Black accountability: Part 1 of today's news for September 22nd

There is a lot of news today, so I am having to split the daily news post into three two posts.

CNN:

Charlotte protests: State of emergency declared after violent clashes

Second verse, same as the first:

Violent protests raged in Charlotte for the second night over the police shooting of an African-American man, prompting North Carolina's governor to declare a state of emergency.

One person was on life support after being shot Wednesday night by another civilian during the unrest, the city tweeted. Earlier, the city had said that person had died.

At least four officers suffered injuries not considered life-threatening during Wednesday night's protests, according to police.

Gov. Pat McCrory said he would deploy the state National Guard and Highway Patrol to Charlotte, North Carolina's largest city.

"We cannot tolerate violence. We cannot tolerate the destruction of property and will not tolerate the attacks against our police officers that is occurring right now," McCrory told CNN on Wednesday night.

I discussed this topic yesterday, so I won't reiterate what I said. However, there is an intriguing addendum to the story, which naturally involves Donald Trump:

Think Progress:

Trump says black Americans are ‘in the worst shape that they’ve ever been in.’ 

Data say otherwise.

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, in his outreach to black voters, frequently describes their lives as if they are living in some sort of hellscape.

And on Tuesday evening at an event in North Carolina, Trump painted perhaps the bleakest picture yet of conditions for black Americans. “Our African-American communities are absolutely in the worst shape that they’ve ever been in before, ever, ever, ever,” he said. “You get no education, you get no jobs, you get shot walking down the street.”

While it’s true that black Americans face significant racial inequities compared to whites, it’s hard to find any data supporting Trump’s assertion that things are worse for them now than ever before.

I will concede the data does show blacks doing better than other recent data points dating back to the 1970's, and even as recently as 2010.

All that considered, this begs the question: If blacks are doing so much better, why do they seem to be rioting more than ever?

There is a caveat:

Trump’s claim about black Americans having “no jobs” is also hard to back up. Last month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that black people have an unemployment rate of 8.1 percent. While that’s almost double the 4.4 percent rate for white people, it’s a good deal lower than the recent peak of 16.8 percent of black unemployment in March of 2010 and a far cry from the overall peak of 21.2 percent in January 1983.

It should be noted that unemployment rates notoriously leave out the people who have quit looking for jobs after their unemployment benefits run out. For example, Gallup runs its own unemployment poll, which shows a real unemployment rate of 9.7% in the U.S. (that is for everyone). While that is an improvement over the 17% real unemployment rates of the last financial crisis, it is still more than the lows seen back in 2001 (below 7%). It is safe to assume the black community is seeing a real unemployment rate above 10%.

I have a speculation to offer: There is a sub-group within the black community, which is both economically and educationally poor, which receives a constant message from both the Media and politicians absolving them of any responsibility for their situation. When the world tells you it isn't your fault for the situation you are in, and it is all due to your skin color, why should you try to fix it? You can't "fix" your skin color. And then, when you see a situation like a police shooting of someone with your skin color, attached to a rumor of their innocence, it is quite easy to leap to the conclusion it could happen to you too.

What Trump is saying is ethically wrong, but it is also no different than what is being said by both the Democrats and the Media. For example:

CNN:

Clinton plans to develop national standards to manage police shootings

Hillary Clinton's campaign manager said Wednesday that the Democratic nominee would implement a set of best practices to prevent police-involved shootings like the ones this week in Charlotte, North Carolina and Tulsa, Oklahoma. 

"There are two prongs to her approach," Robby Mook, Hillary for America campaign manager told CNN's Alisyn Camerota on "New Day." "The first is to have a set of national standards around how to manage the situations that doesn't exist right now and that could help through training to prevent situations like this."

"There are no set of national best practices on how to manage situations," he continued. "These situations are handled by local policies currently. And what she is proposing is that we actually set up national standards so that localities have better policies to work with and train towards."  

Can you say "power grab"? How about Rahm Emanuel's infamous quote, "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste"?

Seriously, this statement from the Clinton campaign implies that the police are the problem. There are some cases of unjustified shootings. Will this fix those situations, or will it create an atmosphere that makes cops reluctant to take actions against real public threats? Yes folks, some public threats happen to have black skin. But not every single shooting of a black man is due to racism.

(On a side note, why is it always black men being shot, not black women? Maybe because women are smarter than men? Just a thought.)

Regardless, you will notice that NOBODY in politics or the Media are suggesting that MAYBE it might be the black community's responsibility? Too often, these situations occur when a cop (sometimes even a black cop) orders a black man to do something, and they don't do it. This is known as "suicide by cop", and it is far too frequent.

These situations need to be considered one at a time, and not as some national racism problem. Assuming a "blame the cop" attitude before any of the facts of the case have been released is wrong. Rioting because of it is downright childish.

Back to Trump...

Atlanta Journal Constitution:

Trump calls for national “stop-and-frisk” 

This story is from Jamie Dupree, one of the finest political journalists in the business. I treat news from him as gospel.

Back to the story:

In a bid to cut down on crime in America’s inner cities, Donald Trump on Wednesday embraced the idea of allowing police to more aggressively “stop-and-frisk” people on the streets, even though those tactics were ruled unconstitutional several years ago in his home town of New York, as a federal judge said it amounted to racial profiling. 

“I would use ‘stop-and-frisk,'” Trump said in a Fox News town hall in Ohio. “I think you have to.”

Naturally, the Democrats dumped on Trump. But surprisingly, so did at least one Republican:

“If you like big government you will love Donald Trump’s complete disregard for your fourth amendment rights,” said A.J. Spiker, a former top advisor to Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) and a past chairman of the Iowa Republican Party.

The main problem with "stop-and-frisk" is that it traditionally targets minorities and minority neighborhoods. On the other hand, minority-dominated neighborhoods are also where the crime rates are highest.

"Stop-and-frisk" isn't a solution, and certainly not on a national level. This is a local problem.

At some point, the police or other local political authorities need to get with the community leaders and come to an agreeable solution for policing these crime-ridden areas. If they can't agree to a solution of some kind, then the communities need to be cut loose. Like the old saying goes, if you aren't part of the solution, you are part of the problem. It is past time to force minority communities to take responsibility for their own policing. If they refuse, this requires a tough love solution.