“What else, then, could explain the gap? I am aware of three possibilities.” …”Which explanation is correct? Based on currently available evidence, it’s hard to say for sure. And of course, the various possibilities are not mutually exclusive.”
This. I’ve seen your posed quandary in many forms during my entire career in academia. The problem is indeed “multi variate”. To continue to look at the “problem” and ask “which *one*?” is fruitless and leads to confusion. The answer is simply, there is no single cause, nor will society addressing any single cause solve the “problem”. This is why society is still confused and stymied to this day wrt the “Black problem”. Every effort to alleviate Black pathology has assumed a single cause to be addressed and therefore (predictably) failed miserably. We as a species just are not equipped to handle/conceive of such multi variate phenomena, much less address such pathology.
If IQ correlates with crime, and only a minority of blacks commit the most heinous crimes, and this minority likely has IQs even lower than the black average (and maybe even higher testosterone), plus the culture that a very low IQ group of fatherless teens would create (a kind of downward spiral), would that get you your answer? Even an “unproven” theory (as per Popper, no evidence can “support” a theory) can still be a very good theory—especially if the alternatives theories have been tentatively falsified.
Interesting analysis, but the conclusion suggests that much more work needs to be done. The actual, or principal reason for a significantly higher crime rate among blacks is clinical and may not be subject to a solution.
Another confounding factor is that there are no, or very few, “pure bred” Blacks in this country. White admixture is said to average 15-25% of typical Black DNA. Hence as was noted above, we have a proportion of upper class (good) Blacks whom many of us encounter in our lives. Yet another variable to confound simple analysis.
In 1964, I got a scholarship to Lake Forest College in Chicago. There were lots of scholarship kids. They needed us to do all the menial work the rich kids who paid full tuition would do. Most of the rich white kids were the family losers who couldn't get into a real school like Harvard. Not people you would want to imitate. All the rich black kids were (mostly) admirable people who taught me a lot about how an upper class person was supposed to behave. Never got very good at imitating them but they taught me enough that I was able to pretend to be a middle class guy when I grew up.
Somewhere at the end of the 20th Century, something went terribly wrong in the black community. Not sure what. I used to laugh about putting the Ten Commandments back in the schools but that's sort of the beginning of healing. Teaching "You shouldn't kill" has to be the beginning.
“…at the end of the 20th Century, something went terribly wrong in the black community.”
I’d say the seed was sown in the early sixties with the Civil Rights Act. We had an immediate and complete cessation of discrimination wrt housing and neighborhood “redlining”. This split the Black ghettos. The upper class Blacks (better endowed to strive) got the hell out of the slums while the lessor inclined had to stay. There was no middle class, only those impoverished due to an inability to compete. The follow on was those pockets of poor (but now not without political power) Blacks were preyed upon by grifters of all sorts who told them that the source of their woes was the Whites they lived among and the evil of (White) racism—rather than the truth…lack of ability.
Ironically, one of the greatest writers upon this subject is Thomas Sowell, a Black academic. He wrote several books that touched upon the subject of mixed races fighting among themselves when one race is dominant wrt ability. (I use the term “ability”, Sowell might have simply said “economic success”.) See, “Affirmative Action Around the World: An Empirical Study.” In this work he discusses for an example how Sri Lanka (once British Ceylon) had a Sinhalese majority and a Tamil minority. The British pulled out and the conflict began as the Tamils were quite industrial in their economic proclivities (IIRC). Similar anecdotes are mentioned in other books written by Sowell.
They sold the school as a Chicago school Also, when I was there, the college president was a speech writer for Mayor Dailey. Yes, Lake Forest is an isolated island of the very rich (a girl in a class asked me to walk her over to friends house. It was the Armour mansion in LF.) island a short train ride away from inner city Chicago.
Homicide patterns reflect the symbolic content of African cultures. At a civilizational level, African peoples have carried different orientations toward life, death, honour, time, and violence. These manifest consistently, even controlling for material and cognitive factors, because they express symbolic form rather than accidents of circumstance. They are irreducible signatures of a distinct inheritance. That doesn’t absolve responsibility, but it should frame our expectations.
