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I want to offer an alternative to the viewpoint that "Black Culture" is the problem in our inner-cities.
I propose that "Black Culture" is a symptom and not a cause. Furthermore, I propose that what we now think of as "Black Culture" is fluid and not immutable.
How malleable is culture?
The most ardent supporters of the "Black Culture is the problem" camp contend that culture is not the least bit malleable because of differences in mental capacity.
Those who argue the other way point to the "Black Culture" of 1955-through-1965 as being very, very different from today's BC. History of that period is permanently tinted by the focus on the injustices and poverty of that period BUT intact-families in in the Black community were much higher than today and crime was much lower.
A data-point that I can bring to the discussion involves "Black Culture" in the automotive manufacturing environment: It is not as different from "White Culture" as popular culture (which is aimed at youths) would have you believe.
Maybe it has something to do with having to get up every morning and go to work. It is my impression that a larger percentage of the Black people in auto plants were married and more likely to go to church than pop-culture Blacks.
Cynics will point out that survivor-bias probably has something to do with that.
But isn't that the point? Culture is formed by the requirements for survival!
By historical standards, the developed nations have obscene amounts of wealth where even the poorest people have luxuries that were beyond the grasp of kings in bygone days: Air-conditioning, clean water at the turn of a tap, mile-a-minute transportation, cell-phones, perishable fruits in the winter, modern dental care, antibiotics.
That wealth enables frivolous and wasteful behaviors which shape the culture and change the brain.
Brains rewire to the task. If you are compelled to remember hundreds of seven-digit numbers (phone numbers in the days of yore) then your brain reconfigures by partitioning.
If your brain encounters trauma it reconfigures. It becomes less capable of thinking about next-week and becomes totally consumed by the dangerous here-now.
If your brain is never challenged to remember anything (social promotions in schools) and if the EBT card recharges every month regardless, if food-pantries will rescue you if you don't keep track of your EBT balance...then your brain spins up like a motor with no load and every fantasy is validated.
I propose that sanity might exist on the other side of the unpleasantness that will result as people find that their "normal" paths to access resources no longer lead them to "the cheese".
- No work will once again mean no food.
- No work will mean no access to the affection of a woman.
- No work will mean living in a homeless shelter or box-car, maybe.
- Gratuitous defiance of authority will mean no work, ergo, no food, shelter or affection
- Listening to violent music will cause you to be branded as somebody who it is dangerous to associate with.
- Using drugs that leave you debilitated for the next day's work will be suicidal.
- Your name, good-or-bad, will become your bond.
The nature of charity
In Jesus's Sermon on the Mount he says
...take care not to perform righteous deeds in order that people may see them; otherwise, you will have no recompense from your heavenly Father. When you give alms, do not blow a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets to win the praise of others. Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right is doing, so that your almsgiving may be secret. And your Father who sees in secret will repay you.
In Jesus's time, the left hand was the "unclean hand". It was the one used to wipe one's ass. To not let your "left hand" know what the right hand was doing was one way of saying to not exploit the recipient of the charity through the expectation of quid pro quo.
And yet that is the entire basis of the "Progressive" movement. They offer "charity" to vast blocks of voters with the only requirement being that those blocks always vote for "Progressive" candidates, that they look the other way when fraud is committed and that they not demand justice with the perp is a "Progressive".
"Progressives" have been able to appropriate many altruistic Christians under the banner of "charity".
Most of those Christians intuitively know that it is not virtuous to offer their alcoholic Uncle Bob a bottle of whiskey but somehow they cannot see that the "Progressive" form of charity stunts the growth of the recipients and that the giver is already rewarded by the feelings of power and feelings of "being better than" the folks who depend on the charity.
It has somehow become an article of faith among those Christians that People of Color are less capable than 9-month-old infants who can crawl over to their bottle, pull off the cap and then know enough to tip it back so the milk flows to the nipple.
It is an article of faith among "Progressives" that People-of-Color are victimized by consequences for their actions. They cannot see that separating any group from the consequences of their choices dooms them to a downward spiral.
I have hope
I have hope that damage that is done can also be partially undone.
