Very Hard Truths

I’m observant.

I see, I digest, I contemplate, I ponder.

This is true of all things, our world at large.

So many things I do not understand, some things I understand fully, and completely.

I can be trained. I don’t touch a hot stove burner twice, I don’t work with electricity unless I myself inspect the breaker box to ensure that the switch is indeed in the “off” position. I test the temperature of a hot beverage before swallowing a gulp.

Life’s experiences have informed me.

We can all similarly learn from observation, absent becoming involved. I do not need to approach the bear to see just how sharp his claws. I’ve seen their behavior in zoos, documentaries, and even Tik Tok videos, I’ve no need to test the ferocity of the claws in person.

Although in my younger years I was a bit reckless, and did skydiving, and solo’d in an airplane, and took some risks, climbing to very high altitudes, or the top of buildings and standing by the ledge to gain an expansive view, I’ve sated that desire. Taking the approach in old age that one way to prevent death from sky diving is to not sky dive at all. Ever again.

I say all this to preface that in my own lifetime I’ve had very little interaction with the truly lower class, and in particular extremely little interaction with the lower class black population of the United States of America.

I’ve oft written here that I am a “Lily White Suburbanite”, which is true. Although the suburbs of my youth was just across the city line. And I have had opportunity to be the only white individual on a work crew of twenty-one black people, for the extended period of three months over a Summer work study. At the giant behemoth Social Security Administration.

And I had some experience working earlier in life at the VA Hospital in town, also amongst a mixed race group.

So though I may portray myself as some suburban white guy or kid who has had little interaction with black Americans, that is not quite true. I am prideful of the fact that when I left employment at Social Security that the black supervisor, along with the other twenty-on black people that worked our shift there gave me a “going away” party, and were both warm and generous to me as I was off to start college and leave them all behind at Social Security. I enjoyed working with that crew, we bonded, our work discussions never included race, or racial differences, or even racial strife, we tended to discuss what we had in common, and not our differences.

Though I must admit to feelings of fear when golden-front-toothed Theresa, single mother of two, escorted me to the window, pointed to the block where she lived, and told me to visit her on Friday evening at the end of the week. That I would be welcomed into her home and that we’d have a nice time together.

The idea of walking her all black block, to “visit” with her, gave me extreme pause. As I figured that her neighbors would immediately recognize the “Lily White Suburbanite” making a “booty call” on little Theresa, and not take too kindly to the liberties they might think I was taking with a neighborhood girl. People in general, black and white, can be thin-skinned about “outsiders” perhaps taking advantage of a local girl.

I chose not to take gold-front-toothed Theresa up on her offer, and not to disappoint her I told her so right off, at the time of the generous offer. Telling her I didn’t think that it was a good idea, and that I thought that I might not make it back out alive should I take advantage of her, uh, generosities.

I say all this to preface that I do have some observations and thoughts on the black underclass, having bumped against their behavior and lifestyle choices over the years, what they might refer to as “black culture”. Which does differ from white culture to some degree, for sure.

I think that there are economic repercussions that frame so much of what they refer to as “black culture”. To a degree, you could draw parallels to lower class white culture. Change the Hennessy and Kool’s to Jack Daniels and Marlboros back in the day and you moved from black to white. Change the Colt 45 Malt Liquor to Budweiser, you just went from low class black, to low class white.

The brands changed, the pathologies did not.

I never understood when I was a bartender, the hubris and racism from the all white patrons. I saw no difference, nothing better, in the selection of Budweiser over Colt 45. Both caused the same pathological, self-damaging behavior.

I view both white and black cultures from the perspective of time honored traditions.

Humans evolved toward marriage, and the adoption of religion, because it creates a more stable society. The closer we all get to the emphasis of faith, marriage, family, and eduction, the stronger the bond, the stronger the society in general.

Right now in America the black community has a 70% unwed birth rate.

I don’t care what color you are as a human, no society can stand with a 70% unwed birth rate, it is a recipe for guaranteed failure. No progress can be made from a community with a 70% birth rate. None. It is a recipe, and reason, for disaster and dysfunction. There will never be any traction toward success in a community with a 70% unwed birth rate.

All my life there has been some running sneer in the white community about how much those in black community love their fine cars. To the extent this is almost a caricature. Back in the day a black man in his Cadillac, or Deuce-and-a-quarter, Buick Electra 225, was riding in style.

But if you look at this from an economic perspective, it would make complete sense that a black mean from the lower class, from what we all refer to as the “ghetto” would take a more extreme pride in his “ride”, as this isn’t just the most expensive asset he will own in his life, it is the most expensive and best thing he will ever own. Home ownership, with the attendant down payment, and passing loan requirements, is probably out-of-reach in his lifetime. This. This automobile, the one they put rims on, the one they buy so much after-market gear for, the one they “trick-out” to the maximum, this is the most expensive thing they will own in a lifetime. So they take a pride in ownership that others in the middle and upper class cannot understand.

We all know crime is rampant in the ghetto. In lower class black communities. We’ve all seen “The Wire”. We all have “no go” zones in our own cities, and possibly even nearby our own homes. All I have to do is drive over a nearby bridge to experience a neighborhood that I am describing.

Where violent crime is rampant, lives are lost. Many lives. And the milestones that polite society come to expect, are never experienced in the lower class black community. So many die by thirty to gang violence, drug violence, and even random violence the idea of living through what “white America” considers rites of passage in life. We already covered the unwed birth rate, so in these communities the ideas of college, courtship, marriage, babies, and even growing old together can be a foreign concept.

