Weekend Reading

Should Sheriff’s Budget Be Cut?

How to Spend Less On Police

Conservative Group Seeks Immediate Stop To Wisconsin Mask Mandate

Wisconsin Is on the Brink of a Major Outbreak

The truth about violent crime in American cities, explained in 11 charts

Revealed: pro-Trump activists plotted violence ahead of Portland rallies

Black people were 8 times more likely to be pulled over by Milwaukee police in 2019 than white people, new report says

Trump’s Closing Message to Seniors: I Don’t Care If You Die

Idaho pastor who encouraged congregants to go maskless is in intensive care unit after contracting coronavirus

GOP appeals ruling that extended time to count Wisconsin absentee ballots

A Disgusting Night for Democracy

Night Parking Rules a Tax on the Poor?

Covid-19’s stunningly unequal death toll in America, in one chart

When the American Dream Became the Urban Planning Nightmare

The Decline of Wisconsin’s Republican Party

GOP leaders go to court in support of effort to strike down Tony Evers' mask mandate

Trumpworld delighted in cruelty. Now that Trump has COVID, it demands empathy.

They Went Full Malkin. You Never Go Full Malkin.

‘A Symbol Of Your Own Failures’: Jake Tapper Takes It To Trump

Do Students Need Calculus Anymore?

Why Should Court End Mask Mandate, Judge Asks

Wisconsin’s Legislature Laziest in U.S.?

The Suburban Mystique

The Suburban Mystique

For decades, the suburbs were seen as havens where people moved to escape the crowding, poverty, and problems of the inner city. Despite the pervasive stereotype, the suburbs were never universally affluent or white, and since the 2000s, as a majority of Americans have settled in suburbs, the “burbs” have become increasingly diverse, both economically and demographically. Poverty has concentrated increasingly in poor suburbs, surpassing low-income populations in urban and rural areas and upending assumptions about what it means to “move to opportunity.”

As Scott Allard points out in his book Places in Need, despite the fact that white Americans make up the majority of the U.S. poor, and that poverty now concentrates in suburbs, media and scholarly portrayals still disproportionately focus on the “urban poor,” and white people settle in white neighborhoods because they associate black residents with poverty.

Suburbs—where most Americans, impoverished or otherwise, live—are increasingly the locus of work-life conflict and economic insecurity.

And since suburban identity is culturally tied to a myth of the American dream, not to mention a long legacy of racism—a space where the affluent have historically segregated themselves from the black and poor—admitting there is a problem, and creating policies to help poor and middle-income struggling families, requires introspection and new political will.

Victims And Offenders

During 2012-15, the rate of white-on-white violent crime (12.0 per 1,000) was about four times higher than black-on-white violent crime (3.1 per 1,000). The rate of black-on-black crime (16.5 per 1,000) was more than five times higher than white-on-black violent crime (2.8 per 1,000). The rate of Hispanic-on-Hispanic crime (8.3 per 1,000) was about double the rate of white-on-Hispanic (4.1 per 1,000) and black-on-Hispanic (4.2 per 1,000) violent crime. [source]

According to the FBI’s uniform crime-reporting data for 2016, 90.1 percent of black victims of homicide were killed by other blacks, while 83.5 percent of whites were killed by other whites. While no life is inconsequential, the statistical evidence shows that—just as for blacks when it comes to black-on-black crime—whites are mostly victimized by other whites, with the vast majority of white murders committed by whites. This is because most victims of crime personally know their assailants. And while this is a truth across racial boundaries, no one ever talks about “white-on-white crime.”  Furthermore, the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ arrest data analysis tool shows that less than 1 percent of blacks overall (about 2 percent of black men) commit a violent crime in any given year. This means, factoring in interracial violent offenses, 99 percent of black men do not commit black-on-black crime. [source]

For Further Reading:

White supremacists' favorite myths about black crime rates take another hit from BJS study

Weekend Reading

Why Financial Advisers Hate Elizabeth Warren
Ask Colorado Whether Infrastructure Spending Works
Excess Management Is Costing The U.S. $3 Trillion Per Year
Taking Stock: Income Inequality and the Stock Market
The States With The Biggest Obamacare Woes Spent Years Undermining The Law
Why Companies Are Moving Back Downtown
Affluent and Black, and Still Trapped By Segregation
One Big Reason For Stagnant Wages and Rising Inequality
Workplace Wellness Programs Are A Sham