Brains that wire one way can be rewired through repetitions.
Thought patterns follow behaviors. When behaviors are changed by necessity for food, shelter and other necessities, then thought patterns will change and "mental capacity" will also show plasticity.
How-some-ever, we have a tough patch in front of us. Make sure you are around to weigh-in via survivor-bias.
Cultural failings are relatively color blind up here in the 'woods'. I am more inclined to render judgment based on other observables. People dressed like me oftentimes share my values. Work boots matter ...
ReplyDeleteA little East of Paris
"Work Boots Matter" I like that.
DeleteSorry, but all you have to do is look at Africa to see what black culture is.
ReplyDeleteThey've been given every leg up imaginable in this country and they still devolve into savages. There are notable exceptions to be sure, but thinking we can civilize them is naive.
When the colonists left in the 50's and 60's, Africa was booming and had first world infrastructure and social cohesion. Now it's a third world shithole. Again.
Left to their own devices they rape, pillage and destroy everything they're given.
He's right. While Black Culture may be mutable, there is an underlying framework of though processes that lead to an inevitable outcome. There *may* have been less crime in the black communities back in the 20's and 30's,....but there was still more than in other demographics. It simply stayed in the black community and did not spill over.
DeleteLawlessness seems have a racial component.
Culture is a function of environment to a degree. It also is a function of thought processes of the peoples of that culture. If your brain is wired for short term thinking, then your culture will reflect that. The thinking comes from the environment your ancestors evolved in. A few tens of generations cannot quickly overcome thousands of generations beforehand.....and it may never do so.
I think your time in industry may have given you a somewhat self selected (and incomplete) group to use as an example of a people and a culture.
Read about slave culture in the Antebellum South: Africans _can_ behave like civilized humans, if there is sufficient force applied. The institution of slavery was at least sufficient. The institution of public schools is plainly NOT.
DeleteIn response to the two previous comments:
ReplyDeleteAnon: Key word "...given..." If they break it, recent history shows they get newer, better as a replacement all with no effort on their part.
B: I agree that selection played a part in what I saw in the factory.
I hate to think what will happen when we stop "giving".
DeleteThis perhaps https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1629707620792582146.html
https://photos.app.goo.gl/fg89j1YjqKuLCT487
ReplyDeleteSo in other words? LOL
What are the odds of 5000 families walking out into the wilderness to hear an itinerant preacher and NOT taking enough food to feed themselves?
DeleteDid he conjure up enough food out of the 2 fishes and 5 loaves to feed 5000 idiots or did he shame 5000 sane people into forming small groups and sharing with their immediate neighbors?
Are there any democratic nations in africa? Woody
ReplyDeleteThe smart-elbow in me will note that they are ALL run like Democratic-run cities here in the US.
DeleteLike the lilly-White, democrat-run cities in Maine? Or like Detroit?
DeleteIt's not the Democrats, it's the race. Africans make Africa. Whites make something European.
Democrats make socialist shit holes... Republicans at the national level make a joke of themselves and politics. At the Main Street level, people fall into two groups, decent human and dirtbag. I've personally observed solid, successful black families. Invariably, they are very strongly tied to their family, their church, and their neighborhood. I also know a white trash family that is well known around here and mostly avoided...
DeleteTrash is colorblind, culture is upstream of everything else. But never discount demographics or statistics. They'll give you info that will keep you alive and possessing all your stuff at the end of the day.
It's vice-versa I think. To my way of thinking, cultures tend to get more of what's encouraged by official policy channels, and less of what is discouraged. Incentives whether they are direct or indirect, are very effective.
ReplyDeleteThe lack of 'responsibility' for one's actions also plays into the situation(s).
ReplyDeleteThe problem is that this scenario will never, ever be more than a fantasy. We will have faster than light travel before benefits from Uncle Sugar can be cut, much less eliminated as suggested. You think the riots we save with BLM were bad? Those were school plays compared to what would happen if the subsidies of our permanent wards of the state dried. Nothing short of an economic meltdown of Weimar proportions will change it and that change will come with a tremendous amount of violence and pain for everyone, tax mule and tax leach alike.
