That Steven Lawrence was murdered in 1993 by white racists, was terrible enough. When it was revealed that the Metropolitan Police, which investigated the case, was ‘institutionally racist’ British society was rocked. The Steven Lawrence case and the subsequent MacPherson Report dominated the debate on multiculturalism in Britain until 7 July 2005. The murder of Steven Lawrence was a shocking and appalling crime, but as of July this year 16 teenagers had been stabbed to death in the capital, 13 of them were black and whose alleged killers were all also black. Why haven’t the deaths of these teenagers had the same impact on British society? Steven Lawrence was murdered for the colour of his skin, the 13 teenagers killed in the first seven months of 2008 were killed because they lived in the wrong postcode or belonged to the wrong gang. Why is this happening? What is being done to stop it?
It is a sad fact that many of the black teenagers killed in London this year, lost their lives as the result of a gang feud. A recent Newsnight investigation demonstrated how two teenagers murdered in Edmonton, North London, (known as ‘shanktown’) posted videos on Youtube that were demonstrably influenced by the meme of gangsta rap and North American gang culture. Of course there are plenty of inner-city black youths who are not in the least bit influenced by American ‘gang culture’, but it is empirically obvious that there many inner-city black kids that are heavily influenced by the music, fashion and lifestyle of gang culture and gangsta rap. Plenty of white kids are also influenced by this meme; indeed the trial of the alleged murderers of Rhys Jones has highlighted gang culture in inner-city Liverpool. However although blacks account for 3% of the population, it is empirically clear that black youths or over represented in the number of murdered youths in London. Furthermore the number of youths stabbed to death in predominantly white metropolitan areas such as Merseyside, Tyneside or Glasgow, is much less than in London. It is clear, to my mind, that urban black culture in the UK is heavily influenced by African-American culture and it is there that we must look for causes and solutions to the problem of black on black violence.
African-Americans did not become full citizens in some parts of the US until the 1960s and for the most part they had been economically and socially repressed by the white majority. African Americans started at a level way below that of their white countrymen, but thanks to the civil rights laws passed by LBJ, the gap has closed considerably and a black middle class has emerged. By the start of this century 50% of blacks owned their own home, amongst minority groups only Asian Americans were more likely to hold white collar positions and over half of two parent African American households earned more than $50,000 per year. Indeed after the civil rights legislation of the 1960s, it seemed as if African Americans might one day reach socio-economic parity with the whites, the black-white income gap was shrinking, as was the black-white educational gap and the black infant mortality rate was cut in half. But by the end of the 1970s America’s once mighty manufacturing industries began to crumble in the face of competition from the Asian Tiger Economies. Semi-skilled black workers had once been assured of jobs for life in the factories of Philadelphia, Chicago, Detroit and Los Angeles but over a short space of time these jobs disappeared and young black men were left with few economic opportunities. At the same time a new drug began to appear on the streets of American cities. Crack cocaine was manufactured for sale to the poor and the desperate. Containing only a tiny amount of pure cocaine it could be sold for just a few dollars and providing a powerful hit for just a few seconds it was massively addictive. Crack plagued all sectors of society but the black ghettoes and housing projects were particularly badly hit. The progress of African American society was stopped dead in the 1980s; after decade of decline, black infant mortality rates began to rise, the educational gap widened, there was an increase in the abandonment of infants as well as undernourished infants and the black prison population tripled. Out of economic depression and social failure drug gangs began to dominate life in the ghettoes and the gang culture became synonymous with African American culture. The economist Steven D Levitt has said that “Black Americans were hurt more by crack cocaine than any other single cause since Jim Crow”
Although the problem has abated since the 1980s it is empirically clear that gang culture still plagues the black ghettoes of America’s major cities, indeed Louis Theroux’s recent programme on gang crime in Philadelphia illustrated how this vicious meme traps the inhabitants of the ghettoes in a culture of violence and despair. African Americans did share in the boom years of the late 1980s onwards and as I have previously stated the gaps in socio-economic status have again begun to narrow, with African American females now outliving white males. But problems still remain; the prominent African American economist Roland G. Fryer has devoted his career to working out why blacks perform less well than whites in socio-economic indicators, 'I basically want to figure out where blacks went wrong. One could rattle off all the statistics about blacks not doing so well. You can look at the black-white differential in out-of-wedlock births or infant mortality or life expectancy. Blacks are the worst-performing ethnic group on SAT's. Blacks earn less than whites. They are still just not doing well, period.''
Fryer conducted one experiment in which he sent near identical CVs out to various employers, the only difference in the CVs was that half bore an obviously African American name such as Shanice or Darnell and the other CVs bore generic white names. The CVs were sent out and a few weeks later the results came back; it was found that black candidates were 50% less likely to receive an interview than white candidates. Fryer believed that the employers were behaving rationally according to their own world view. They may have believed, based on prejudice or ‘statistical racism’ that such a strong ‘black’ name would mean that the candidate would be less capable and not worth interview. However Fryer also believed that African Americans were also behaving rationally when they gave their children ‘superblack’ names such as Shanice or Darnell, rather than employer friendly white names such as Jack. African Americans may have become despondent about their chances of improving their economic position with or without an interview and as a result they displayed solidarity with their community by giving their children African American Christian names. It can easily be imagined that an ostentatiously ‘white’ Christian name might be considered a slur against one’s own community. This despondency manifests itself in other much more negative ways, for example African Americans are much less likely to vote or take part in politics than their white countrymen. Further more this social despondency and general disillusionment eventually leads to a self-perpetuating cycle of lower educational achievement and an increase in drug abuse and violence.
Yet racial discrimination has been outlawed in America for 40 years and although it impossible to enforce in an omnipresent sense; African Americans do have the opportunity to break the self perpetuating cycle of disenfranchisement. Indeed we will shortly see a black family in the Whitehouse and the black middle class is burgeoning; furthermore racial discrimination does not explain why black people should choose to kill each other. The aspirations of some black communities may be more difficult to achieve than they are for some white communities but limits to those aspirations are ultimately imposed by black communities themselves.
The meme of gang warfare and gangsta rap culture has, by the process of globalisation, come to dominate the lives of many of our black youths. Some would say it is racist to declare that but I would argue that it is more uncaring to ignore the problem of black teenagers being stabbed to death in our streets. Crack cocaine and gang culture have had the most pernicious effects on black culture and it is intolerable that these have become the dominant memes for our urban youth. It is my hope that election of President Obama could replace the meme of gangsta rap and end the disenfranchisement amongst some black youths in Europe in America. Yet symbols by themselves cannot achieve anything. Roland Fryer was abandoned by his mother, beaten by his father and had become a gang member by the time he was a teenager, yet he turned his owned life around and became one of Harvard’s youngest ever professors. He his currently working in ways of reforming the education system and affirmative action programmes in America. Perhaps the same proposals could be enacted in the UK; if we could end the gaps in educational achievement among all groups in society and convince all people that they have a future as responsible citizens then perhaps we could bring an end to the gang related murders of our own children. Whether they be white or black.
