The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

‘Killadelphia’ Update: Amanda Marcotte Escapes Death in South Street Massacre

Posted on | June 8, 2022 | 1 Comment

Look, we don’t expect expert marksmanship from gang-bangers gunning it out on the streets of Philly, but oh, what an opportunity they missed!

After reassuring multiple people by text that my partner and I had been tucked safely in bed at 11:30 on Saturday night, I finally cracked and posted a general reassurance on Facebook. No, we had not been near the shooting on South Street in Philadelphia, where we live, that resulted in 3 deaths and 11 major injuries. But people’s concerns weren’t misplaced. We had been at a party in that neighborhood just the night before. Saturday’s was the ninth mass shooting in the city this year alone, according to the Gun Violence Archive. There have been shootings at train stations and house parties. One group of victims was going to the prom. These things really are a matter of luck in a society that’s swimming in as much gun violence as ours.

Doggone it, where’s an armed thug when you really need one?

This is mere sarcasm, of course. I do not actually wish Amanda Marcotte had been killed in an urban shootout, but it is ironic that she had been in that vicinity 24 hours earlier. Dana Pico at First Street Journal gives Marcotte’s column a thorough fisking, thus sparing me the trouble. However, to summarize her theme briefly, it seems to be Marcotte’s contention that, because a majority of U.S. shootings involve “people of color,” Republicans actually encourage criminal violence:

“It is nothing more than a new version of the Southern strategy,” [Philadelphia DA Larry] Krasner told Business Insider. “They’re saying ‘big cities, lawless,’ except all the big cities they’re talking about are very Democratic and have huge Black and brown populations.”
This race-baiting is especially gross when one considers that, despite the paranoia of the white GOP, racial minorities are more likely to be victims of gun violence. But that underscores just how nasty and cynical the Republican strategy here is. They back policies that lead to violence that harms people of color, then they blame people of color in order to get votes from racist white people. For Republicans, it’s all political upside.

Neither Marcotte nor Krasner has ever had to face any well-informed critic in debate. Liberals merely hurl the accusation of “racism” at their opponents and, believing this sufficient to discredit anyone, conduct themselves as if they possess a monopoly to discuss the underlying policy issues. In her column, Marcotte takes a jab at Arizona Republican candidate Blake Masters, who recently had the temerity to say of the current violent crime rampage in America: “It’s gangs. It’s people in Chicago, St. Louis, shooting each other very often, you know, Black people frankly.” You may say that this statement is “racist,” but that doesn’t mean it’s not also true. Let anyone consult the official data about violent crime from the Department of Justice, and you will discover that black males, who constitute about 7% of the U.S. population, perpetrate about 50% of the nation’s homicides, attempted murder, aggravated assaults, etc. Black males are also about half of the nation’s homicide victims. In 2019, the most recent year for which we have official data, there were 13,927 murder victims, of whom at least 7,484 (54%) were black, including 6,446 (46%) who were black males. (The reason I say “at least” 54% of murder victims were black is because some jurisdictions don’t officially identify victims by race, so there were an extra 1,808 homicide victims whose race was not reported to the FBI.)

Because I write about crime on a regular basis — not just when it’s political convenient because of some atrocity that gets nationwide headlines — the facts on this subject are very familiar to me. If anyone was truly shocked by what Blake Masters said, it’s because either (a) they don’t know the facts or (b) they understand that we’re not supposed to say this kind of stuff aloud, no matter how true it may be.

Since the Black Lives Matter movement grabbed the spotlight in 2020, it’s common to see activist types claim that “black-on-black crime” is a racist myth, a phrase conjured up by white supremacists, rather than the simplest way to describe about half of the crime committed in the United States. The number of young black men killed by police is an insignificant fraction of the thousands of young black men killed by other young black men every year. However, it is important to point out that black criminals are themselves but a small fraction of the U.S. black population (total 45.5 million). Inasmuch as violence perpetrated by black criminals jeopardizes the safety of law-abiding black citizens, it is not in the best interests of the black community to tolerate, ignore or excuse such crime. Yet tolerating this menace is exactly what liberals like Amanda Marcotte and Larry Krasner want to do. The real enemy of the black community is not Republicans like Blake Masters, it’s white liberals.

And since I may claim to be an expert on the subject of racism — having been conspicuously accused of it, by folks recognized as professionals in this regard — let me just say that liberals don’t understand the correlation between crime and racism. The prevalence of crime in urban black communities is often explained away by liberals who imply that the gang-bangers are somehow victims of racism. But racism doesn’t cause black crime; if anything, it’s the other way around. There are certainly genuine racists in the world, people who hate other people on the basis of mere differences in physical appearance. But much of what is condemned as “racism” in America isn’t hate, it’s fear, and it isn’t based on skin color or hair texture, but rather on behavioral differences, including differences in rates of violent crime. BLM’s anti-police crusade, and the efforts of “progressive” DAs like Krasner, are aimed at reducing or preventing the arrest and incarceration of black criminals, which will logically have the effect of increasing the perception of danger. If you want to reduce what Marcotte calls “racial paranoia,” turning loose carjackers and armed drug dealers is probably not good policy, and yet turning criminals loose is exactly what liberals advocate in the name of “social justice.”

Of course, it’s racist — “RAAAAACIST!” — to disagree with a liberal, so Marcotte will continue pretending that there’s no problem in Philadelphia that can’t be solved by electing more Democrats, and Krasner will continue turning loose criminals, and nothing I say will deter either of them. However, my advice to Marcotte (or anyone else living in Philadelphia) continues to be, “Get out, before they kill you.”

Don’t blame me if you end up as a statistic. I warned you.




 

Category: Crime

Comments

One Response to “‘Killadelphia’ Update: Amanda Marcotte Escapes Death in South Street Massacre”

  1. Noted Salon Nutcase gets destroyed by not one, but two authors. - The DaleyGator
    June 8th, 2022 @ 12:20 pm

    […] of course, is where really bad writers go to be truly awful writers. And Amanda Marcotte is AWFULER than AWFUL as The Other McCain notes, it is also Cuckoo for Cocoa […]