Details of the Black murder rate, by state

I happen to find a list of the Black murder rates by state. Actually, I sought this out. My mission was to look at the situation regarding violence in the Black population in a more detailed way, to break it down more.

I found this article
http://www.blackvoicenews.com/news/news-wire/48613-missouri-has-highest-black-murder-victim-rate.html

According to the article by Black Voices News, Missouri has the highest Black murder victim rate in the nation, at 33.86 murders per 100,000. Basically , this is on part with Guatemala, and slightly higher than South Africa's murder rate.

These are the Black murder victim rates by state for 2010(per 100,000 Black residents)

Missouri –  33.86 

Pennsylvania – 26.87

Michigan – 25.61

Nebraska – 25.58

Oklahoma –25.45

Indiana – 23.89

Maine – 22.62

Louisiana – 22.61

Ohio –19.25

California – 19.12

Kansas – 18.84

Wisconsin -18.75

Maryland – 18.65

New Jersey – 17.71

Nevada – 17.30

Illinois – 17.09

West Virginia – 16.76

Tennessee – 16.65

Delaware – 15.74

Massachusetts – 15.45

New York – 15.39

Arkansas -14.82

Texas – 14.19

Connecticut – 13.37

Arizona – 12.70

Georgia – 12.29

Kentucky – 12.08

South Carolina – 11.99

Minnesota – 11.68

Virginia – 11.32

New Mexico – 11.20

Mississippi – 10.71

Colorado – 10.33

Hawaii – 10.04

North Carolina – 10.0

 Alabama – 8.07

Oregon – 7.68

Rhode Island – 6.64

Washington – 5.34

Iowa – 4.33

Utah – 4.18

Alaska – 2.96

North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Vermont, and New Hampshire all recorded zero Black murders.

As one looks at this list, there is one pattern to note. Among the top 10 states with the highest Black murder rates, there are some violent cities. The top 3, Missouri, Pennsylvania, and Michigan all have violent cities. St. Louis and Detroit in particular are quite violent. Detroit had a murder rate of 34.5 murders per 100,000. A total of 310 murders. St. Louis had a murder rate of 40.5 murders per 100,000. A total of 144 murders. Kansas City, on the western side of I-70, 21.1 murders per 100,000. This would be a total of 102 murders. Between KC and St. Louis, there are about 246 murders in 2010. According to the article, 244 Blacks were murdered. In a state with a Black population around 700,000 residents, that is not good. With the state of Michigan, the biggest number of murders come out of Detroit. For Pennsylvania, the biggest number of murders comes out of Philadelphia. Another state on this list to mention is Louisiana. Louisiana, some people might think that this state would be #1, and it would make sense. Louisiana is home to the nation's murder capital, New Orleans. New Orleans had a murder rate of 49.1 murders per 100,000. The total number of murders for New Orleans was 175, making the city more deadly than St. Louis, on both numbers. Louisiana also has Baton Rouge, which had a murder rate of 33.6 murders per 100,000. There were 75 murders in Baton Rouge in 2010. 338 African-Americans were murdered in Louisiana in 2010. However, Louisiana has over 1 million Black residents, so the numbers added up differently.

Some states some people would not expect to show up on this list(among the top 10) are Maine, Nebraska, and Oklahoma. Maine has a Black population around 1%, Nebraska has a Black population around 4.5%, and Oklahoma has a Black population very close to 8%. Maine has a Black population numbering around 15,000. According to the VPC, there were no Black murders in 2009, and in 2010, there were 5. Considering the very small Black population in Maine, it doesn't take that many murders to inflate its murder rate. I will discuss Oklahoma and Nebraska, and a few other states in the next paragraph.

Oklahoma and Nebraska, well, let's start with Nebraska first. Nebraska has around 82,000 Blacks in the state. Close to 7 out of 10 Blacks in Nebraska live in Omaha. Omaha, oddly enough, has a Black population around 13%, close to the nation's average. However, the Black murder rate for Nebraska, and for Omaha, is above the national average for Blacks.

