Reconciling Ideologies of Black-on-Black Crime with Reality
June 26, 2022
When I was younger, I was a battle rap fanatic. Some of you may be familiar with what battle rap is, but for those of you who aren’t, it’s typically a competition between two rappers who alternate turns trading insults and boasting of personal accomplishments or street credibility in front of a crowd. I loved that. I loved the creativity. I loved the fierceness and trash talk. But it was the rawness and desire to be authentic or ‘keep it real’ that always intrigued me. Rappers would show up to the battle with massive entourages lined behind them like soldiers. Their entourages would display this unwittingly energetic loyalty to the rapper they were supporting, even if they were clearly losing. But what I admired most was their cadence—their ability to creatively manipulate words in myriad ways, using cultural references and street language to deliver a punny or hardcore punchline that made you paradoxically grimace and groan in a show of approval for your appreciation of the ‘bar.’ Sometimes, a rapper would repeat their last line because they knew the crowd and viewers didn’t catch the punchline or wordplay. And every time they did that, the crowd would erupt with cheers and oohs and aahs.
Although this verbal boxing match may describe most rap battles, I don’t want to reduce battle rap to mere braggadocios poetry and personal insults. There’s more to it. From my experience, there were times when the rapper sought to communicate a message; and in these moments, I noticed that whatever was said would strike a nerve. There were no groans, or oohs and aahs from the crowd in these moments. There was no cheering, trash talk, or hand clapping. In these moments, there was just silence; silence because what was spoken had such truth to it that it prompted a moment of self-reflection for everyone. And this happens because although the line was directed at the rapper’s opponent, it happened to indirectly impact others in the crowd because of their adjacent beliefs or lifestyle.
In one particular scenario, I recall watching a rap battle involving two rappers, one of which went by the stage name Daylyt. In this particular battle some of Daylyt’s words had this exact effect on the crowd, and there were a few lines that stuck out to me. In one of his lines he said, “If a n**** kill your brother you said you’re pulling out the Glock and riding. But let a cop kill your brother, first thing you do is go to the streets and yell stop the violence.” He then went on to say, “When it’s brother on brother, you’re a hardcore 9 n****, when it’s cops on your brother, you a card board sign n****.”
For those who may not understand what this means, Daylyt meant that when it’s an incident of Black-on-Black violence, it leads to more Black-on-Black violence. This result can be credited to the code they live by, where the response is likely to be some form of ‘street justice.’ But on the other hand, when a Black person is killed by a police officer, the first line of action is to protest and demand justice through the legal system. This message was directed at Daylyt’s opponent, but it wasn’t only his opponent who stood there with a blank response. The crowd was silent. And although his lyrics and message only capture a partial picture of what responses to the death of a Black person may look like (be it in the streets or by a police officer), his comments lay the landscape for an interesting conversation on Black-on-Black crime.
As BLM protests have carried on over the years, there are often times where we are met with the question, if Black lives matter, what about Black-on-Black crime? I’ve long heard many, including Black people, ask this question. In fact, the earliest modern references to Black-on-Black crime came from Black media in 1979. In some respects, this represents a reasonable question from those who are truly concerned about Black people targeting or killing each other for asinine reasons. Those with these concerns will often question why do we, Black people and our allies, show such anger and passion for change with police involved shootings when most deaths of Black people are by other Black people? They’ll question, why isn’t this getting more attention? They’ll wonder if there would be a different response if white people were being killed at the same rate in their neighbourhoods. Consider, for example, how in one weekend in June 2020, 104 people were shot in Chicago, while on average, Chicago is riddled with scores of shootings each week. Or consider how in July 2021, 108 people were shot over the Independence Day weekend. Many wonder, how this is possible, why these violent crimes aren’t front page news material, and to what extent does race play a factor in the negligible responses by the government and national community? In this regard, these questions are especially reasonable for people living in high crime neighbourhoods who fear for their life and the lives of their children.
