I thought I might share Jason L. Riley’s take on the situation in Buffalo from his Wall Street Journal column:
It is unfortunate that this is what it takes for Buffalo to get the attention it deserves, because the city has been hurting for decades. Its population peaked in 1950 and has been falling steadily since the 1970s. Today, this former industrial powerhouse is the third-poorest city of its size in the country, with more than 1 in 3 residents on food stamps. Three-quarters of the city’s public schoolchildren qualify for free or reduced-price lunches. Between 2019 and 2020, murders rose by 30% nationwide but by 34% in Buffalo, according to the Buffalo News. In 2020, there were 100 more shooting victims than the city had averaged over the previous decade.
And while the actions of a self-described white supremacist have put Buffalo in the news, the city’s problem is hardly white supremacy. Buffalo has a black mayor who is serving his fifth consecutive four-year term. The leader of the City Council and the school superintendent are also black, as is the man who served as police commissioner from 2018 until his retirement earlier this year. Like other cities in previous eras—Coleman Young’s Detroit, Marion Barry’s Washington, Sharpe James’s Newark, N.J.—Buffalo’s black underclass has gotten poorer under the direction of black politicians. Electing people who share your race or ethnicity is no guarantee that they will act in your best interests.
Buffalo’s black population is about three times as much relative to its population as New York City, a little higher than Chicago’s. The cruel irony is that although the Democratic Party is extremely dependent on the fidelity and participation of black voters, black voters are largely ignored by Democrats after election day. As young urban highly educated professionals have assumed greater importance in the party that situation has become worse rather than better.
The midterms will be telling. While I expect turnout by black voters to remain high, it is likely to be lower than in a general election and I suspect that the black vote will be frighteningly different than it was in 2020.
This is not a Democrat-caused problem. Affirmative action benefitted the black middle and upper classes, allowing them to participate freely, and to the degree they, themselves, wanted, in the wider white culture and economy.
Unfortunately, the black underclass lacks the intelligence needed to acquire the knowledge and skills that would allow them to join their cousins. Affirmative action does nothing for them. What is needed some some new program that addresses the actual needs of the underclass.
By the way, the white underclass is as big as the black underclass, about 20 million each, and they, too, suffer from low intelligence and limited learning ability, and all the evils that come with life on the edge.
About the only thing we do for either is WIC and EBT cards.
A big part of the underclass problem is lack of suitable jobs. At one time, assembly line work and manual labor provided those jobs. But assembly line jobs are precisely those transferred overseas. Unfortunately, assembly lines are highly automated nowadays, and provide very few jobs to anyone except highly skilled operators. Manual labor that used to exist in construction has also become highly mechanized, and companies are actively developing robots for construction.
I don’t have any idea about solving the underclass situation. But we seem to have abandoned them and the mentally ill, and left them to their own devices. Affirmative action, WIC, EBT may assuage our guilt but it does nothing for people who have been cast aside.
May I note that the current movement to remove police from the ghetto is another abandonment. The very people who need the most protection from violent criminals are being left to the mercies of the criminals.
There can’t be more than 100,000 or so gang bangers who commit most of the murders in this country and almost three-quarters of the mass shooting. That is a solvable problem, if only we would try.
intelligence :
I would add self control and time preference.
White peoples should not attempt to control the voluntary behaviors of Blacks and those whites who have chosen to imitate Black culture.
This is a free country, what you present as problematic is pursuit of happiness.
Choose carefully where you want to live.
There’s nothing wrong with Buffalo. Buffalo is just fine.
The problem is small, rural towns. Steve set me straight…….
The shooter is actually from Conklin, NY. Population 5,008.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conklin,_New_York
Steve
Since i am sure you want to know, top murder rate cities. Dave will be disappointed to not see Chicago on the list but his alma mater is #1.
Steve
https://www.neighborhoodscout.com/blog/highest-murder-rate-cities
Yes, St. Louis has been a murder capitol for some time. The North St. Louis neighborhood in which I lived now looks like a war zone—empty lots, unoccupied houses, a few well-kept homes suggesting owners are trying to keep them up.
There are also many fewer trees, particularly big trees than when I was a kid. That makes a difference in the blistering St. Louis summers.
Yes, St. Louis has been a murder capitol for some time. The North St. Louis neighborhood in which I lived now looks like a war zone—empty lots, unoccupied houses, a few well-kept homes suggesting owners are trying to keep them up. The house in which I spent my first ten years is occupied but looks pretty dilapidated—it obviously has had little maintenance in the pushing 70 years since we left.
There are also many fewer trees, particularly big trees than when I was a kid. That makes a difference in the blistering St. Louis summers.