According to this artcile:http://www.omaha.com/article/20100221/NEWS01/702219915

the Black/White murder gap is higher in Nebraska than in most of the nation and has been this way for a while. One pattern I have noticed is the spatial distribution of Black murders. The highest concentration can be found in cities. Why does this matter? In Nebraska, most of the Black population lives in Omaha. Omaha's Black population is among the poorest in the nation. 6 out of 10 black children live below the poverty line. Gang violence is rampant in poor areas of Omaha, particularly the North side of Omaha, which alot of Omaha's Black population lives. In Oklahoma, most of the population lives in Tulsa and Oklahoma City. This is murders per 100,000. With poverty, overcrowding, gangs, and drugs, alot can happen.

Mississippi has the nation's highest percentage of blacks, 37.3%. It has a relatively low Black murder rate, 10.71 murders per 100,000. North Carolina has a Black murder rate of 10 murders per 100,000, and Alabama has a Black murder rate of 8.07 murders per 100,000. All of these states have large Black populations. All have relatively low Black murder rates. One thing to consider is this. WHERE most of the murders occur. Jackson,MS had a murder rate of 23.5 murders per 100,000. However, Jackson has about 173,000 residents in a state with 2,970,072 residents. About 1,093,275 Black residents live in Mississippi. Considering that Mississippi has a very large rural Black population spread out through the state, there aren't as many murders. I could say the same for Alabama. North Carolina, I would argue that the reverse Great Migration to some southern areas, especially to North Carolina, has brought in educated African-Americans, and middle class African-Americans. For this reason, it could be surmised that the relatively low Black murder rate could be attributed to economics and education. 

And another thing that would be interesting to see is the number of Black American children living in single-parent homes by state. I feel that also having stable, two parent homes would be a major factor in not getting involved with crime. 

A rebuttal to Akinokure's post about "Are blacks scared straight by the law or by hell-raisin' whites?"

According to both Steve Sailer and Akinore, Blacks are somehow only scared of "hell raisin' whites". This post is a rebuttal to such a post.

These are the links to said posts: http://akinokure.blogspot.com/2012/11/are-blacks-scared-straight-by-law-or-by.html
http://isteve.blogspot.com/2012/10/dept-of-not-getting-moynihans-joke.html

This is a direct quote from Steve Sailer:

"By the way, when speaking about Massachusetts, it's important to keep in mind that a major reason it doesn't have many blacks and that its blacks aren't as big of a problem as elsewhere is because it has an abundance of violent, tribalist, anti-black Irish to keep the blacks down. Boston is the only place I've seen in the U.S. where blacks appeared to be afraid of white civilians walking down the street. Having a lot of scary Irish around makes theorizing at Harvard a lot more pleasant. 

In contrast, poor Milwaukee, a nice German social-democratic town (as Alice Cooper points out in Wayne's World, Socialist candidates were elected mayor of Milwaukee three times in the 1920s), had high welfare and a direct rail line from the Mississippi Delta, and it just got the worst of Southern blacks. "

And here is a quote from Akinokure:

" But blacks look at the law enforcement system as just a bunch of overpaid punks -- whatchu pigs gon' do, huh? I'll sue for police brutality! That's when you need more rambunctious whites to curb bad black behavior at the grassroots level. Sometimes it takes barbarians to deter a savage."

If you read these posts closely enough, it is easy to tell that both persons have an agenda, an agenda that basically says "Blacks are savages that need to be controlled via violence". 

And read this link by Steve Sailer: http://www.vdare.com/articles/mapping-the-unmentionable-race-and-crime

According to both persons, Blacks were only well-behaved in the South because of large numbers of Whites who have Celtic ancestry. Akinore attributes this to "Honor Culture" and the "let's settle this ourselves" mentality.

I am not going to put the maps up. The maps are in the links.. However, I will include my own maps in all of this.

