It's Not Us, It's You!: A Response to "Code Switched"

Another article to read and analyze in Contemporary Justice Issues.  Another illogical flurry of misplaced blame.  Quite an interesting article.  Read to find out why. 

 http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2015/03/05/390723644/why-is-milwaukee-so-bad-for-black-people

This article was one of the most interesting and enlightening articles I have read.  It gave me never before seen insight into the way certain segments of the populous view the causes for plights and the way they connect situations with vast conclusions that have little logical or factual evidence for their good rather than the good of the communities they are supposedly trying to help.  For starters, the article is written by a person who has a clear bias view of the situation.  When one devotes her whole life to finding reasons for achievement gaps and racial disparity, it is far easier to find a straw man, or men, to vilify than to address the actual issues.  Her allegations are specific enough that there is someone to blame but broad enough that the group is incapable of having a defendant.  

To begin, the article somehow associates the largest incarceration rate among blacks in any major city in the country with racism.  It blames more money for police officers and higher policing for more incarcerations as if the police are attempting to hit some sort of racist quota.  Disregarding the fact that most police officers in the city come from minority communities.  Why would police not police more in neighborhoods with higher crime rates?  That creates safer communities, not more dysfunctional ones.  “Facts are stubborn things,” and the fact that 55% of violent crimes are committed by the African-American community is a fact.  This fact is the cause for the increased police presence.   

Then we get to the achievement gaps in schools.  The thought that school choice programs are creating the achievement gaps in schools is maybe the most vapid argument I have ever heard from the liberal left.  The comment in and of itself is a racist one.  If giving parents of African-American students choice as to where to send their child to school, and you blame that program for their child’s inability to read, you are thereby inferring that African-American parents are unable to make adequate choices for their children.  Is that assumption not racist?  This gap also occurs in a city, with some of the most powerful and influential teacher unions in the nation… but somehow that could not be the issue.  

But that outlines the whole truth of the article.  The inferences made and the issues brought up to convince people in the Milwaukee area, and elsewhere, that the cause for their plight is the fault of everyone else.  The resentful white people who moved to the suburbs, the racist police officers, a government indifferent to communities in poverty.  These issues brought up, and the inferred solutions deem government expansion and takeover a necessity in these communities.  This is the reason why liberals gain so much control over city centers.  Minority communities are told: “these are the problems and these are the solutions.”  This not only demeans the communities and treats them as lesser, it keeps politicians in power and a constant yearn for government help.  As if Milwaukee hasn’t been run by a progressive democrat in decades, when in actuality, the opposite is true.  That is why I found this article so interesting.  It gave me a new insight into the way that sycophantic liberals go about making their living.  It is easier to blame racism than to get to the true heart of the issue.