movement among inner-city gangs.
I'm beginning to see anti-snitching as a response to the disproportionate number of minorities in jail. I wouldn't so quickly associate it as a bullying tactic to keep people from talking about murder.
Don't make the logical mistake that because innocent african-americans are unfairly targeted/profiled by police departments (a true problem) that there is not a legitimate problem with crime in inner-city black communities (also a true problem).
Recently in Philly we had a well-publicized case of a child being killed in the corssfire of a gunfight right by his school. Even though tons of people saw it, it was difficult to get people to testify because of the "snitching" movement, which was pretty frustrating to the larger community where the child lived.
I'm pretty sure that the pressure put on the witnesses didn't have anything to do with the "disproportionate number of minorities in jail."
posted by illovich at 2:05 PM on June 2, 2006
beLIEve
I know O'Malley means/meant well, but it is like he lives in some sort of alternate reality version of his city.
Speaking of alternate realities, a lot of the images from Katrina in New Orleans last year reminded me of an average day in Baltimore, only with slightly more water in the streets.
jrb223, I think i saw a torrent of SFS recently. check the usual places.
posted by shoepal at 2:06 PM on June 2, 2006
I know O'Malley means/meant well, but it is like he lives in some sort of alternate reality version of his city.
Speaking of alternate realities, a lot of the images from Katrina in New Orleans last year reminded me of an average day in Baltimore, only with slightly more water in the streets.
jrb223, I think i saw a torrent of SFS recently. check the usual places.
posted by shoepal at 2:06 PM on June 2, 2006
papakwanz
The Bodymore, Murderland graffiti is real, and I can take you to see it if you want, but I'm staying in the car. Seriously, Baltimore isn't that bad, you just have to know where to go and keep your wits about you. Not to excuse it, but most of the murders are drug related. If you're not buying or selling, you don't have much to worry about.
posted by electroboy at 2:06 PM on June 2, 2006
The Bodymore, Murderland graffiti is real, and I can take you to see it if you want, but I'm staying in the car. Seriously, Baltimore isn't that bad, you just have to know where to go and keep your wits about you. Not to excuse it, but most of the murders are drug related. If you're not buying or selling, you don't have much to worry about.
posted by electroboy at 2:06 PM on June 2, 2006
105 people over 5 months in a city of 636,000. That is on pace for 252 murders this year, or about 40 per 100,000. DC hit 80 in the early nineties.
posted by Lazlo Hollyfeld at 2:09 PM on June 2, 2006
posted by Lazlo Hollyfeld at 2:09 PM on June 2, 2006
jonson, that's pretty amazing. Deserves an FPP IMO.
Hilarious. That's just what I said to OmieWise about this post, which started as a comment in another thread.
posted by jonson at 2:20 PM on June 2, 2006
Hilarious. That's just what I said to OmieWise about this post, which started as a comment in another thread.
posted by jonson at 2:20 PM on June 2, 2006
I'll save you the time - it's been posted like three times.
posted by SweetJesus at 2:24 PM on June 2, 2006
posted by SweetJesus at 2:24 PM on June 2, 2006
re snitching: i mean, what if say the police (or other interested party) rather than snitching (or soliciting snitching) simply marked the murderer him-/herself as a snitch and let the streets eat their own?
...and what if police could adopt a policy that someone who is part of that anti-snitching campaign or who promotes the message (via clothing, posting, etc) is implicitly giving permission for the police not to waste resources investigating that person's own murder on the basis that the victim in effect thwarted his/her own murder investigation?
posted by troybob at 2:33 PM on June 2, 2006
...and what if police could adopt a policy that someone who is part of that anti-snitching campaign or who promotes the message (via clothing, posting, etc) is implicitly giving permission for the police not to waste resources investigating that person's own murder on the basis that the victim in effect thwarted his/her own murder investigation?
posted by troybob at 2:33 PM on June 2, 2006
We had a few hours to kill...