One thing to consider. Maps do not tell everything. The maps provided were to make a point.. However, these maps did not tell the whole story. Steve Sailer speaks of imprisonment levels among Blacks by state. Akinore is comparing the Black imprisonment rate to the number of persons who are of Celtic ancestry living in a certain place.

Another factor to consider is that the maps detailing the Black imprisonment by state are quite old. This is noted in the entry, that the maps came from 1997. However, it still does not help in 2013.

There are other factors to consider. Among them are education level, spatial distribution, average age, rural vs urban.

For Steve Sailer's assessment of Massachusetts vs Wisconsin and "not many Blacks being there, well, this is a assessment I see.

When it comes to the city of Boston, the city is 47% White, ad 15% of the population is of Irish ancestry. There are over 518,000 Blacks living in the state of Massachusetts as of 2012. Over 155,000 Blacks live in Boston. Compare this with Wisconsin. There are 372,000 Blacks in Wisconsin. Over 239,000 live in the city of Milwaukee. 257,000+  Black residents live in Milwaukee County at large. What does this say? Milwaukee County's Black residents live largely in the city of Milwaukee, and not that many live in the suburbs. In fact, Milwaukee metro is the nation's most segregated metropolitan area.

. Another link: http://www.uppitywis.org/blogarticle/why-milwaukee-nations-top-segregated-metro-one-reason-scott-w

Massachusetts has more Blacks in Boston than any other part of Massachusetts. However, sizable Black populations also live in places like Lynn, Springfield, Lowell, Brockton, etc

This brings us to another subject: The geography of prisons. Most prisoners come from the cities. This rings especially true for Black prisoners. Chances are, the majority of Black prisoners in Wisconsin often come from Milwaukee, where most of Wisconsin's Black population is concentrated.

Massachusetts, on the other hand, has more Blacks living in other areas besides the state's largest city. Chances are, much of the Black prison population in Massachusetts is coming from Boston, Springfield, and possibly Lynn.

And let's take this case even further. Mississippi has one of the lowest Black imprisonment rates in the nation. Mississippi is one of the least urbanized states in the nation. In fact, if you look at the Deep South, this is where the largest number of rural Blacks live. Like I said before, prisons tend to draw from cities.

And something else to consider. Massachusetts is locking up more people than ever before. Massachusetts started getting strict on crime in the late 1980s after Michael Dukakis(who was running for President at the time) was lambasted in a political campaign which involved using Willie Horton's picture. Boston's murder rate dropped from 152 murders in 1991, to 31 murders 1999. It took an effort on mayor Thomas Menino to have more crime fighting strategies to get the murder rate down.

And while Massachusetts doesn't have the nation's highest Black imprisonment rate, it has one of the nation's highest Hispanic imprisonment rates,
http://www.golocalworcester.com/news/ma-latino-incarceration-rate-4th-highest-in-us/
Maybe one should really ask what is going on there.

Something else. Maryland has the nation's 2nd lowest Black imprisonment rate(among U.S. states. DC isn't counted because it isn't a state). It is home to one of the most violent cities in the nation, Baltimore. In terms of ancestry, Maryland is mainly Irish, German, and African-American, as well as persons of British ancestry. Maryland is quite soft on crime compared to its neighbor to the South, Virginia. Black criminals from DC have preferred to go to Maryland than Virginia because the laws in Virginia are stricter. If the law doesn't scare many Black people, then why do Black criminals in DC commit so many crimes in Maryland and not in Virginia?