In other respects, the overarching question raised here isn’t merely a question asked from sincere concern or fearfulness. In actuality, it’s a statement suggesting that if Black lives truly mattered to Black people—if we truly believed what we were saying when we shout “Black lives matter,” then Black people wouldn’t be killing each other at epic proportions. What I see here is a lack of context and insight into so called ‘Black-on-Black crime.’ However, for what it’s worth, I do believe that Black people in many Western countries have unique dynamics when it comes to intraracial conflict. I believe that there exists a deep hypocrisy about cultural responses to killing of a Black person by their racial peer. But I also want to emphasize how social conditions influence these dynamics, and how the emphasis on revenge in a community engulfed by poverty, crime, and neglect, with internal emphases on respect, naturally clouds perceptions of community harm.
With this understanding of the social determinants of crime, in response to the people that question why don’t Black people focus more on Black-on-Black crime (for both sincere and incendiary reasons) as opposed to police involved or discriminatory shootings, I say this: if you believe that Black communities with high rates of violent crime aren’t concerned or calling for change, then you’re sadly mistaken. Black people have consistently problematized intraracial killings. One of the main distinctions is that the responses are localized protests as opposed to global movements, and part of this is owed to the fact that local crime is covered by local media, resulting in localized responses. But at large, the desire to reduce violent crime in Black communities has always existed. Organizations and programs have been made. Protests and rallies have been organized. Musicians who made it out of these communities have spoken up, and interestingly enough, many residents in these communities have called for increased police presence, a direct paradox from mass movements that desire less policing.
Further consider that many Black people have called for the end to gun violence, harsher gun laws, and increased funding for education and community programs. This has always been the case. An example of this is the now controversial 1994 crime law that was instituted under the Clinton administration and created by Joe Biden. Today, many speak of the crime law as a racist policy that targeted Black people, breaking up two-parent households by sending Black males to prison with lengthy sentences. However, at the time this law was largely endorsed by Black people. Why? Because they were desperate to improve Black lives.
The crime law called for hiring 100,000 more officers and other strict measures. According to a Gallup survey, 58% of Black people at the time supported the crime bill, in comparison to 49% of white people. At large, this was the result because of the impact of the crack epidemic which was destroying Black communities. Subsequently, they felt that something needed to be done to disrupt the negative implications of the crack epidemic on their communities, and also improve the quality of life for Black people. Here, despite their distaste for the police, they desired greater police presence because they truly believed it would make a difference. Would people with such strong feelings compromise on their beliefs if they thought that it wouldn’t improve their conditions and weren’t concerned about crime in Black communities?
Although the response to intraracial violence is not the same as when a Black person is killed by a police officer or white person, I believe it’s insensitive to suggest Black people don’t value Black lives when the perpetrators of the violence are among a concentrated set of people, and community members are working to create change. I’d also argue that when the lack of media and government attention are combined with the effects of poverty, it’s unrealistic to believe that mass efforts will be mobilized in every crime-ridden community. Nonetheless, over the years, I’ve internally wrestled with public narratives, theories, and debates of Black-on-Black crime. And although my position has consistently alternated during this internal struggle, I’ve settled within myself that the concept of Black-on-Black crime is an extremely complex phenomena that can’t be viewed in an explicitly theoretical or practical fashion. What I mean here is that there are two sides to this discussion. Through a theoretical lens, I’ve never been fond of the phrase Black-on-Black crime. It seems as though the concept of Black-on-Black crime and its use in current discussions ignore the roots of systemic racism and poverty, suggesting they have no bearing on how Black people in low-income communities function. It suggests that violent crime, at large, is not a localized phenomenon. What this means is that it ignores the fact that violent crimes are most often committed by someone known to the victim, often being against people within their own community, where there’s an established localized network. But what I find most troublesome is that this ideology problematizes Black-on-Black crime as if intraracial crime is a uniquely Black issue.
