If declaring racial violence a "Hate Crime" and demanding higher punishments and that everyone condemn it without trying to figure out what the root causes of violence are was the best way to solve these problems then it would have already worked to reduce it much more by now, since we keep repeating the same emotional appeals acting as if hate magically appears in adulthood.
Judging by the way the mainstream media and political establishment treats this subject you might think they believe that this is inexplicable and that no one can possibly know what causes these violent crimes or how to prevent them, and that people that commit what they call "hate crimes" mysteriously became violent as fully formed adults.
Fortunately as I've written in numerous articles, including some listed below, there actually is plenty of good research showing what many of the most important root causes of violence are and how to prevent it. Even though this research is peer reviewed by many good academics and can be verified by regular citizens that take the time to understand it the media and political establishment continue acting as if the only way to address this problem is to threaten more punishment after the fact as a deterrent, which obviously isn't working, and demanding that everyone condemn these crimes when they're told to do so.
Don't get me wrong I'm not saying that I support this crime, I don't anymore than any rational person; however the same people that are demanding that everyone condemn this atrocity also demand that we condemn anyone that challenges the universal claims of the intelligence community which has a history of lying, and more important they do nothing to teach the public about the root causes of violence and how it escalates starting with early child abuse, bullying hazing and other social problems.
I've explained many of the most important root causes of violent crime in the past and cited many good sources of peer reviewed researchers, so instead of repeating them I'll just list a few of the most relevant articles below. I haven't had an opportunity to research the people involved in this atrocity any more than any one else; however if some of the same contributing causes that preceded their crime don't turn up, assuming someone takes the time to look for them that would be extremely bizarre.
Even though I don't know anything about their background there's an enormous amount of evidence to indicate that adult behaviors develop gradually over life starting in early childhood and people taught well early in life, with reasonable educational opportunities, and when they get into adulthood employment opportunities, without being abused as a child simply never go to such extreme behavior. Children who are abused at a young age or raised in areas where there are no educational or economic opportunities, are much more likely to turn out to be violent adults.
I know, of course that most children that are subject to corporal Punishment, or other forms of child abuse, at an early age don't turn out to be murderers or violent felons; however it is much more likely; and even if they don't turn out to be violent felons they often have other emotional problems which impact themselves and society.
If the media did more to inform the public about this then they could do much more to dramatically reduce violence around the country by reducing the contributing causes. Fortunately many areas of the country do a much better job addressing the root causes of crime, which provides more evidence of what can be done to reduce it. One of the most obvious is the use of corporal punishment in schools, which generally correlates, at least to some degree with support for corporal punishment at home. There are only nineteen states that still allow it at all and typically six to eight of those nineteen states are in the top ten states for murder rates and others are close to the top ten.
The only two states that still allow corporal punishment that come close to the bottom ten or get into it are Wyoming and Idaho and they hardly ever use it at all. The states that use it the most are the ones that have the highest murder rates. Chicago isn't in one of those states, however it does have some of the most badly abandoned inner cities. Typically the other states without corporal punishment in the top ten for murder rates, including Maryland and Delaware also have more abandoned inner cities.
Jonathan Kozol has written about this in numerous books including "Savage inequalities" and "Shame on a Nation." He focuses mainly on the educational system but also addresses some of the lack of economic opportunities health care counseling and larger amounts of pollution and economic fraud attempts like pay day lenders.
The mainstream media treats researchers like Jonathan Kozol or Diane Ravitz like radical fringe element it they mention them at all; however they do far more to explain the problems with the education system along with researchers like Barbara Coloroso, James Garbarino, Alice Miller and Philip Greven, who write about how violence escalates from an early age and how it can be prevented by educating parents about how to raise their children without abusing them.
Unfortunately this type of research is almost never discussed in the mainstream media or considered when trying to figure out how to prevent these crimes.
Chicago happens to be where Barack Obama came from and his political agenda has close ties to their local politics including the educational system which is almost certainly a major part of the problem. His first Secretary of Education was Arne Duncan, a close ally of his from Chicago who was also the Chief Executive Officer of the Chicago Public Schools for eight years before going to Washington. When in Chicago and Washington, he pushed charters schools and increased control of for profit schools in both.
He was criticized for pushing militarization of the Chicago schools; and shortly after Barack Obama, Arne Duncan and Rahm Emanuel went to Washington, Rahm Emanuel returned to run for mayor and continue pushing many of the same policies which they supported and teachers unions opposed. Dinae Ravitz and Jonathan Kozol were both critical of these problems, and surprise, now while many part of the country are enjoying reducing crime rates, including murder Chicago is among the big cities where it is still high, in some cases it is even turning around and going back up.
In one of my past articles about addressing the root causes of crime, Politicians increase crime; Grass roots efforts reduce crime; Politicians steal the credit, I cited Richmond California which had even bigger problems with crime and abandoned inner cities than Chicago, at least before reform efforts in both cities. Since then the murder rates have gone down in both cities, however they went down much lower in Richmond, with murder rates dropping from about 28 in 2002 per 100,000 to 10 in 2014 (Crime rate in Richmond, California and Crime rate in Chicago, Illinois), than in Chicago only dropping from 22 to 15 in the same time period, and recent reports indicate that it may be surging in 2015 and 2016 reversing the trend.
Richmond had a Green Party Mayor for a while who opposed the draconian school privatization movement that many parts of the country, including Chicago were pushing and they also had a police chief that was reforming the police department while Rahm Emanuel was continuing to cover up police corruption brutality and use of excessive force.
The evidence overwhelmingly supports one side of these debate; however the people with political power use their control of the media to ensure that instead of informing the public about this all they report is propaganda.