Yep, but let’s not leave young Black women out of the equation. Women don’t murder as much as men, sure. That a truism for all races. But look at the violence we see daily coming from younger, Black women. The anger and acting out is amazing. Whites are bad too as compared to mid 20th century Whites—but not like I’ve seen wrt Blacks. Sigh….
It’s the southern honor culture, extreme poverty and high hormone levels, much higher, oh and the wide spread availability and use of firearms. A century of prejudice could do it also.
Thanks for the comment. The availability of firearms applies to all racial groups in the US, and the Southern honour culture applies primarily to whites from that region. I explained in the article why poverty is not a plausible explanation (for more than a small part of the gap).
in Chicago we have 50,000 gang members estimated out of a 2.7 million population. I would say that they’re responsible for at least half of the violent crimes and probably 70% of the murders at least I’ll verify those percentages but it’s pretty obvious that the way to solve the problem here is to eliminate the gangs by whatever means necessary. Rico would be the best tool, but for some reason, the feds have been reluctant to do so probably possibly at least because of a lack of local cooperation you know they did that with the Italian mob, but they refused to do it for whatever reason with the Latin and black gangs.
“What else, then, could explain the gap? I am aware of three possibilities.” …”Which explanation is correct? Based on currently available evidence, it’s hard to say for sure. And of course, the various possibilities are not mutually exclusive.”
This. I’ve seen your posed quandary in many forms during my entire career in academia. The problem is indeed “multi variate”. To continue to look at the “problem” and ask “which *one*?” is fruitless and leads to confusion. The answer is simply, there is no single cause, nor will society addressing any single cause solve the “problem”. This is why society is still confused and stymied to this day wrt the “Black problem”. Every effort to alleviate Black pathology has assumed a single cause to be addressed and therefore (predictably) failed miserably. We as a species just are not equipped to handle/conceive of such multi variate phenomena, much less address such pathology.
QED
If IQ correlates with crime, and only a minority of blacks commit the most heinous crimes, and this minority likely has IQs even lower than the black average (and maybe even higher testosterone), plus the culture that a very low IQ group of fatherless teens would create (a kind of downward spiral), would that get you your answer? Even an “unproven” theory (as per Popper, no evidence can “support” a theory) can still be a very good theory—especially if the alternatives theories have been tentatively falsified.
I do think that both IQ and family breakdown contribute, but they can't explain the entire gap.
—NC
Interesting analysis, but the conclusion suggests that much more work needs to be done. The actual, or principal reason for a significantly higher crime rate among blacks is clinical and may not be subject to a solution.
Another confounding factor is that there are no, or very few, “pure bred” Blacks in this country. White admixture is said to average 15-25% of typical Black DNA. Hence as was noted above, we have a proportion of upper class (good) Blacks whom many of us encounter in our lives. Yet another variable to confound simple analysis.
In 1964, I got a scholarship to Lake Forest College in Chicago. There were lots of scholarship kids. They needed us to do all the menial work the rich kids who paid full tuition would do. Most of the rich white kids were the family losers who couldn't get into a real school like Harvard. Not people you would want to imitate. All the rich black kids were (mostly) admirable people who taught me a lot about how an upper class person was supposed to behave. Never got very good at imitating them but they taught me enough that I was able to pretend to be a middle class guy when I grew up.
Somewhere at the end of the 20th Century, something went terribly wrong in the black community. Not sure what. I used to laugh about putting the Ten Commandments back in the schools but that's sort of the beginning of healing. Teaching "You shouldn't kill" has to be the beginning.
Thanks for the comment. As I noted in the article, there has been a large black–white homicide gap since at least the 1920s.
—NC
“…at the end of the 20th Century, something went terribly wrong in the black community.”