Consider, for example, in comparison how often you’ve heard the phrases white-on-white, or Brown-on-Brown crime. The chances are that you have rarely, or never, heard these phrases when discussing intraracial crime, that is, outside of its connection to Black people. Outside of the Black community intraracial crime is simply categorized overarchingly as ‘crime.’ In these cases, the racial association is dropped because race is largely irrelevant in relation to the crime itself.
Building on the theoretical perspective, a major issue with the concept of Black-on-Black crime are the contexts in which it is deployed. Often individuals will bring up Black-on-Black crime in response to police shootings or in relation to white-on-Black violence to suggest that there should be greater emphasis and outrage on the former. As valid as this perspective is, questions that seek to shift the attention to Black-on-Black crime fail to understand that there’s a stark difference between racially motivated attacks and localized attacks related to revenge, street politics, or other communal dynamics. Localized attacks are not uniquely Black issues—they cross racial boundaries and impact all people. On the other hand, racially motivated attacks have a long history, and tend to be displays of power as a result of sheer intolerance. As such, this response which calls for a shift in focus simply dismisses the impact of centuries of systemic racism on Black communities.
On a personal level, my disdain and critique for the concept of Black-on-Black is confined to the negative social and historical messages it communicates. More specifically, it’s the historical narrative that Black people are more prone to, and have a special problem with crime. However, the critiques of others move beyond these lines. Others who argue about the semantics and phrasing of Black-on-Black violence will point solely to the spreads in the rates of intraracial crime to suggest that it occurs at similar rates across races. With respect to Black people, they often argue that because the rates are similar, the term Black-on-Black crime encompasses and upholds implicit racism and the undertone that Black people are prone to violence. In addition to this, they’ll also suggest that the focus should be on crime and the drivers of crime at large, seeing that it analogously impacts both predominantly Black and white communities, but in particular low-income communities. In part, I agree with this perspective. However, the issue is that if we don’t look at the data in its entirety then it fails to accurately demonstrate that intraracial crime in Black communities is indeed a troubling problem.
If we look to the rates of violent crime in Black and white communities, a report released by the United States Department of Justice in 2017 found that of all the violent crimes committed between 2012 and 2015, 22.7% were committed by Black people, 63% of which were committed against other Black people. In comparison, 44% of all violent crimes were committed by white people, 57% of which were committed against other white people. The report also revealed that white-on-white violence decreased 79% from 1994 to 2005, and Black-on-Black violence decreased by 78% during this same period. The main point of emphasis is the spread between intraracial violent crimes in Black and white communities, which is only 6%.
If we continue to look at the spreads in intraracial violent crime we’ll see a particular pattern. Consider that in 2014, the FBI’s Universal Crime Report indicated the 90% of Black people were killed by other Black people, while 82% of white people are killed by other white people. In 2018, the FBI reported that 89% of Black victims were killed by Black offenders, and 81% of white victims were killed by white offenders. In 2017, 80% of white victims were killed by white offenders, and 88% of Black victims killed by Black offenders. If we’re to look exclusively at the percentages and the low spread in percentage points, the takeaway would reinforce the fact that violent crime is often perpetrated in a localized context, most often committed by someone known to victim, often being against people within their own community, where there’s an established localized network. In this regard, experts on racial theory have assessed these spreads and concluded that intraracial crime happens at similar rates. Being so, the prominence of the term Black-on-Black crime is indicative of racist categorization.