ReplyDeleteJust as the alleged ‘uniquely’ black culture for decades post slavery was in reality their copying the culture of their poor white (Scots/Irish) neighbours, the culture you cite as “responsible” was merely their copying their white neighbours … because they were required to do so (those workers were operating in an environment dominated by their white colleagues, so ‘had’ to fit in).
ReplyDeleteAs soon as the welfare, but primarily the ‘excuses, rationalisations, graft and victimology’ kicked in, that requirement disappeared and … we got what we see now (the revelation of what black, as well as latino and muslim, etc., ‘culture’ really is).
I’ve lost count of the ‘good black’, ‘good muslim’, etc. all of whom are exactly that when … in the minority, but put them ‘amongst their own’ and they reveal their true faces.
Are there differences? Look not at individuals, but groups, and yes there are decided differences amongst the ‘races’. It’s not ‘just’ cultural. The ‘poor white trash’ (I’m allowed to call them that as ... I are one) act very differently, better, than the best black or latino (even when all the facts and figures would suggest they should be worse, by a long way).
The “melting pot” was never a free-for-all blending, it was the requirement that all those disparate cultures toe the line and ‘act white’ (pretend otherwise, all you’d like, but that’s the reality).
Do you get increased rates of bad behaviour in every demographic when you excuse, encourage and even reward it? Of course, but the rates show differences by race (and sex) all else being equal. Ignore that ‘fact’ at your peril.
Why do ‘you’ not “lose it” and lash out at all and sundry who annoy you? Because there are consequences. I’ve worked mental-health and disability and … neither (with very few limited exceptions) precludes awareness of right/wrong and consequences. This ‘male’ acted as he did because … he’d been repeatedly allowed to do so his entire life (with the predictable excuses used to justify why). He wasn’t complaining about being arrested because he didn’t understand, he was complaining because he’d always been let off before. But also ... such violence is if not entirely acceptable, a daily occurrence/normal, in his 'culture'.
(Violence against women is 'only' precluded in white, western culture, in every other it is not just acceptable, it's required).
Dear Joe:
ReplyDeleteI have a dog. He, for a dog, is reasonably intelligent. I have trained him in all the usual dog things: going outside to urinate and defecate, bringing the stick or ball back to me when I throw it, not tugging on the leash, allowing children to pet him, etc.
All my attempts, regardless of time involved, effort expended and technique or aids employed, at teaching him how to be an accountant have failed miserably.
I cannot understand why. Can you help?
Certainly!
DeleteOur dog is a German Shepherd and is fairly smart. I was sure he was smart enough to pick up a trade and I thought it would be useful to have a machinist. You never know when you might want to drill a precision hole down the center of a steel rod!
I tried talking. I tried books. I tried Youtube video and I could not get him to make the simplest item on the lathe.
Finally, I figured out that I needed to use sign-language.
We are still early in his training, but I now have him to the point where he makes a bolt for the door every time I pick up his leash.
I have worked in a number of large cities and in a number of large to small companies. The statement "black community" is misleading. There are a number of island communities of blacks that are trying their best, work hard and are decent people. Then there is the underlying ghetto based society that has the motto "snitches get stitches', all women are "bitches" and are expected to support their 'man', and the always popular 'why can't I show up late for work reeking of booze, sweat and pot?" The ghetto society overwhelms much of the decent blacks attempts at a good life by calling them Uncle Toms, shaming them into accepting the so called black community behavior and standards as the only acceptable way to live as a black person. One of my bosses at a corporate level was black and a very competent hardnose. I liked him as a boss. A young lady of my acquaintance was a successful model and mother. There was a black student in school who had to fight his family (he was getting uppity) to go to school. A black co-worker who had his tools stolen by his family and pawned, not once but three times (no tools, no job and he was the only one in the family with a job). The subject of race did come up on occasion with these and other blacks I worked with, and the underlying theme was, these people were more afraid of the black community and, in some instances, their own families than most of the whites they had contact with. For them, it really was a jungle out there.
ReplyDelete