Another case. Texas and Louisiana. Both states have the death penalty and will use it. However, Texas has more Blacks locked up than Louisiana. Why? It is the way the justice system works. In Louisiana, criminals have often gotten away with murder because of the "60 day law". The way it works is if you get charged with murder, an indictment has to be filed within 60 days, or the charges get dropped. The deadline would sometimes pass without an indictment, and for that reason, criminals would be back on the streets committing more crimes. Texas had one of the highest murder rates in the nation during the 1980s. Houston even gained a title as the nation's murder capital one. However, the murder rate dropped dramatically in the late 1990s into the 2000s. Louisiana still has a high murder rate. Gangs from New Orleans went to Texas after Hurricane Katrina and found the legal system in Texas was quite different. If you got busted for murder, you were just busted. No way to get out of it. Many criminals just went back to Louisiana after finding out how strict things were. Perhaps the drop in murder for Texas had everything to do with criminals actually getting caught and charged, and actually convicted for their crimes.

Kentucky has a high number of persons with USA, Scottish, and Scotch-Irish ancestry. There are also fewer Blacks live in Kentucky than in Massachusetts. However, Kentucky has one of the highest Black imprisonment rates in the nation, 2793 Black prisoners per 100,000 Blacks.


And the case of German ancestry, well, consider this. Minnesota currently has one of the lowest Black imprisonment rates in the nation. It has also seen one of the largest growths in its Black population within the last 2 decades, as far as Midwestern states go.Minnesota has come a long way since the days of "Murderapolis", of the mid 1990s. Minnesota's murder rate is one of the lowest in the nation. Minnesota's Black murder rate is below the national average murder rate for Blacks, 11.68 murders per 100,000. The national murder rate for Blacks is 16.32 murders per 100,000.

The southern region of the USA, well consider this. There has been a large migration of Blacks from states such as New York, California, Illinois, Michigan, and other places into states such as Texas, Georgia, Virginia' and North Carolina. Perhaps with these migrants coming from other states have higher levels of education, and higher incomes, and are moving to these states because of opportunities. With that brings a different mentality. A much lesser likelihood of crime. Texas stands out because it has one of the highest Black imprisonment rates in the nation. Although large numbers of Blacks have moved to the state, and are often educated and middle class, there is one other thing to consider. Texas doesn't have as high of a rural Black population as Mississippi, Georgia, and South Carolina. Texas also has 3 of the nations 10 largest cities(in terms of population inside the city). Perhaps most Black prisoners in Texas are from Dallas, and Houston, as well as from Ft. Worth and San Antonio.

There is also something else to consider. Blacks do make up the largest number of those in prison. And the vast majority of the Black prison population is American. Boston has a sizable number of Blacks from the West Indies. Black West Indian immigrants often have highest levels of educational attainment(more college graduates) than Black Americans, and this case is even more so for Black Africans who come to the USA. There are lower imprisonment rates than among Black Americans. Lower rates of broken families as well.

Perhaps it isn't "Hell raisin' Whites" that "scares" Blacks. Perhaps its stable families and education that are very helpful.

What Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's birthday means to me.

Hello everyone. I've been on an unintentional hiatus. Sometimes life gets to people and they neglect certain things. I am back. Today I had the opportunity of hearing the poet Nikki Giovanni speak at Kennesaw State University for Dr. King's birthday. She said many things that made me think about how far Black people have come, from being wrenched out of Africa, to being here in the USA in 2012.

I have had plenty of time to be pensive about this. This is what the Dr. King holiday means to me. To me, it isn't just some day off in the middle of January. As an African-American male, it means something to me. As a human being, it means alot to me. I think about my life now, and what it would have been like 50 or 60 years ago. I can eat anywhere I want, live anywhere I want, I can vote, I don't have to put up with being called "boy". To me, it is about being able to live as a human being. It is about being treated as a human being. That is what Dr. King's birthday means to me.

Ugly Cars, and fiction books

I had the interesting opportunity to peruse articles by Taki Magazine. The name of the article was Why Are New Cars So Ugly? by Gavin McInnes. Now, there are many things posted on Taki that I disagree with. Many of my views are diametrically different from what I am finding. This article that I perused basically lambasted the new cars that have been coming out.

