Murder in America

            The homicide rate of black males reported in Table D.10 above was more than twenty times as high as the rate for white females, five times as high as the rate for black females, and more than seven times as high as the rate for white males.  Murders of black males is completely “off the charts” in the data reported here. 

            Taken together, these reports comprise evidence of extremely high murder rates:  of blacks, and by blacks.  It is not primarily whites who have been killing blacks or blacks who have been  killing whites, but blacks have been killing other blacks at unbelievably high rates.  Most of these murders took place in large cities, and most (in recent years, at least) have been tied directly to illegal distribution of narcotics and other drugs,   the general level of the economy, and the availability of guns.  The dramatic differences between murder rates of black persons and white persons, however, are indisputable.  Murder rates among blacks are out of control.  Race is a clearly a factor in murder in America that must be explained. 

            Reflecting on this problem, we developed an hypothesis which might be a partial explanation for these extreme differences in murder rates among blacks, when compared with whites in America.  In the next section we will sketch a brief explanation of this hypothesis, with historical justifications that make it both plausible and attractive as a possible explanation of the race factor in murder in America.  A complete history of blacks in America may be required to understand what causes black citizens to become the kinds of people they are today to explain these extreme differences in murder rates, but we are neither knowledgeable enough nor skilled enough to attempt such an undertaking.  A brief review of certain historical factors may be helpful, though.  

An Hypothesis and Its Relation to the Culture of Slavery

            We were hesitant even to raise the issue of race in our study of murder in America, but two facts and the emerging hypothesis forced us to confront the race factor directly.  The facts are these: legislation cannot change an individual’s race, and the homicide rate by black males is extremely high.  The hypothesis, which has not been demonstrated as fact but seems plausible, is this:  

      Blacks in early America grew up in a culture of slavery and were acculturated over an extremely long period of time to be dependent (rather than independent) human “beings.  After emancipation and amendments to the Constitution assuring “equality, the “intransigence of whites and the refusal of courts to legitimize equality fostered the “development of “learned helplessness” on the part of many blacks.  Incremental steps by “the federal government in the direction of equality in mid-twentieth century eventually led “to frustration and then aggression rather than reason and persuasion to resolve “disagreements.  Independent and responsible behavior began to develop throughout the “black community toward the end of the twentieth century, following changes in both “policies and structures of the federal government, but black males, especially, “continue to engage in aberrant behaviors.

            Slavery, by