One of the few things that they do report on is gun control which in many cases is a part of the problem, although I doubt if it is the biggest part of the problem; however they seemed so obsessed with it on one occasion when reporting on this that they automatically went into discussing it without mentioning that this assault doesn't seem to involve guns at all.
They seem to have the same arguments on automatic without thinking about if they actually apply.
It is of course right to say that the people involved in this attack bear the most responsibility; I’m not arguing otherwise as some people might try to imply. However when many people are raised in dysfunctional homes which are much more common when there are entire abandoned dysfunctional communities with no hope or opportunities then they’re much less likely to care about society and more likely to act irrational and go to unjustifiable extremes.
We routinely say that there is no excuse for horrors like this; which I don’t argue with; however there is also no excuse for refusing to address many of the long term contributing causes, especially when the most powerful people in the political establishment are responsible for it.
As horrifying as this attack on a developmentally disabled teen is; it is even more horrifying to ship jobs overseas, promote school privatization efforts allow corporation to profit by polluting the poorest areas where people have no political clout, and make promises about “hope” and “change” only to support the corporate agenda which is contributing directly or indirectly to the devastation of abandoned inner cities.
Barack Obama and his campaign contributors don’t know what it is like to live in one of the abandoned inner cities they helped create, and they don’t seem to care either. Yes knowing how terrible it is may make many people wasn’t to do what they can to prevent it from getting worse, and it should make all people think the same way. However when many people are subject to abuse from all sides especially the most powerful institutions that are supposed to help solve these problems it is inevitable that some of them strike out violently in frustration, and they may not always do so rationally.
It wasn’t to long ago when Barack Obama responded to shootings of police by calling the veterans that killed them “cowards” even though they were taking on insurmountable odds, for a foolish reason, of course, and ignored the fact that he sent people to wars based on lies then when some of these minorities came back they found out that even though they blindly followed orders in wars overseas minorities wouldn’t be protected from the police who were supposed to be protecting them.
Instead of trying to find out what the root causes of violence is and prevent them our so-called leaders practice acting in shock and incomprehension and resort to insults that are a lot like the behavior they’re allegedly trying to discourage.
People with the most political power use that power to blame those with the least for everything that goes on and they also use it to pressure them to accept all their corruption driving people to extremes and …. Guess what it leads to hate especially when nothing else they do seems to work and they strike out any way they can out of anger.
The same contributing causes of violence happened with these minorities as with Dylann Roof, both were almost certainly raised in abusive homes and neither could strike out at the people that were abusing them. In both cases they were abused by people with political clout that they couldn’t strike out at, and they looked for someone to blame. In Dylaan Roof’s case he may have often been told that it was black’s fault for everything and he may have gotten positive feedback from parents when he agreed with racists parents instead of challenging their mistakes. Before he was able to develop critical thinking skills he learned that he would get treated better if he went along with the program by the people that were abusing him.
The Chicago abusers were different in some ways but they also learned to strike out at those with less power from those with more power who abuse them.
There is plenty of sociology research that shows that victims of abuse are more likely to strike out at their own families or who ever they can strike out at if they can’t get justices from the people that are oppressing them.
The reason they can't figure out what the most important contributing causes of violence are and how to prevent them is because they don't want to. If I can find all this research showing a large part of what could reduce this violence so could they; however they're clearly far more concerned with their own fiscal ideology which is designed to make the rich richer without addressing many of the most basic functions of society. In some areas they admit that some policies don't work when citizens stand up to them but don't report them in others so they can push their ideologies without reporting on the best research.
If you look closely at some of the past work by some members of the Black Lives Matter movement, Saun King and Symone Sanders, who previously supported Bernie Sanders they tried far more to address the root causes of violence and abandoned d inner cities in the past than thee people that are demanding that they condemn this as a "hate crime." Frankly I don't know or care whether or not it fits anyone's definition of a "hate crime;" it is far more important to understand what led up to it, starting with early childhood education, and and figure out how to prevent tit so it is far less likely to happen again, and eventually if we address most of the social problems in this country these types of things will hardly ever happen if they happen at all.
Chicago attack condemned by Black Lives Matter campaigners 01/05/2017
Dem CNN Contributor Unsure if Chicago Attack on White, Special Needs Man Is a Hate Crime 01/05/2017
Shaun King: I Won’t Speak Up About Chicago Assault Because Black People Are Always Punished 01/05/2017
A couple of years ago I did my own reviews into many of the most important contributing causes of crime and how to prevent them. The most important contributing cause is almost certainly early child abuse leading to escalating violence later in life including bullying, hazing, domestic violence, murder and more even war. The following are some of the articles I wrote about this and other major contributing causes, and some of the articles about how they're being ignored one time after another when these disasters happen.
Ignored evidence linking corporal punishment, poverty and crime grows
Does lack of education increase violent crime? Religion?
How much does Income Inequality Affects Crime Rates?
States with high murder rates have larger veteran populations
Teach a soldier to kill and he just might
The tragedy of gambling politics in United States
How does gambling and gun control impact violent crime?
Politics, not technology, caused botched executions
Troy, Cameron, Gary all innocent? And executed?
Democrats do a bad job on crime; Republicans and the Media are worse!!
Politicians increase crime; Grass roots efforts reduce crime; Politicians steal the credit
Life Insurance and media companies are encouraging lots of murders
Union Busting adds to corrupt bureaucracy and incites crime
Crime Profiteering: another day, another school shooting
Continued withholding of solutions in Clackamas and Newtown
Unacknowledged Censorship in Arizona about Jared Loughner
The usual speeches and censorship in Aurora
The Media Is Following The Wrong Script With Dylann Roof Ignoring Solutions Again
Misrepresenting and Stereotyping Black Lives Matter while ignoring solutions
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