So we went to Baltimore, where killin' is all the rage!
posted by languagehat at 2:37 PM on June 2, 2006
So we went to Baltimore, where killin' is all the rage!
posted by languagehat at 2:37 PM on June 2, 2006
Why are black people so violent?
posted by Mean Mr. Bucket at 2:40 PM on June 2, 2006
posted by Mean Mr. Bucket at 2:40 PM on June 2, 2006
The replacement for "Baltimore: The City That Reads" a few years back was "Baltimore: The Greatest City In America." Freakin' hilarious, and I actually really like it here. I suggest "Baltimore: It's A Place", and they can have it for way less than half a million dollars. So, when's that meetup?
[Hello to sidereal - I've been enjoying your flickr stuff for a while now.]
posted by zoinks at 2:46 PM on June 2, 2006
[Hello to sidereal - I've been enjoying your flickr stuff for a while now.]
posted by zoinks at 2:46 PM on June 2, 2006
"Population Baltimore, 2004: 636,251 (^1)
Population Vancouver, 2001: 546,000 (^2)
Murders in Baltimore this year: 105
Murders in Vancouver this year: 14 (^3)
posted by Kickstart70 at 1:00 PM PST on June 2 [+fave] [!]"
"The racial makeup of the city is 93.9% White, 4.9% of Asian descent, 4.0% Aboriginal, 0.5% Black, and 0.2% from two or more races. 0.4% of the population are Hispanic or Latino of any race." (seems on par with other Canadian census results I have seen)
At what point can we actually stand up and say "Might race have something to do with it?" Oh, yeah, that would be racist.
Oakland, CA has a very similar problem.
posted by drstein at 2:47 PM on June 2, 2006
Population Vancouver, 2001: 546,000 (^2)
Murders in Baltimore this year: 105
Murders in Vancouver this year: 14 (^3)
posted by Kickstart70 at 1:00 PM PST on June 2 [+fave] [!]"
"The racial makeup of the city is 93.9% White, 4.9% of Asian descent, 4.0% Aboriginal, 0.5% Black, and 0.2% from two or more races. 0.4% of the population are Hispanic or Latino of any race." (seems on par with other Canadian census results I have seen)
At what point can we actually stand up and say "Might race have something to do with it?" Oh, yeah, that would be racist.
Oakland, CA has a very similar problem.
posted by drstein at 2:47 PM on June 2, 2006
Baltimore scares the shit out of me. There's a weekly club night in this area called Buzz that spent 8 years in South East DC (the bad part of town) with hardly anything bad happening but cars being broken into (well, and being raided by the police a few times). It was in Baltimore for less than a year and there were a bunch of carjackings at gunpoint and at least one double murder, execution-style.
And that was 3 blocks away from the inner harbor.
posted by empath at 2:59 PM on June 2, 2006
And that was 3 blocks away from the inner harbor.
posted by empath at 2:59 PM on June 2, 2006
At what point can we actually stand up and say "Might race have something to do with it?" Oh, yeah, that would be racist.
Well, it would also be wrong, so there's that to consider. Baltimore has lots and lots of poor people. Most of those poor people are black, but not all. As a former Baltimoron myself, there are plenty of poor neighborhoods I'd recommend avoiding, whether black or white people live there. I've been held up in both black and white neighborhoods there.
posted by me & my monkey at 3:02 PM on June 2, 2006
Well, it would also be wrong, so there's that to consider. Baltimore has lots and lots of poor people. Most of those poor people are black, but not all. As a former Baltimoron myself, there are plenty of poor neighborhoods I'd recommend avoiding, whether black or white people live there. I've been held up in both black and white neighborhoods there.
posted by me & my monkey at 3:02 PM on June 2, 2006
The only thing that redeems Bruce Springsteen, IMO, is the song containing these lines:
"Got a wife and kids in Baltimore jack
I went out for a ride and I never went back
Like a river that dont know where its flowing
I took a wrong turn and I just kept going"
There's a sadness to Charm City that's kind of hard to define the way this song does.