A direct quote from Gavin McInnes:

"I looked out my bedroom window last night and saw Will Smith stepping into a 1967 Ford Galaxie. He was leaving the old-timey diner across the street with Tommy Lee Jones because they were shooting scenes for the upcoming Men in Black sequel.
For three days our entire street has been lined with cars from the 60s and early 70s. There are Chevy Novas, old Mercs, and breathtaking Dodge Darts with their reverse fins jutting out the back. After walking through the set today on my way to work, I laid eyes on a 2010 Volkswagen Touareg and puked"

Okay I get it. You don't like the new cars coming out. I get it. However, to go as far as to call some of these new cars "ugly" is quite a stretch. Now, I will be a biased. I don't see anything ugly about the Volkswagen Touareg. The gas mileage could use a little work(average varies from 19-22 mpg combined hwy and city. Other than that, for being an SUV, the gas mileage could be worse. "Ugly" is in the eyes of the beholder, just as the beauty. 

According to McInnes, this was his view of the Ford Galaxie vs today's cars:

"The Galaxie was more than a cool-looking car. It defined Western opulence. It was a proud example of why we are and always will be the best. Today, this sense of pride in design has been replaced with aerodynamic minivans manufactured solely to transport middle-class children to well-organized soccer games where shin guards are mandatory"

Aerodynamic design shouldn't be reduced to airplanes. Aerodynamic design for automobiles made for less wind resistance and therefore, in its own way, is a sense of pride. In my view, it is a sense of pride in the sense that technology can progress and make vehicles more efficient. So it's shaped like "a cough drop"?

And opulence is luxury as told by sumptuous living. Sumptuous living means extravagant living. The Ford Galaxie looks opulent, yes. But a car doesn't have to be opulent looking to work properly and to be of good quality. It is the thought that you put into it that makes a car quality. Aerodynamics is a sign of quality because of what it DOES, not so much its looks.



Another quote from McInnes:

"I’ve been screaming about this while drunk in bars for a long time and have finally reached a conclusion: It’s women’s fault. After being liberated out of the kitchen, women expanded their rules to include major family decisions such as whom to vote for, where to live, where to send the kids to school, what kind of car to drive, and where to drive it. Castrated men are happy to hand over the keys and even ask the wife what book to read while she’s driving. Women buy up to 80% of fiction books, and my colleagues tell me even the books men read have been procured for them by a lady friend. If you see a guy reading Adam Carolla’s In 50 Years We’ll All be Chicks, odds are a chick bought it for him"

So a man is castrated because he is willing to ask his wife for a suggestion on fiction books? So a man is castrated because he lets his wife have a say? Excuse me, but in order for a family to be happy, shouldn't the wife have a say?So what if a woman suggests a book for a man to read? What is the big deal? Are the men who write fiction novels "castrated"? I, a male, read fiction books. I plan to finish my sci-fi novel by the end of this spring(I won't tell the title though). Am I a "castrated man" because of it?

And for what it is worth, many fiction books I have read have been suggested by males friends, and my father. Among them are Native Son, Invisible Man, The Outsiders, etc.


Gavin McInnes goes on to say that men hate the new cars and would go as far as to pay for extra gas to have cars with "hard edges". Sounds alot like subjective thinking to me and McInnes is entitled to it. With that said, I don't agree with him, and I don't find much that is objective in this article on the subject matter. I am a male and I don't drive at all. One of the reasons include gasoline prices. With rising gas prices, I would rather ride a bicycle and/or walk in order to save money. If I get a car, I want one that has decent gasoline mileage, or even a car that doesn't use regular gasoline. A hybrid car would be fine by me. I consider it a technological innovation.

The Anti-Bullying campaign

Yesterday I ran across an article on TakiMag. The title was basicallt "In Defense of Bullying". I decided to perouse the article and try and ruminate over it. I thought "In Defense of Bullying"? Are you kidding? I would never be in defense of bullying. I won't lie. I looked at it with a very personal mindset. I take it personal for many reasons. I will get into detail later. I will agree that some people have lied about being raped. Yes, there are radical feminists as oppose to moderate feminists who just want things to be better. On that note, this article talked about the anti-bullying campaign being just a fad and some kind of crap shoot.

