Huh, for the first time I can remember Blair presents a jibcut that I can support.

:MONOCLE:

Damn it! Too small...

Ever thus it ends, with the White Man's Regret, eh?

Poverty is the root cause. Add to poverty militant social organization, and crime emerges. Italian mafia, black gangs, white militias...

..yellow moons and blue diamonds.

in my 2 most recent 'encounters', 1st with a white guy, 2nd with a black guy, the white guy squared up, mouthed off a little, then backed down and settled arguement through discussion, black guy went postal and threatened stabbings/shootings/arson and anything else that could come into his disproportionately sized forehead.

even a black friend of mine hates black people for similar reasons. especially somalian's, their the worst, allegedly. me, i aint got no beef as long as a playa's got ice for his ho's

'He called on black people to lead the fight against knife crime.'

Quite possibly the dumbest thing I've ever read... with the exception of the preceding comment.

thanks!

If the culture being spoken of is that culture that is disparaging of education, illiterate, and inarticulate, is black culture, then I'll agree--but only as long as its membership includes white folks who are also disparaging of education, illiterate, and inarticulate.

^^So stipulated, counselor.

I don't know about the U.K., but in America the case could be made that ignorant, illiterate, inarticulate white (or whatever other color) people don't have a billion-dollar music and movie industry based on exploiting and glorifying the poor, criminal/thug elements of their subculture.

So, all things equal, poor blacks have better and more accessible criminal role models than whites. Who are poor non-blacks going to emulate if they want to be alpha males who climbed out of poverty? Scarface? Rocky? Bruce Lee? Eminem?

There aren't any realistic options.

But, for poor blacks, there are plenty of non-fictional options. 50 Cent is real, Ludacris is real. The top family movie at the box office stars a former gangsta rapper.

I don't think that's because the only people who can rap are criminals.

Don't get me wrong, a lot of that sort of entertainment is really good. But, I just don't see many black concert violinists or black science fiction movies or rappers who just had shitty childhoods to counterbalance it.

Why? Because black people are a minority, and though there are counterbalancing black entertainers and professionals and everyday citizens, we don't see much of it. The entertainment industry overwhelmingly shovels out a lopsided form of black entertainment. So much, that even if you live in Wyoming or Kansas or Utah, you come into contact with far more virtual black people than their flesh-and-blood counterparts, and those black people love ride on dubs.

To emulate a thug, all you have to do is get the right clothes, attitude and hardware. Then, in the media, everyone sees both the entertainment versions and the newspaper versions of the same black criminals. All of the sudden, suburban white kids are sporting bling and black kids in the hood who don't play the role are considered nerds.

There are more white people in America than black people. So, statistically, white people interact more with black celebrities than they do with real blacks. So, if the entertainment industry has more of pimps, hoes, thugs, gangstas and criminals than any other representation of black culture...

I think we've hit some sort of critical mass with all of this, and now people like Tony Blair think black culture = thug life forever.

The truth is, poverty creates crime. But, no one is making movies and music glorifying the kind of white trash that ends up on 'Cops.' White criminals are bland and very un-cool, or they're serial killers, child molesters, or militia members. Whatever. They don't make for interesting characters that will sell albums.

Being a minority is no reason to be disparaging of education, illiterate, and inarticulate. One might argue it is every reason to be otherwise.

Regardless of skin color, embracing a culture that is disparaging of education, illiterate, and inarticulate, means belonging to an objectively inferior culture that cannot comptete with the rest of civilization in a civilized manner. Their incapability of interacting with others in a productive manner is a result of their own choices--they suffer from their own self imposed limitations. Regardless of skin color, blaming another skin color for one's ignorance, stupidity, laziness, and justifications for violence, no longer stands any test of rationality or rationalization--including those rationalizations based on media glorification of the dumb.

Educated, literate, and articulate people are just as much exposed to the media as those who have zero appreciation for intellect; the dumbs take it all seriously, while the smarts realize it's just TV.

The only hope for the dumbs is that educated, literate, and articulate people are too busy learning, reading, communicating ideas, and being productive, to take notice of their degenerate cousins on the evolutionary tree of life and prune them from existence.

WAKE UP SMART PEOPLE!!!!

yo in the event that all white people in america ever face a smothering blanket of racism, predjudice, and bigotry every day of thier waking lives then i would love to see your comments on this again

yo in da event dat you read and process a full human comment in the manner intended without applying lots of pre-conceived costume-ball bullshit to it and somehow come to the conclusion that non-racist statements actually exist... still shut up.

For someone who spends their time trying really hard to dress up like the brave lil toaster, and describing how inviting their little bread slots are and how perfect for toasting toast they must be, you sure do rail at the non-existent hordes of toast-lovers not surrounding you.

I think it's cute how (in general) a significant number of blacks have the look and attitude of 'gangsta thugs' but at being called name that may or may not be slightly racist, they curl up in a ball and wimper for Rev. Sharpton to come save them.