Jamie Utt reflects on listening, privilege, and Twitter conversations
Talking about identity, power, privilege, and oppression are hard enough when we have unlimited characters in which to conduct the discussion. In turn, why so many (including myself) decide to have these tough conversations over Twitter is beyond me, but it happens. Recently a highly-publicized conversation took place on Twitter between The Good Men Project founder Tom Matlack and some feminist and anti-racist women and men concerning the language and perspectives Tom had taken in some pieces here on GMP.
The majority of the conversation related to feminism, male privilege, and the concept of being a male ally, and the conversation inspired such controversy, that much publishing has been done in its wake (see here, here, here, and here as a place to start). However, a small strain of the conversation related to a comparison Tom made between black men being overrepresented in prisons and a piece Hugo Schwyzer published explaining why it’s understandable for men to be “guilty until proven innocent” when it comes to rape.
Race scholar Sarah Jackson took issue with his comparison and tried to engage in a discussion with him about why the analogy is problematic.
If there’s anything we White folks are good at, it’s getting defensive when we think we’re being called racist, and we’re especially good at getting defensive when we’re told that we may, in fact, be benefitting from White Privilege.
In reading through the Twitter conversation, I had to stop here for a minute because this hit a little too close to home. In my attempts to become an ally to Women, People of Color, LGBTQ folks, and other traditionally-marginalized identities, I’ve definitely messed up – A Lot. One of the hardest things for me in attempting to build ally relationships, then, has been to hear that I’ve messed up and not simply get defensive and retreat into my privilege.
A professor of Color in college once told me, “The best thing you can learn to do if you want to be an ally is realize that you’re going to fuck up, and you’re going to do it a lot, so you will need to learn to apologize with honesty and a true desire to change. Then don’t get hung up . . . move forward and do better.”
At this point in the Twitter conversation, that’s what I was hoping to hear from a man I greatly respect, but instead, Tom dug in:
From there, the conversation about race in the Twitter feed mostly stops, but the conversation about feminism and male allies has continued for quite some time in many mediums and contexts.
What I haven’t seen addressed widely, though, is the ways that Whiteness and privilege clouded what should have been an otherwise cut and dry issue. It could have ended like this:
Sarah: “That language is hurtful and spurious.”
Tom: “Wow . . . I can see where you’re coming from, and I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make such a problematic comparison. Consider it recanted.”
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Now, let me be clear. I am not writing this piece to further attack Tom Matlack. Instead, I see this conversation as an incredible growth point for talking about listening and privilege.
In A Language Older Than Words, Derrick Jensen discusses the dominant culture of destruction that allows genocide, starvation, rape, and so many more atrocities by saying, “Silencing is central to the workings of our culture. The staunch refusal to hear the voices of those we exploit is crucial to our domination of them.”
I was raised into a culture where I benefit from a great many privileges. I am Cis-Male, White, Straight, and Able-Bodied, and I come from a family of wealth privilege. In the words of Louis CK, “How many advantages can one person have!?” With those advantages comes a little voice that tells me that I am always right, that I am above reproach, that I have power and deserve power.
As such, I’ve done a lot of silencing in my life, but most of it wasn’t active. I haven’t necessarily talked over someone or shouted someone down. Instead, I’ve resorted to one of my most powerful weapons as a person of privilege: my refusal to listen.
As White folks, we’re taught that we shouldn’t listen to voices of Color. After all, if we did, we wouldn’t need study after study to prove that racism is real and that we don’t live in a “post-racial” society. We would simply be able to hear it in the stories and voices of those of Color that must live in our very-racialized society every single day.
In his piece resigning from The Good Men Project, Hugo Schwyzer put it this way, “Power conceals itself from those who possess it. And the corollary is that privilege is revealed more clearly to those who don’t have it.” As a person of privilege, I know that I cannot see all of the ways that my identity silences other voices, and I cannot see the ways that my privilege works to empower me while disempowering others.
Thus, when criticized for my language, the space I am taking up, or for the ways in which my actions reveal my privilege, my first response needs to be to listen. No matter how defensive that statement makes me, I need to listen. No matter how much I would like to retort with a story about how I’m not as privileged as the other is assuming, I need to listen.
Listening is the root of justice.
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It is notable in his conversation with Sarah that Tom was never called a racist. Sarah points out something very important (excuse my translation from character-saving-speak): “It is possible for people not to be racist and still be capable of saying less-than-accurate/sensitive things regarding race.”