I am going to give my take on this. The Anti-Bullying campaign, at least in my view, in not some crap shoot to me. I am not annoyed by it at all. Is it some device to turn children into "weaklings"? Not really. Turning children into "weaklings" would be something like the school administrators punishing bullying victims for even "daring" to defend themselves. I am not saying "don't defend yourself". I'm saying bullying should be stopped in its tracks. I see it from a personal perspective for this reason:

I was bullied as a child. I remember middle school like it was the back of my own hand. I was the smallest kid in the class. I was the bookworm. I was the only Black kid in my homeroom(and maybe one of about 3 Black kids in my classes through the day except in gym class). I stood out alot in so many ways. I can remember specific things that happened to me in school. Sure, some eighth grade girls would try to make the bullies stop. What happened after they went onto high school?  I remember when I was in a classroom, and two boys kicked the crutches from underneath me. Even after going to the principal's office, these boys got away with it somehow. Other things that happened to me included alot of harassment, some of it physical, including getting nearly poisoned by one kid, getting put in a garbage can, and rocks being thrown at me during gym class.

 When demographics started to change and I went to high school, some of the bullying took on more different nature. In middle school it was mainly White kids who were bullying me. In high school, there are more Black kids who were bullies. I remember one morning being jumped by three Black students in the hallway. I never knew why they did that at that moment. All I know is that I had to fight three students, all of them bigger than me.  Some of the students(some Black, some White) would makes jokes about the fact that I wasn't "Black enough". Apparently, speaking with proper grammer, not dressing like a hood rat, and being 'nerdy" and being a Black kid could get you called names like "Carlton". I still remember a few kids who threatened to "lynch" me. Why they would never try this with some of the other Black students, it is beyond me. Or did they? I don't know what went on with every kid. I had an element of reclusiveness to me. Sure, there were kids I talked to and had friendly terms with, but I never did much socializing outside of school, and much of the time, I wasn't listening to the stuff that went on in school. I pretty much existed in my own world, even when I did extracurricular activities. How did other kids get bullied? What happened to them?

Bullying has been a problem for many years. It is only now that people are addressing it. Only now, when people are committing suicide, is when the anti-bullying campaign is coming in? Or were kids committing suicide beforehand? Maybe there are just things we haven't been made aware of. Maybe the anti-bullying campaign should have come in sooner. I have no problem with this campaign. I think it should have been done sooner.

One thing to look at is the effects of bullying. All I have to do is look at some people I know who got bullied. My little sister was harrassed by Black girls for "not being Black enough". It did a number on her self-esteem. Bullying did a number on me. I went from a naive 6th grader to a morose, angry, spiteful adolescent. For some kids, bullying made them stronger because of what they had to go through. For some other kids, bullying took a toll and them. Some kids turned into bullies themselves, further continuing a hateful cycle.

There is one glitch I should mention. The anti-bullying campaign has its wonderful intentions. There is one problem: A bully is usually a bully for a reason. If a bully has been told "quit bullying", he or she might have been told that before. Or, that bully may have not been caught yet.

Bullying is a disturbing phenomenon that has been going on for as long as school children have been going to school. It shouldn't go on at all. A child should be able to go to school and feel safe and wanted. I find no defense in bullying. I see it as repugnant behavior that should be dealt with harshly. Yes, if a kid has to defend himself in school, then he'she should not be punished for it. He/She should not have to deal with bullies in the first place.

Jerome Isaac and Laurence Lovette Jr. Disturbing in so many ways.