posted by bardic at 3:22 PM on June 2, 2006
"Got a wife and kids in Baltimore jack
I went out for a ride and I never went back
Like a river that dont know where its flowing
I took a wrong turn and I just kept going"
There's a sadness to Charm City that's kind of hard to define the way this song does.
posted by bardic at 3:22 PM on June 2, 2006
illovich, a couple years ago the NY Times had a list of unusual ideas and inventions (it was an end-of-year magazine dealie) that mentioned the better ER care / lower murder rate connection. So the idea's been reported on for a while. (Of course, they may have gotten the idea from your sociologist.)
posted by occhiblu at 3:29 PM on June 2, 2006
posted by occhiblu at 3:29 PM on June 2, 2006
I'd just like to point out...
Median household income (from census 2000 for the respective countries)
Vancouver : $69,982 (US)
Baltimore: $30,078 (US)
I'm looking for slightly more detailed information, in particular a comparable histogram of household incomes for both cities.
posted by Mercaptan at 3:35 PM on June 2, 2006
Median household income (from census 2000 for the respective countries)
Vancouver : $69,982 (US)
Baltimore: $30,078 (US)
I'm looking for slightly more detailed information, in particular a comparable histogram of household incomes for both cities.
posted by Mercaptan at 3:35 PM on June 2, 2006
David Simon mentions it in Homicide the book, specifically in relation to B-More's murder rate. And it is true that there are an awful lot of people in wheelchairs in Baltimore who look like they didn't start life in them.
I love Baltimore, with a kind of crazy love, and I'm not interested in running it down. In my opinion it's on the way back, but the drug trade (it accounts for 10% of national heroin use and trafficking) and the loss of manufacturing jobs has really hurt this place. The city has always been a city of the working class, and when heavy industry left a lot of people lost the jobs that had supported their families. With a tax base devasttated by job loss and drugs, schools etc are just horrible. It's a familiar story, and really doesn't have to do with race.
posted by OmieWise at 3:40 PM on June 2, 2006
I love Baltimore, with a kind of crazy love, and I'm not interested in running it down. In my opinion it's on the way back, but the drug trade (it accounts for 10% of national heroin use and trafficking) and the loss of manufacturing jobs has really hurt this place. The city has always been a city of the working class, and when heavy industry left a lot of people lost the jobs that had supported their families. With a tax base devasttated by job loss and drugs, schools etc are just horrible. It's a familiar story, and really doesn't have to do with race.
posted by OmieWise at 3:40 PM on June 2, 2006
I meant that Simon mentions the shock trauma/murder rate connection. Homicide came out in the early 90s. (And is a great book by the way.)
posted by OmieWise at 3:41 PM on June 2, 2006
posted by OmieWise at 3:41 PM on June 2, 2006
Mean Mr. Bucket, drstein, the very last thing you two want to do in this "your words give aid to terrorists" human-pyramid-stacking reporter-threatening women-and-children-shooting era is take this admittedly foolish behavior as a chance to start bloviating about your ignorant personal theories of inborn racial malevolence... or should I just start ranting about the evils of inherent white genetic deviltry now?
Let's just rein ourselves in a bit, shall we?
posted by tyro urge at 3:49 PM on June 2, 2006
Let's just rein ourselves in a bit, shall we?
posted by tyro urge at 3:49 PM on June 2, 2006
Yeah, and back up off of Oakland, hater.
...although what's up with all the rape? Yikes...
posted by ubi at 4:08 PM on June 2, 2006
...although what's up with all the rape? Yikes...
posted by ubi at 4:08 PM on June 2, 2006
Crime statistics for Baltimore vs. crime stats for Los Angeles, New York,San Francisco, and Chicago.
posted by QuestionableSwami at 4:24 PM on June 2, 2006
posted by QuestionableSwami at 4:24 PM on June 2, 2006
Murders this year in Baltimore: 105
Oakland: 56 (as of May 26)
Either way, it sucks.
posted by blucevalo at 4:25 PM on June 2, 2006
Oakland: 56 (as of May 26)
Either way, it sucks.
posted by blucevalo at 4:25 PM on June 2, 2006
...era is take this admittedly foolish behavior as a chance to start bloviating about your ignorant personal theories of inborn racial malevolence...