The data as presented through this framework would suggest that beyond the historical connotations and ideologies tied to the concept of Black-on-Black crime, intraracial violence in the Black community is neither unique nor a pressing issue because it occurs at a similar rate as white-on-white violence. However, this perception that crime happens at similar rates among Black and white communities due a low percentage spread conveys an incomplete picture of the raw numbers. Put differently, what this means is that 80% of 10 and 80% percent of 1,000 have vastly different impacts and indications. Although the rates at which intraracial crime occurs in the US are similar, the raw numbers bring a sense of urgency to this issue, and also indicate that Black-on-Black crime, despite the phrasing and racist undertone, is certainly something to confront. Consider how in 2020, the US recorded its largest annual increase in murders in six decades, with the national murder rate rising nearly 30% (approximately 5,000 people) to over 21,000 homicides for the year. Although experts have pointed to myriad factors stemming from the pandemic as the driver for this murderous inflation, there was a disproportionate impact on Black people. Of these victims, more than half of those whose race was known were Black, despite making up 14% of the population. Looking just at the nearly 5,000 increase in victims, at least 1,200 were white, while at least 2,400 were Black.
Moving the theoretical perceptions and semantics of Black-on-Black crime to the side, and focusing on the reality, we see that there is indeed a deep issue among Black people. Being so, Black-on-Black crime causes irreparable harm to the Black community. In this process, it creates a cycle of vindictive violence that ruins families and destabilizes the safety and economic bases of low-income and predominantly Black neighbourhoods. Personally, I believe that violent offences in the Black community are rooted in a deep cognitive dissonance that prompts irrational behaviour. And I believe that we collectively scream “Black lives matter” the loudest when a Black person dies at the hands of a police officer or white person. In this light, an argument can be made that there is a disingenuous or selective emphasis on when we believe a situation may call for protests, revolts, or mediation. But an argument can also be made that the lack of media attention to violent crime in Black communities and the underwhelming desire of the government to prioritize these problems is the real display of racism, and the way crime in these neighbourhoods is categorized.
Understanding that intraracial violent crime among Black people is a challenge, what is required is a true grasp of the drivers of violence in these communities. For years I’ve oscillated and wavered between opinions of how Black-on-Black crime should be understood. Today I believe that both sides of this issue need not function in isolation. What this means is that there is certainly a racist history and undertone to the phrasing of Black-on-Black crime which suggests intraracial violence is uniquely Black. However, as it currently stands, violent crime among Black people is a major issue that is severely impacting Black communities and lives. Racism is also relevant here because there seems to be an intentional desire to ignore these problems by the government and media. Certainly, from what we’ve seen in recent history, if 104 people were shot in a predominantly white neighbourhood the response would be dramatically different.
A thorough grasp on the drivers of violent crime means assessing the impact of poverty as it creates unequal conditions that drive crime. According to a report from the Department of Justice, people living in households below the federal poverty level had more than double the rate of violent victimization than people in high-income households. What’s more, poor Black people and poor white people were found to commit violent crimes at similar rates (46.4% for white people, and 43.4% for Black people). Here, the takeaway is that crime is connected to poverty, and with the Black poverty rate (20.8%) being more than double the poverty rate for white Americans (8.1%), at the very least, a partial explanation is offered for how to address one of the levers of crime.
In compounding the effects related of unequal access to healthcare, employment, education, and more, there is an exasperated chance that individuals facing poverty will do anything to make money or maintain a form of social order in their communities. It’s not a secret that most people who have something to live for, who are financially stable, and who grew up middle or high-income communities aren’t the typical suspects for violence, being so frightened by the consequences of prison or death that they won’t take the risk. To those of us far removed from the perils of poverty, any form of crime presents as blatantly silly decisions that could cause us to lose everything. But for some in low-income communities with the unfortunate circumstances they’re subject to, their question is frankly, ‘What do I have to lose?’
We also know that poverty doesn’t just impact the actions of people in the community, it impacts the police response. In previous chapters we saw that the economic base of the community determines how effective the police are. In low-income communities, there’s a decreased ability to effectively police due to low talent, smaller police precincts, and inadequate training. Although I have a particular dislike for the concept of Black-on-Black crime, I do acknowledge that an urgent problem exists. And even though there are multiple ways to understand and analyze this concept, I believe that a multi-pronged plan to address poverty can have a positive impact.
Black lives matter.
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