I don’t know Tom’s character, so I can’t say whether or not he, in the core of his being, is a racist, but I don’t think that matters in the conversation. To pull the “BUT I’M NOT A RACIST!!!!!” defense (as we White folks so often do) effectively diverts the conversation from the problematic nature of what was said to a conversation about whether the person who said it believes they are racist, a perhaps interesting but otherwise relatively pointless conversation that the White person should really just be having with themselves.
I love the way that Jay Smooth from Ill Doctrine puts it when he says we need to avoid the “what they are” conversation and, instead, focus on the “what they did” conversation. If what I said was hurtful and spurious (and I agree with Sarah that what Tom said was pretty darn spurious and problematic), “we don’t need to see inside [my] soul to know that [I] should not have said all that.”
Rather than finding it “demeaning” when folks of Color (or other White folks) try to tell me how my comments or actions made them feel or may have been problematic, I need to realize that this is an incredible opportunity to listen and self reflect.
In the end, though, we have to realize that listening is only the beginning. It is the beginning of a life-long process of critical self-reflection, reflection regarding our thoughts, actions, and words. We must be willing to hold ourselves to the highest standards and ask ourselves, “Do my actions align with my anti-racist values?” If not, we need to work to change. Perhaps my greatest privilege as a White person is my ability to walk through this life and never self reflect and never listen. But I must choose to listen and to follow those truths to their ends, even if those ends mean I must change the way I live.
After all, the worst thing that can happen is that I can learn that there is work to be done and, in the words of my professor, “apologize with honesty and a true desire to change, move forward, and do better.”
Maybe one place I can start is to read up on the two pieces Sarah linked Tom to in their conversation:
“Why I Don’t Want to Talk About Race” by Steve Locke
“Why I Want to Talk About Race, and Why You Should, Too” by Sarah J. Jackson
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Read Tom Matlack’s point of view around these same events here:
Why I DO Want to Talk About Race
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photo by cameronperkins / flickr
About Jamie Utt
Jamie. Talk to the black victims. Also, see the disproportion in interracial crimes.
As to the death penalty, you need aggravating circumstances to qualify for capital punishment. That means a crime of sudden rage might not qualify. But to kill a person of another race usually means leaving one’s own surroundings with intent, which may amount to aggravating circumstances.
In any event, the fact is that the woman in question is dead and the disproportion is obvious.
Pick up the book, read it, and then we can talk. Until then, I have no patience for this overtly-racist perspective.
Wow Jamie, did you just shut someone down using the word “racism”? Do you usually dismiss opponents with shut down words or do you sometimes remove your fingers from your ears?
“Pick up the book, read it, and then we can talk. Until then, I have no patience for this overtly-racist perspective.”
Ok if you agree to read a book on Quantum Mechanics. What is the use of reading your book if it is about sentencing. It has nothing to do with racial disproportion in the number of crimes committed.
Richard,
As a person born to a Black Father and a White Mother I am suddenly troubled by the point you make. I am poised to leave my surroundings with intent (exactly as you describe) but find myself half in each surrounding. To which do I endeavor to aggravate circumstances?
Andrew.
If you happen to murder somebody in the process of robbing a convenience store in a white neighborhood while your primary residence is in a black neighborhood, the presumption of intent is stronger than if you got into a fight at a bar in a black neighborhood and knocked a guy down who hit his head and died. Sort of happened in a small town where I used to live. Not much of a fight, a shoving match. One participant died of a heart attack. The prosecution was not for first-degree, and our state doesn’t have the death penalty anyway. I gather that aggravating circs can get you life without parole instead.
But, as I say, if you have a problem with this, take it up with the folks who answer the NCVS, and the FBI.
I think you misunderstand “aggravating circumstances”. Killing an old person in your neighborhood playing “knockout king” is one thing. Making plans to go five miles to, say, a mall and attacking a person of another race would be aggravating. In other words, when somebody says, “What in hell were they thinking?” and the answer is, “Doesn’t look like they were thinking at all.”, you probaby have fewer aggravating circumstances than if the answer was…”they spent a week planning it and worked their plan”. Torture in advance of killing–see the Knoxville Horror–is aggravating. Hope that clears things up.
Richard,
I appreciate your elaboration. I think the picture you paint relies too heavily on black and white. I mean to say that it *sounds* prejudiced to say that there are black and white neighborhoods and that when a person leaves one of these imaginatively racialized neighborhoods to travel to another it indicates some sort of intent to commit a violent act. This kind of example reminds me of South African establishment propaganda during apartheid.