Shut down!
Yeah that's productive. Let's never talk about it. violence in the inner city might cure it self that way, huh.
Jesus. You even mention facts that might correlate with race and guess what? BLAM! "Inborn racial malevolence"
Your GODWINIZED before you can say David duke.
You know what Tyro? You lose.
Just because we can see the facts in front of our faces and maybe want to discuss them in no way imply we feel any of these things are "inborn" or genetic at all.
We see things, like the statistical fact that most 9-1-1 calls in most US cities come from Black neighborhoods an that seems consistent with the large population of black inmates in US prisons. It becomes increasing difficult to blame simply a broken racist judicial system alone. So we have to know why?
This thing we label "race" (that is revealing itself to be more an more an artifice) sure "seems" to have correlation to violence in the US.
So is it culture? Is it race? Is it the cumulative effects of slavery, racism, victim mythology, and poverty? What?
It is, in the latter third of the last century, undeniably something tied to one group of people in particular. Black people. Specifically young black men. And we had better confront it. We had better figure out why that might be. And we better fix it.
In 1980's the Right was happy as clams to ignore the exploding violence in the inner cities because it gripped a population that did not matter to them. So they let an entire generation of young men slaughter themselves and another generation get even more economically segregated. Because they were black and they didn't vote GOP.
The left establishment. Well. They basically did the same thing but for other reasons. Well intentioned. But the results were basically the same. The left felt that even talking about what was happening to black people, what black young men were doing to themselves, talking about black on black crime, was tantamount to racism as it would stigmatize young black men as criminals. So they basically refused to see a problem.
And look what happened?
There a a number of things at work in regards to race and violence int he US. Through our supposed "personal" theorizing we might arrive at some very relevant and important conclusions. Sure myths and negative stereotypes can be spread. But they may also be dispelled and understood.
I say bring it all out in the light of day.
posted by tkchrist at 4:28 PM on June 2, 2006
Shut down!
Yeah that's productive. Let's never talk about it. violence in the inner city might cure it self that way, huh.
Jesus. You even mention facts that might correlate with race and guess what? BLAM! "Inborn racial malevolence"
Your GODWINIZED before you can say David duke.
You know what Tyro? You lose.
Just because we can see the facts in front of our faces and maybe want to discuss them in no way imply we feel any of these things are "inborn" or genetic at all.
We see things, like the statistical fact that most 9-1-1 calls in most US cities come from Black neighborhoods an that seems consistent with the large population of black inmates in US prisons. It becomes increasing difficult to blame simply a broken racist judicial system alone. So we have to know why?
This thing we label "race" (that is revealing itself to be more an more an artifice) sure "seems" to have correlation to violence in the US.
So is it culture? Is it race? Is it the cumulative effects of slavery, racism, victim mythology, and poverty? What?
It is, in the latter third of the last century, undeniably something tied to one group of people in particular. Black people. Specifically young black men. And we had better confront it. We had better figure out why that might be. And we better fix it.
In 1980's the Right was happy as clams to ignore the exploding violence in the inner cities because it gripped a population that did not matter to them. So they let an entire generation of young men slaughter themselves and another generation get even more economically segregated. Because they were black and they didn't vote GOP.
The left establishment. Well. They basically did the same thing but for other reasons. Well intentioned. But the results were basically the same. The left felt that even talking about what was happening to black people, what black young men were doing to themselves, talking about black on black crime, was tantamount to racism as it would stigmatize young black men as criminals. So they basically refused to see a problem.
And look what happened?
There a a number of things at work in regards to race and violence int he US. Through our supposed "personal" theorizing we might arrive at some very relevant and important conclusions. Sure myths and negative stereotypes can be spread. But they may also be dispelled and understood.
I say bring it all out in the light of day.
posted by tkchrist at 4:28 PM on June 2, 2006
Might race income have something to do with it?
Mightincome the drug trade?
Mightthe drug trade education?
Mighteducation (meaningful) employment (opportunities)?
