America needs balanced discussion on racial injustice, not a political one
The screams of the one-sided, Black Lives Matter protestors are defining a distorted national debate on racial injustice. They want a debate driven only by the fact that they are Black and you are White. Hispanics, by the way, are tossed into the “White” category along with people like me, Arabs.
By Ray Hanania
The screams of the one-sided, Black Lives Matter protestors are defining a distorted national debate on racial injustice. They want a debate driven only by the fact that they are Black and you are White. Hispanics, by the way, are tossed into the “White” category along with people like me, Arabs.
Yes, race matters. Yes, racial injustice is serious problem. No one should be the victim of racism. Racism is distorted however by the economic diversity that exists in this country. Many people believe that poorer areas are located in Democratic dominated regions and are predominantly people of color. But the reality is that there are poor areas in every region of the country and the poor come from all racial and ethnic origins.
In other words, the real issue is a person’s income and I think in today’s world, differences in people’s economy fuels fear more than differences in race.
Chicago crime rates 2013. Courtesy of WIkipedia
Black Lives Matter is about race. But it is also about poverty and fast-tracking the poor into welfare wealth. Let’s compare two staters and their largest cities, Democratic Illinois and Chicago and Republican Texas and Houston.
White people are not protesting in Houston, which has an average per capita income of only $18,000 per year, the way African Americans are protesting in Chicago, which has a higher per capita income of $20,00 per year.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Texas_locations_by_per_capita_income
In truth, Chicago has a better relative ranking in Illinois – 393rd best of 1,314 cities, while Houston has a worse ranking in Texas, 117th best of 254 cities.
Naturally, people who don’t have money want money and not all of them want to work for it. They end up in crime, which is why when you look at the intensity of the looting that accompanied many Black Lives Matter protests, you see that the poorer a region is, the more looting and violence.
The murder rate in Chicago, for example is 15.65 per100,000 people, compared to the murder rate in Houston which is lower at 11.8 per 100,000 people.
Houston is 12.3 percent black, 32 percent Hispanic, and 41 percent White, compared to Chicago which is 33 percent Black, 14 percent Hispanic and 32 percent White.
Some people want to argue that crime is associated with race, but I argue crime is really associated more on family income and the structure of families – single parent families have less income than two-parent families.
So, I am sick and tired or picking up the national newspapers or turning on national TV news programs and hearing all about “racial injustice” taken out of the context of a person’s economics.
When I moved into my home in Orland Park, a neighbor welcomed me saying, “There are a lot of Arabs moving into the community.” I waited many weeks before telling him I was one of those Arabs.
But I didn’t scream racism. I embraced his comments as coming from a lack of knowledge rather than true racism. The driving force behind racism is lack of knowledge. People who hate each other usually do so because they don’t know each other. In today’s Global Village, people know each other better and real racism driven by true hate is restricted to a far smaller percentage of people.
Sometimes, perceived racism is best addressed by tolerance and not over-reacting. But over-reacting and emotion dives the news media and politics. Tolerance and restraint – not jumping to conclusions even in the worst moment, do not.
America does need a better discussion about racial injustice. But we need an intelligent one, a dialogue driven by intelligence, commonsense and the goal of mutual respect and understanding.
That’s not what we have today. What we have today is a lecture from bullies driven by a scorn fueled by their lack of economic parity. That economic imbalance is being driven by the COVID-19 Pandemic. Those with the weakest incomes will suffer more than those with the stronger incomes. The protestors want us to believe the driving force is race because race and racism drive politics and empower the poor faster than trying to improve your life by working harder.
The real driving force is politically driven hatred. It’s a hate being driven by protestors – opportunists for power — who see this worsening environment as an opportunity to not only benefit financially but to punish those who are financially better off.
Calls to “defund the police” are not intended to reduce crime and murder, but rather to shift the focus from the protestors’ criminal behavior.
Nothing makes that clearer than the racist hatred driving protestors in Seattle where middle income Whites are being attacked and told to leave their homes.
Yes, let’s have a substantive, real discussion about racial injustice, not the politicized and exaggerated debate demanded by the protestors, the mainstream news media or the lazy Left.
(Originally published August 27, 2020 in the Southwest News Newspaper chain including the Regional News, The Des Plaines Valley News, the Palos Reporter and the Southwest News-Herald Newspapers.)
Hanania also writes about Middle East issues for the Arab News, and The Arab Daily News criticizing government policies in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
A critic of mainstream news media bias, Hanania advocates for peace & justice for Israel & Palestine, & the empowerment of Arabs in America.
Click here to listen to Ray's Political Podcast.
Hanania's columns are archived on his personal website at RayHanania.com. Hanania was named "Best Ethnic American Columnist" by the New America Media in November 2007, and is the 2009 recipient of the SPJ National Sigma Delta Chi Award for column writing.
Hanania is President/CEO of Urban Strategies Group which provides communications services to governments and private businesses, and hosts writing training workshops, and publishes books.
Email Ray Hanania at rghanania@gmail.com.
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