Letters to the Editor

• Worldwide

  [Read the article: Is race dying? ]
  [Read more letters about this article: Here]

  It is not just America. If you go to, say, Jamaica, which has a large majority "black" population, you will not find that Jamaican doctors, teachers, and lawyers share the same "values" as the black underclasses in the housing projects of Kingston--known, as devotees of Bob Marley will recognize, as government yards, and their inhabitants as yardies.

  For the puposes of this discussion, let us just assume that there is a distinct race called "black", even though this is actually not the case.

  Now the "values " of the black underclass cannot really be called values at all, because they have no value and they are actually just symptoms of social disintegration. Since when have alcoholism, crime, drug addiction, obesity, diabetes, poor educational performance, domestic violence, illegitimacy etc. been regarded as "values"?

  OK, you can say that churchgoing and gospel choirs are value-added areas within some parts of the black underclass, and I will not fight with you, but as soon as these activities become value laden, they are tinged with bourgeoisity and hues of whiteness. You can even say that hip-hop and rap is the cry of the dispossessed.

  If you refer back to a movie like How Green Was My Valley, one can argue that historically there have been, and no doubt still are, poor working class communities where people live with dignity and honor according to the values of their class. But it is almost impossible to live a life of dignity and honor in the black (or white) underclass of the US without becoming middle class, or even whiteified, because things like dignity and honor are really middle class values.

  Black people in the US are not really held back by discrimination or by lack of opportunity, but there exists a large community of people who profit from keeping large numbers of black people in the ghetto. Many such people are criminals, especially drug dealers, to whom every kid that goes to college is potentially a lost customer. Then there are also the people whose livelihood revolves around selling alcohol, tobacco, junk food, fast food and other products that destroy health and cause litter. Since these products are vast industries, huge amounts of money are at stake.

  I often work near Jacksonville, a large city in north Florida that has a murder rate so fearsome that military who are posted at bases there welcome a tour of duty in Iraq or Afghanistan for relaxation.

  The city fathers (and mothers) and the local newspaper annually make a big song and dance about the murder rate and hold prayer vigils and Days of Action when they Take Back The Streets to stop the killing, but the fact is simply that a lot of criminals live in their city, and though sometimes bystanders and children get killed in the crossfire, many of those who die are themselves criminals.

  The criminals, inasmuchas they think about it at all, have no intention of stopping killing people. If you are a drug dealer, you have to have a means of enforcing law and order, or else people would just be doing whatever they liked without consequences, right? Moving in on other peoples turf, not paying debts, looking at other people's women--it would be total anarchy if you could not shoot the occasional malefactor pour encourager les autres.

  Permalink Monday, November 26, 2007 09:42 PM