Might(meaningful) employment (opportunities) family structure?
Mightfamily structure community resources (or lack thereof)?
Mightcommunity resources (or lack thereof) police presence?
Mightpolice presence failures, from all corners, piled one atop the other, for years and years on end?
posted by Dreama at 4:43 PM on June 2, 2006
Might
Might
Might
Might
Might
Might
Might
posted by Dreama at 4:43 PM on June 2, 2006
What happens if you snitch on a snitch?
Snitches get stitches.
posted by SweetJesus at 4:57 PM on June 2, 2006
Snitches get stitches.
posted by SweetJesus at 4:57 PM on June 2, 2006
Snitches get stitches.
Except Star Belly snitches. They get ALLLLL the bitches.
posted by tkchrist at 5:08 PM on June 2, 2006 [2 favorites]
Except Star Belly snitches. They get ALLLLL the bitches.
posted by tkchrist at 5:08 PM on June 2, 2006 [2 favorites]
Personally, I am shocked, shocked that Pembleton, Bayliss and the rest of Girardello's squad were unable to clean up that city. I blame Munch for moving to N.Y.
More seriously, culturally related:
I consider it stunning that, about 30 years ago, Randy Newman, author of the superlatively sarcastic "I Love L.A.", wrote a song about Baltimore without an ounce of irony:
Beat-up little seagull
On a marble stair
Tryin' to find the ocean
Lookin' everywhere...
...And they hide their faces
And they hide their eyes
'Cause the city's dyin'
And they don't know why
Oh, Baltimore...
Man, it's hard just to live, just to live
Get my sister Sandy
And my little brother Ray
Buy a big old wagon
Gonna haul us all away
Livin' in the country
Where the mountain's high
Never comin' back here
'Til the day I die
Thirty years later, a full generation-and-a-half (or more) and the city is still dyin'...
posted by wendell at 5:09 PM on June 2, 2006
More seriously, culturally related:
I consider it stunning that, about 30 years ago, Randy Newman, author of the superlatively sarcastic "I Love L.A.", wrote a song about Baltimore without an ounce of irony:
Beat-up little seagull
On a marble stair
Tryin' to find the ocean
Lookin' everywhere...
...And they hide their faces
And they hide their eyes
'Cause the city's dyin'
And they don't know why
Oh, Baltimore...
Man, it's hard just to live, just to live
Get my sister Sandy
And my little brother Ray
Buy a big old wagon
Gonna haul us all away
Livin' in the country
Where the mountain's high
Never comin' back here
'Til the day I die
Thirty years later, a full generation-and-a-half (or more) and the city is still dyin'...
posted by wendell at 5:09 PM on June 2, 2006
All seriousness aside, I would never snitch on a sneetch.
posted by wendell at 5:11 PM on June 2, 2006
posted by wendell at 5:11 PM on June 2, 2006
I'd always wanted to visit Baltimore, on the basis of John Waters' films. Now, I'm not so sure.
Dreama, would've been quicker to cut to the chase and just use the word 'class'.
posted by jack_mo at 5:15 PM on June 2, 2006
Dreama, would've been quicker to cut to the chase and just use the word 'class'.
posted by jack_mo at 5:15 PM on June 2, 2006
Dreama, would've been quicker to cut to the chase and just use the word 'class'.
It would if explained everything. Sure in US history the people that are forced to scrape the shit off the bottom of barrel tend to be the most violent. However, there are populations as poor (or poorer) and as marginalized that do not commit violent crime at near the same rate that black young men have for the last 30-40 years.
So class, while most certainly an element, is not THE smoking gun.
Look America itself is a terribly violent place over all. It always has been. What is puzzling is this is still so. When you factor our massive wealth it doesn't add up to merely a class thing - even given the wealth disparity in the US.
There is some cultural thing with violence in Americans that as it moves out through the marginal subcultures it intensifies and distills. Maybe it's in that American "rugged individualist" thing gone bad?
Now young men of any race tend to be violent ones in any given society. The more youth are disregarded and left to their own devices the more retarded they stay.