In these ghetto communities with drop-out rates for high school running at fifty percent, with literacy literally being in question, the very idea of college is ridiculous. And what part of 70% unwed birth rate did you forget when thinking of courtship and marriage? In these communities and clearly as part of the cultural experience, black men just abrogate all parental duties completely. There are no books read at bedtime. There are no bedtime snacks. There is no bath before bedtime. There is no bedtime. Have you seen the wildings and determined the time they occur? Well past bedtime in the white communities out in the suburbs.

Which makes high school prom a celebration day as no other, at least not one that might occur in the lifetime of a black couple of sixteen, or seventeen. In the ghetto they can actually count the number of individuals who never make it to twenty. They have the tennis shoes hanging over the electric wires to remember them all by.

If your real expectations are, that only few make it to twenty-five, well, Prom becomes a major oversized life event. A very big deal indeed. And clearly from the videos of young black men prancing, dancing, and preening, in their lives Prom is a very, very, big deal. This is the Bar Mitzvah, the Bat Mitzvah, the Quinceañera all rolled into one.

There is no future “big wedding day”, see 70% unwed birth rate, there is no big “turning 30” party, there are at that tender age no real expectations of living to 65 and retirement. Life is here and now on the hard streets.

So for everyone currently making fun of those in the ghetto becoming “ghetto fabulous” for prom, stop and think about the potential for brevity of life in that community. The few things you get to celebrate in that young life, Prom becomes quite oversized indeed.

Our current day black culture has extreme problems that cannot be overcome. Not by Federal cash infusion, not by reparations, not by anything that has to do with cash, money, honey.

If cash alone were the problem, there would be no such thing as the NBA “baby momma”. You would see a more socially acceptable behavior once the black athlete signed the big contracts.

But we don’t.

Not in the NBA, not in the NFL, not in any way, shape, or form. For the majority of black athletes they are broke ten years after earning “all that money”.

There is absolutely no reason to believe that paying reparations wouldn’t yield the same results. Ten years after the big million dollar checks go out, the majority would revert right back to the ghetto.

It is all behavioral, not merely a money issue.

In fact, right now Hispanics are rapidly passing blacks in gaining asset value, jobs, and advancement in America. And blacks are still stuck on the lowest rung. And will be even after the present influx of illegals is absorbed, and they collectively move up and out, and off the government dole. Becoming productive citizens. At which point they will start to buy homes, cars, and move more toward polite society.

In which case blacks will be left behind. Again.

The biggest single reason that blacks are condemned to the ghetto for generations is the 70% unwed birth rate, but a close second is “keeping it real”.

For some reason they believe that their lower class mores make them more authentic, and so they embrace the very values and behavior that keeps them down.

When I was little, and exhibited the traits of a lower middle class kid from Parkville, Maryland, I got my ass beat. Which happened weekly. This happened when I spoke a vowel challenged Baltimore accent in front of our priest in the vestibule in church, when I didn’t have perfect manners being introduced to the shop keepers in town, when I didn’t stand erect, shoulders back, with a smile in front of mother’s friends, there was a beating.

I learned by the age of four to “never keep it real”. Keeping it real, speaking in the manner of a low class idiot from Parkville, using the word “ain’t” in every other sentence, having bad posture, wearing ratty ass clothing, all of these traits were forbidden. The very idea of wearing my pants down exposing underwear would have gained my young self a beating I’d still remember. One that included a belt.

“Keeping it real” is holding back black culture from any real success in life. The success of rappers in Hollywood, and fools like Kevin Hart, only compound the problem. The same with the big time wide receivers in the NFL. Who preen, pose, and primp, demonstrating anti-social behavior along with their big contracts. All of which convinces millions of young struggling blacks that they have a way to make it out playing this new minstrel show. When in fact so few gain financial success this way that the odds are greater they catch a bullet, than a football.

Between the combination of unwed birth rate, and the embrace of “keeping it real”, the expected rate of success in climbing from the ghetto and having a successful life is near zero.

Such is the impact of both on a community.

Historically in America CEO’s do not have neck tattoos, or membership in the Crips.

And what happens when you allow three generations of a runaway unwed birth rate, you see them celebrate a pathology in “keeping it real” as a cultural highlight, and you allow the education system to fail them for four generations?

You end up with an entire segment of society that is feral.

You end up with thirteen percent of our population involved in 55% of violent crime.

You end up with entire sections of every town in America a “no go” zone, where those who participate in polite society fear to tread, and would rather drive on their rims than to stop and fix a flat tire.

You end up with “wildings” when the feral population breaks out into polite society.

You end up with a segment of the population celebrating gangster behavior, celebrating their criminality, singing about their pathologies. Taking pride in having been shot, or involved in gang behavior, or fathering multiple children while being an absentee father.

An argument could be made in America today that the biggest “tax” the people of America face is the black man between the ages of 13 and 40. They make up only 5% of the population but are responsible for near sixty percent of the crime. They make entire sections of every town in America uninhabitable for anyone who can afford to escape. They put fear and danger into every big city in our country. They are a sincere cost to us all in commuting times, property values, business and commerce, the cost of prisons, the loss of life, we could list a hundred ways the present day black male is an extreme net cost to all of America.

Money isn’t going to fix this. Ninety million and more just disappeared overnight in BLM. Rodney King got a nice settlement from the LA Cops, he was back to criminal behavior in just five years. NBA players have “baby mommas”. After earning tens of millions of dollars. The problem is behavioral.

Awful quick to the fist and gun. Incapable of self control. All hung up on some misconstrued idea of “respect”. Priorities all screwed up, a gold chain on every neck and religion absent completely. Babies made, all duties abrogated.

Any outside study of the decay of America would have to view the black lower class as a cancer on the body of our nation. Cutting out 5% would go a long way toward saving the patient.

As a functioning society we can keep throwing money at the pathologies of the poor black communities, and continue to fail, with “wildings” becoming even more ever-present. With feral behavior escaping the ghetto and invading polite society.

That is where we are now.