Sunday through Tuesday I have been finding more disturbing things going on. An elderly woman was set on fire and burned to death by 47 year-old Jerome Isaac. 73 year-old Delores Gillespie was burned to death by this man in an elevator. He basically picked her as a victim and stalked her. Sick and disturbing. Today I find that a UNC student, Eve Carson, was murdered in 2008. She asked this man to pray with her and then he murdered her later on. The good thing is that her killer, Laurence Lovette Jr., will do life in prison for murder. However, I am finding some more disturbing things going on. When I noticed the man who burned an elderly woman alive, I was seeing an African-American male. The first thing that popped into my head was "SBPDL is going to have a field day with this". For those who don't know what SBPDL is, that is StuffBlackPeopleDon'tLike. Basically, it is a blog dedicated to showing every bad thing that Black people do. What is more surprising about this blog is that as much as it leans towards Stormfront views and racial surpremacy views, it seems like it is ordinary people who run this blog. I have basically made rebuttals to whatever they have had to say. My mission was to show those persons that there are also decent Black people who do not do harm. The more I see what they post, the more I see it is pretty much a hate site. Stormfront doesn't scare me as much because I KNOW for a fact that it's ran by Neo-Nazi skinheads and little Hitlers. This website is basically ran by paleo-conservatives who behave as "lone wolves". I found out not only did the murder of a UNC student make it on the blog, so did burning of an elderly woman.

I get upset because there are people like Jerome Isaac and Laurence Lovette Jr. who do such disturbing things. I am calling these miscreants out over the internet. Jerome Isaac, who are you to pour gasoline over someone and set them on fire? Jerome Isaac, that woman did nothing to you. So she owed you $2,000. So what? That is no excuse for what you did. It is apparent that you, Jerome Isaac, value money over people, to the point of murder. Laurence Lovette Jr, who were you to go and take someone's life away? That person was of no harm to you, and you take that person's life away. For crying out loud, Eve Carson asked you to pray with her. If anyone were to ask me to pray with them, I would be very happy deep down inside.

And to the families of Delores Gillespie and Eve Carson, my prayers go out to you. I am very sorry for your loss. I know that it must have been severe to lose a family member, someone you loved. How much, I don't know. All I know is that you lost someone you loved and my heart and prayers go out to you.

And to SBPDL, this is MY rebuttal. You claim that Black people have no concept of sympathy and that we Black people have no understanding of long term consequences and lack emotional control. Well, I could say the same about many White people out there, especially college students who drink alot or get involved in riotous behavior often involving college sports events, such as those that have occurred at Michigan State University, University of Minnesota, and UCLA. Jerome Isaac and Laurence Lovette Jr did what they did because they don't give a ****. Your basically idea is that you want to push is that ALL Black people are unsafe to be around and that they are programmed to kill White people. That is a wrong assumption. You say that there are alot of unreported Black on White killings. You could say the same thing about alot of unreported White on Black killings. You really DON'T know what goes on. People of all races and ethnicities committed wanton acts of violence because they don't care. They probably do understand the long term consequences, but really don't care. The Neo-Nazis in Russian who beheaded a Dagestani man, they didn't care what the long term consequences were. They were ready for blood and violence. It didn't matter to them. It boils down to being responsible for yourself and making sure you are doing what is the responsible thing to do for yourself and the people in your community.

I am also aware that crime is a major problem in the Black community. Black on Black crime is very common. This is part of why young Black men get murdered more than anyone else in the USA. If White people are not safe around Blacks, then Blacks are not safe around Blacks either, as Blacks get murdered by Blacks more than anyone else in the USA. It is a problem that needs to be tackled from the inside. Jerome Isaac did what he did because he didn't care about anything but money. He was ruthless and cruel. An elderly African-American woman died at his hands, further perpertuating to the problem of Black on Black crime. There is also a disturbing trend of Black on White murders, Eve Carson, a White female, was murdered by Laurence Lovette Jr, and African-American male. Why he did what he did, I don't know.