But why does this so disproportionately and unrelentingly seem to effect urban black males when so many of the same societal afflictions apply to other groups who do not have the same violence rate? The legacy of slavery seems way to distant and simplistic to explain it all. A perfect storm of negative factors seems the cause but what good does that do us?
posted by tkchrist at 5:55 PM on June 2, 2006
It would if explained everything. Sure in US history the people that are forced to scrape the shit off the bottom of barrel tend to be the most violent. However, there are populations as poor (or poorer) and as marginalized that do not commit violent crime at near the same rate that black young men have for the last 30-40 years.
So class, while most certainly an element, is not THE smoking gun.
Look America itself is a terribly violent place over all. It always has been. What is puzzling is this is still so. When you factor our massive wealth it doesn't add up to merely a class thing - even given the wealth disparity in the US.
There is some cultural thing with violence in Americans that as it moves out through the marginal subcultures it intensifies and distills. Maybe it's in that American "rugged individualist" thing gone bad?
Now young men of any race tend to be violent ones in any given society. The more youth are disregarded and left to their own devices the more retarded they stay.
But why does this so disproportionately and unrelentingly seem to effect urban black males when so many of the same societal afflictions apply to other groups who do not have the same violence rate? The legacy of slavery seems way to distant and simplistic to explain it all. A perfect storm of negative factors seems the cause but what good does that do us?
posted by tkchrist at 5:55 PM on June 2, 2006
Baltimore: Where We Still Name Babies Butch and Cheryl
jack_mo, there's plenty of great places to visit in Balmer, not the least being John Waters' Hampden.
posted by sidereal at 6:36 PM on June 2, 2006
jack_mo, there's plenty of great places to visit in Balmer, not the least being John Waters' Hampden.
posted by sidereal at 6:36 PM on June 2, 2006
When you factor our massive wealth it doesn't add up to merely a class thing - even given the wealth disparity in the US.
Asked and answered? The disparity could be precisely it, since psychologists keep telling us till they're blue in the face that disparity is the a major key to unhappiness.
posted by dreamsign at 7:58 PM on June 2, 2006
Asked and answered? The disparity could be precisely it, since psychologists keep telling us till they're blue in the face that disparity is the a major key to unhappiness.
posted by dreamsign at 7:58 PM on June 2, 2006
The legacy of slavery seems way to distant and simplistic to explain it all.
Surely you're not suggesting that the end of slavery was the end of systemic disenfranchisement of blacks in multiple ways?
A perfect storm of negative factors seems the cause but what good does that do us?
Can't fix a problem till you know what causes it.
posted by Dreama at 8:43 PM on June 2, 2006
Surely you're not suggesting that the end of slavery was the end of systemic disenfranchisement of blacks in multiple ways?
A perfect storm of negative factors seems the cause but what good does that do us?
Can't fix a problem till you know what causes it.
posted by Dreama at 8:43 PM on June 2, 2006
The City Paper also did a nice analysis of who is murdered in Baltimore.
It's a pretty excellent alternative weekly. Always offers thoughtful analysis and critique of the city, while ultimately displaying a true love for it.
posted by Anonymous at 9:46 PM on June 2, 2006
It's a pretty excellent alternative weekly. Always offers thoughtful analysis and critique of the city, while ultimately displaying a true love for it.
posted by Anonymous at 9:46 PM on June 2, 2006
"Oakland: 56 (as of May 26)"
And most of those happened in a small area of Oakland, too.
You're right. Either way it does suck.
Anyway, sorry if I offended anyone. But it is a serious issue. Maybe I'm just sick of the obligatory Canadian asshole posting "neener neener, life is so happy up here, you Americans are so screwed" types of posts.
We know life in Canada is different (safer, health care, etc). You don't have to rub our noses in it.
And tkchrist is right. We all need to stop playing the 'racist' card and actually look at the issues. But, whatever. *shrug*
posted by drstein at 10:45 PM on June 2, 2006
And most of those happened in a small area of Oakland, too.
You're right. Either way it does suck.