Richard I seriously, and from my heart, beseech you to read from some new and different sources; maybe even the two that Jamie and I suggested. For what it’s worth it sounds like your heart is in the right place maybe you’ve just picked up some bad intel along the way. I don’t mean any disrespect at all by suggesting you read further. I just think your view could use some nuance and, well, more color.
Andrew — he’s not attempting to suggest that people who leave unmixed neighborhoods are a threat. He’s saying that crimes of passion — the sort which usually do not receive the death penalty — tend to happen in your own neighborhood because it probably happened in the course of your regular life (fight with your wife, bar fight, etc). If you happen to live in an unmixed neighborhood, this makes it highly likely that this crime of passion will be committed against someone of your own race. If you commit the crime in a separate neighborhood, it’s less likely that you committed it out of passion because you had to go out of your daily routine to commit the crime. Does that clarify it?
Either way, though, I agree that different enforcement of laws is a travesty. That does *not*, by itself, invalidate statistics indicating higher proportions of black-on-black than white-on-white or white-on-black crimes. Those statistics may be invalid, and I think Richard is challenging you to offer a counterargument. Unfair law enforcement is not, itself, such a counterargument. It is a separate issue.
But, even then, whether or not blacks actually commit more crimes than whites, society tells us that they do. Just like society tells us that strange men are potential rapists (even though most rapists are not strangers). It’s not a rational response, and expecting men to change vicious criminals before they can reasonably expect to be assumed not-guilty is just as unreasonable as expecting black men to change vicious criminals before they can be assumed not-guilty. Group A is identified — fairly or not — by society as having a greater propensity to violence against Group B. Group B is encouraged by society to fear Group A. Tom is saying that this is unjust. Even if there are other power dynamics which affect Group A and Group B’s interactions, this aspect of the dynamic is unjust. People who are afraid behave irrationally and I’m sympathetic to that, but I still don’t believe it’s right to treat people differently based on one’s own fears.
The analogy is not spurious. And, for the sake of argument, let’s say the stats referenced are accurate (i.e. strange men are dangerous and so are blacks) — would you say that it’s fair for society to fear black men? Or would you say, as I would, that this is sissy bullshit xenophobic racist bigotry? If so, then why is just to treat men as dangerous who have shown no dangerous tendencies?
Julie – to be fair I understand your point that a first article to point MediaHound in the right direction is a nice idea but, in reality, what that ends up creating is an environment where I’m somehow required to supply an article each time I state something long ago proven as fact. This is inappropriate and a waste of my time. In fact, comments like this from Ieta are exactly why I won’t supply citations for each established fact I present : “If you are unable or unwilling to provide evidence to back up your assertions why on earth do you think you can convince anyone of anything?” That’s the difference here, what I say is not an assertion; it is fact – convince yourself if you must but whether you do or don’t it’s still a fact. It’s not my job to teach MediaHound or Ieta or to re-prove facts long ago proven. I will not rebuild the wheel for the sake of these folks.
Yes, I have been involved in social justice long enough to know that argument Andrew. I”m not a newbie. In fact I’m an oldbie. And the argument has merit and I’ve used it when threads were being seriously derailed, in this case, your statement was unclear even to me. I assumed you were speaking of abortion and reproductive issues, but it was relatively vague. A legal case? Historical precedent? And refusing to give additional clarifying information…I don’t know, this type of comment is one thing I tend to dislike about social justice. I mean I get it. It isn’t your job to tell everyone about everything. It’s not my job to explain things over and over if people aren’t acting in good faith. But when they are acting in good faith, more connection is better than less. I don’t provide links to people if they are being rude to me, or if it is clear they aren’t doing the work. But if I have an ongoing comment relationship with someone, like Media Hound, who operates in good faith, I don’t see harm in sharing my knowledge with him so long as he does the same for me. If that’s still a boundary for you, which I imagine it will be, my suggestion normally in those matters is to find a way to get off line and start a conversation. There is doing the work, and then there is making connection. In this case, I think the connection would serve a greater purpose. Doesn’t mean it’s the way one has to be each time someone asks, but hey, it’s up to you.