What I feel is this: Both of those men took lives away knowing it was wrong. Black on Black and Black on White violence. At the end of the day, what really matters is someone died. Not race so much, but the fact that two people felt it was fit to murder someone. When you kill someone, regardless of what race that person is, a life is taken away. I am also aware that many people will take Eve Carson's death as an example of "the Black villain going after the White female" case. My last thoughts are that this is disturbing, and yet, not surprising. Human beings have murdered one another for ages, and have done other horrible things towards one another. Whether or not the recent news will be used as some sort of propaganda, well, it's already being used.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/19/jerome-isaac-charged-with_n_1158522.html
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-57345647-504083/nc-man-found-guilty-in-unc-student-eve-carsons-murder-sentenced-to-life/

The Adventures of Tintin:A review of the history

On 21 December 2011,The Adventures of Tintin will premiere in theatres.

I don't know if I will be watching this film. All I know is that it involves pirates and sunken treasure. That said, there is a more serious side to this. The Tintin I grew up with look like this:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4668268860759158229

The aformentioned video is the Tintin I was familiar with. It was the story of two adventure men, one of them a young, idealistic man  and the other a slightly grumpy old man. Both are doing the things I want to do: Going all of the world and traveling, having all kinds of adventures. Nothing about this cartoon would have led me to suspect that Tintin was a very disturbing comic when it originated. Then again, I was around 9 or 10 years old when I saw this as a cartoon, so I was highly naive.

The origins of Tintin did not start in some studio in the 1990's. It was a comic book series started in 1929, with a Belgian artist named Georges Remi(aka Hergé). The first comic of Les Adventures de Tintin to be released was Tintin in the Land of the Soviets.
 


        

According to some scholars of cultural literacy, the first comic book did not portray a factual image of the Bolshevik Revolution. I didn't know what to feel as I know from history that Marxism has not done much good in the long term perspectives for the former Soviet Union. Is it a comic book or a factual portrayal of world events? Caricature, or accurate description? I've never read the comic(or any of them), so I wouldn't know.


The next comic released was Tintin of the Congo. This one made me upset. It is a throwback to the days of Blackface, Little Black Sambo, and other caricatures of people of African descent. I guess being Black, I am going to feel offended by this. The biggest reason is because it doesn't represent Black people, but rather, a caricature portraying Black people(and specifically the native population in the Congo) as generally child-like, lazy, and stupid. Look at the artwork on it. The cartoons portray Blacks as more simian than human. I shouldn't be surprised by this. This was 1930, and racist stereotypes were all too common in the entertainment industry, and this includes cartoons. Also, elements of colonialism were involved too. Belgium was ruling the Belgian Congo(now the nations of Burundi, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo) at that time and there were very "paternalistic" portrayals of Blacks, stemming from the colonial era. Hergé said that he wasn't trying to be intentionally racist, but rather he was being patronizing.

In 2007, the Commission for Racial Equality called for the Tintin comic books to be removed from bookstores in the UK after David Enfield and his wife, an African woman, and their two children saw it in a Borders.
          

Like many interesting shows, some, like Tintin, have a less than stellar beginning. One the one hand, there are people who are in favor of freedom of speech and expression, who feel there is nothing wrong with it. On the other hand, there are those who don't want things like that on the shelves, citing that it is indeed a throwback to more racist times. My view is this. I am very aware of racial stereotypes and of what some people would think of me, a Black man, and might act accordingly to their thought processes. In some cases, this can be a bad thing. It would not do my self-esteem any justice to constantly see images of myself as savage, child-like or other stereotypes that do not represent me as a person. On the other hand, the Tintin I grew up with bears no resemblance to Tintin of the Congo. Personally, I don't know what to feel about the movie because the movie itself could be innocent enough. The cartoon I saw in the 1990's was innocent enough. It was the comics of the 1930's that are controversial. Hergé died in 1983, so I don't think he would benefit from anyone buying his stuff. The cartoon I grew up with was different from, and this movie might be as well. Whatever turns out, it gives you something to think about.