I’d say the seed was sown in the early sixties with the Civil Rights Act. We had an immediate and complete cessation of discrimination wrt housing and neighborhood “redlining”. This split the Black ghettos. The upper class Blacks (better endowed to strive) got the hell out of the slums while the lessor inclined had to stay. There was no middle class, only those impoverished due to an inability to compete. The follow on was those pockets of poor (but now not without political power) Blacks were preyed upon by grifters of all sorts who told them that the source of their woes was the Whites they lived among and the evil of (White) racism—rather than the truth…lack of ability.
Ironically, one of the greatest writers upon this subject is Thomas Sowell, a Black academic. He wrote several books that touched upon the subject of mixed races fighting among themselves when one race is dominant wrt ability. (I use the term “ability”, Sowell might have simply said “economic success”.) See, “Affirmative Action Around the World: An Empirical Study.” In this work he discusses for an example how Sri Lanka (once British Ceylon) had a Sinhalese majority and a Tamil minority. The British pulled out and the conflict began as the Tamils were quite industrial in their economic proclivities (IIRC). Similar anecdotes are mentioned in other books written by Sowell.
"I got a scholarship to Lake Forest College in Chicago."
Point of interest: Lake Forest College is not in Chicago; it is in Lake Forest, IL., about seventeen miles north of Chicago.
They sold the school as a Chicago school Also, when I was there, the college president was a speech writer for Mayor Dailey. Yes, Lake Forest is an isolated island of the very rich (a girl in a class asked me to walk her over to friends house. It was the Armour mansion in LF.) island a short train ride away from inner city Chicago.
Homicide patterns reflect the symbolic content of African cultures. At a civilizational level, African peoples have carried different orientations toward life, death, honour, time, and violence. These manifest consistently, even controlling for material and cognitive factors, because they express symbolic form rather than accidents of circumstance. They are irreducible signatures of a distinct inheritance. That doesn’t absolve responsibility, but it should frame our expectations.
Black Males age 15-35 are 3% of the population
Yep, but let’s not leave young Black women out of the equation. Women don’t murder as much as men, sure. That a truism for all races. But look at the violence we see daily coming from younger, Black women. The anger and acting out is amazing. Whites are bad too as compared to mid 20th century Whites—but not like I’ve seen wrt Blacks. Sigh….
Examination of low (<90) IQ cohort of Blacks, combined with illiteracy & presence of the MAO-a (warrior) gene may provide illumination.
Also, see:
Fatherless rearing leads to sociopathy
David T. Lykken
Behavioral and Brain Sciences 18 (3):563-564 (1995)
70% of Black births illegitimate
It’s the southern honor culture, extreme poverty and high hormone levels, much higher, oh and the wide spread availability and use of firearms. A century of prejudice could do it also.
Thanks for the comment. The availability of firearms applies to all racial groups in the US, and the Southern honour culture applies primarily to whites from that region. I explained in the article why poverty is not a plausible explanation (for more than a small part of the gap).
—NC
I would rule out guns, which are equally available across demographics.
No, it's the inner city honor culture.
Q: Has anyone seen data on the black murder rates in the inner city versus small cities?
Cremieux has looked at this: https://x.com/cremieuxrecueil/status/1749158245229326586
—NC
They do equalize as an inverse function of population size according to the chart.
There is a meme that states 13-50, meaning that a population of 13% commits 50% of the crimes. In reality, it is worse than that.
in Chicago we have 50,000 gang members estimated out of a 2.7 million population. I would say that they’re responsible for at least half of the violent crimes and probably 70% of the murders at least I’ll verify those percentages but it’s pretty obvious that the way to solve the problem here is to eliminate the gangs by whatever means necessary. Rico would be the best tool, but for some reason, the feds have been reluctant to do so probably possibly at least because of a lack of local cooperation you know they did that with the Italian mob, but they refused to do it for whatever reason with the Latin and black gangs.
Gangs.
And these are modernized tribes, are they not? Initiation ceremonies, bonds, protection etc. Us against them.
They must be crushed. They hold our cities hostage, and entire countries overseas, especially south of the border.
Gangs?
Yep