Sunday, February 04, 2007

New Orleans: Excuse African-American Criminal Youth Problem ?

Poor New Orleans. What Hurricane Katrina left of the city could be wiped out by the prevailing crime wave of resident criminals. Former residents are not moving back to the city. And some residents are leaving.

This year started off with a bang. In the first 3 weeks, there has been an average of 5 murders per week. This puts N.O. on track for over 250 killings for the full year. In comparison, New York City's murders totaled app. 600 in 2006. But New York has 20 times the population.

Why all the murders in New Orleans? Apologists for the city blame local schools, poor economic opportunities for youths, drugs and guns. Gee. How does a school building, paid teachers, books on math, english and science create murderers? How do guns kill someone unless someone buys, loads, points and fires the gun? How do drugs get into someone unless that someone self-administers the drugs? How come New Orleans has existed for over 300 years but only now can't provide economic opportunities for it's youths?

No. The problem is elsewhere. Could it be that African-American youths who make up the vast majority of the criminal class in New orleans don't get it? Or they don't want to get it? And what is "it" ? "It" is discipline.

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