Anyway, sorry if I offended anyone. But it is a serious issue. Maybe I'm just sick of the obligatory Canadian asshole posting "neener neener, life is so happy up here, you Americans are so screwed" types of posts.
We know life in Canada is different (safer, health care, etc). You don't have to rub our noses in it.
And tkchrist is right. We all need to stop playing the 'racist' card and actually look at the issues. But, whatever. *shrug*
posted by drstein at 10:45 PM on June 2, 2006
Surely you're not suggesting that the end of slavery was the end of systemic disenfranchisement of blacks in multiple ways?
That was kind of what I meant with the 'class' comment above - the traditional Marxist divisions of class only ever really fit urban European populations at the time he was writing, but we still cling to them. But poor black people in the US are a different class to poor white people.
To draw a slightly bizarre analogy, it reminds me of the status of the kulaks in Russia, often dirt poor, but a wee bit bourgeois in terms of owning property and hiring labour. Stalin's response to this situation was typically breathtaking - he killed them all! Obviously, I'm glossing over a few key points there, but I think the technical awkwardness of the kulaks as a subset of the working class played a significant part in their liquidation as a class...
Er, anyway - this reframing of the question probably isn't helpful, but the fact that race defined the status of some people in the past doesn't neccesarily mean that you can't approach the current situation in class, not race, terms. At least this would technically remove the race card, even though class in this case would be partly indicated by race ;-)
posted by jack_mo at 5:28 AM on June 3, 2006
That was kind of what I meant with the 'class' comment above - the traditional Marxist divisions of class only ever really fit urban European populations at the time he was writing, but we still cling to them. But poor black people in the US are a different class to poor white people.
To draw a slightly bizarre analogy, it reminds me of the status of the kulaks in Russia, often dirt poor, but a wee bit bourgeois in terms of owning property and hiring labour. Stalin's response to this situation was typically breathtaking - he killed them all! Obviously, I'm glossing over a few key points there, but I think the technical awkwardness of the kulaks as a subset of the working class played a significant part in their liquidation as a class...
Er, anyway - this reframing of the question probably isn't helpful, but the fact that race defined the status of some people in the past doesn't neccesarily mean that you can't approach the current situation in class, not race, terms. At least this would technically remove the race card, even though class in this case would be partly indicated by race ;-)
posted by jack_mo at 5:28 AM on June 3, 2006
How about a new term, designating a combination of race and class: "Clace". or "Rass".
posted by papakwanz at 2:13 PM on June 3, 2006
posted by papakwanz at 2:13 PM on June 3, 2006
"The racial makeup of [Vancouver] is 93.9% White, 4.9% of Asian descent, 4.0% Aboriginal, 0.5% Black, and 0.2% from two or more races. 0.4% of the population are Hispanic or Latino of any race." (seems on par with other Canadian census results I have seen)
I'm not sure what year those census figures date from, but I can at least note anecdotally that any random group of people in Vancouver, from downtown to the suburbs, either walking down the street or sitting in restaurants (or in meetings at work, or in classrooms, or in the library, or on the bus, etcetera), just looks plain wrong if less than 30% if the faces are Asian. And it looks much more "normal" to me, again anecdotally, if it's about 50%. This is a city of great cultural diversity, which is one of the things I love about it. I can't think of a single area of the city where the population would be 90% white. I honestly can't.
posted by jokeefe at 11:18 PM on June 4, 2006
I'm not sure what year those census figures date from, but I can at least note anecdotally that any random group of people in Vancouver, from downtown to the suburbs, either walking down the street or sitting in restaurants (or in meetings at work, or in classrooms, or in the library, or on the bus, etcetera), just looks plain wrong if less than 30% if the faces are Asian. And it looks much more "normal" to me, again anecdotally, if it's about 50%. This is a city of great cultural diversity, which is one of the things I love about it. I can't think of a single area of the city where the population would be 90% white. I honestly can't.
posted by jokeefe at 11:18 PM on June 4, 2006
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posted by OmieWise at 12:54 PM on June 2, 2006