Julie
I defer to your status as an oldbie, appreciate, and agree with what you’ve said. I’m not trying to be caustic. I’m just a human being that doesn’t want to take the time to track down an article that relevantly articulates the issues on behalf of another person. I agree my reference was vague. That was intentional. There have been a host of reproductive rights issues; issues related to contraception, access to adequate health care, shaming, etc for as long as this has been a country. I didn’t pick an article both out of conservation of my own energy and to also not limit the discussion to one narrow channel. I do value connection and agree with the way you’ve characterized how and why these sorts of connections are important. I mean no disrespect to MediaHound and the clear good faith intentions of our discussion; I’m just not interested in providing a reading list.
Andrew – you seem to be worried about Teaching Others.
You have not been asked to do that. You were asked to clarify your point.
I have also pointed out that there are Cultural and Social differences caused by readers and contributors coming from all over the world. It is not just a USA centric site. When you are making comments that are US centric it is actually rude to assume that they understand your reference. You seem to even acknowledge this, but can’t seem to grasp the evident need for clarity?
As I said, I believed your response was bad faith, but with each repetition of the same trope it moves towards a supposed rational position expressed as cliché. Steadily and readily trotted out as a self fulfilling prophecy and position.
I also find it highly amusing that you are writing so much to explain your views as to educing others, when it would have been quicker to just explain your reference and use one of the wonders created by the Sainted Sir Tim Burners Lee (inventor of the World Wide Web Application layer for the Internet) and provide a hyper-link to suitable materials.
Oh – and I see that you are able to provide hyper-link to suitable materials when you choose to, so that you can presumably act as educator and further debate and discussion?
I do recall the dialogue we had concerning racial abuse and it’s legal positions and perceptions which do differ markedly between the US and Europe.
It seems that you did not agree with differences across cultures, and indicated that only one group can be subjected to racism and that it is not possible for Privilege reasons for what some call “inverse racism” to exist. Odd how that differs from culture to culture and country to country.
Odd too how you are happy to be educated by others when it suits you!
I do remember you intimating that when I posted on one thread you expressed the view that I was being “Micro-aggresive”, it was a term that you had apparently recently learned. I find it interesting, as I do with all emergent language just how quickly it’s obverse started to be used as in “Inverse Micro- Aggression”
You seemed unhappy then when I pointed out that what had been written was not clear and I asked for clarification – and I note that was related to US race issues and academia too.
I am getting the impression that there is a developing or even developed pattern here.
As they say – there is nowt as queer as folk! P^)
Eduction is a strange thing – and as someone who has the function of a professional educator, I do love studying practice and language and seeing how it can all be made better!
All the best. I don’t see what much more can be gained from any further dialogue or discussion, and it would seem that has been your aim for some time! It’s been a Privilege P^)
Cheers
MediaHound,
I know my inclusion of a hyperlink in another comment seems contradictory. My explanation for that is that is a link and an article I’ve used numerous times as a researcher. It is near, dear, and familiar to me. It took no time to link to it. On the other hand, it would take a fair amount of time to find just the right one article to share with you to further illuminate my point. I guess my point is an entire library of information is but a mere few keystrokes away if the motivation is there. I don’t have the motivation to look for you but perhaps you will have it to look for yourself or share with me links to articles you find as being important. I’d read what you feel is important.
I guess it would help if you clarified the topic. Abortion and repro rIghts? The irony is you’ve probably wasted more time commenting about commenting then by being specific to begin with. Oh well.
Rick. Thanks for explaining aggravating circumstances and the importance of “intent” as a part of the prosecutor’s choice of charges, and the sentencing.
Part of society that tells us theses things is the NCVS, which is about victims, from victims, prior to any racist justice system getting involved. And a disproportionate number of the victims are black. And they are not victims of whites, for the most part. Grossly, disproportionately not.
The question of differential incarceration can’t be answered, nor even discussed, if people are unwilling to discuss differential rates of criminal activity. Or, in fact, if they are going to imply–which they can’t assert–that criminal behavior is the same across races.
I am really surprised that despite living in a free, liberal democracy, people are throwing around words like “privileges” and “oppression.” There is no place for any privilege or oppression in democracy. Everybody has to take responsibility for his own choices and face its consequences. Slavery was abolished in the U.S. on December 6, 1864, about 147 years ago. All discrimination are banned under Civil Rights law. The African American community has to introspect why it has fallen behind other groups and has high rate of incarceration. The use of the term “People of Color” is just a distraction to hide failings of African Americans. Technically, I also belong to the group people of color and claim that my ethnic group outclasses Whites in almost every category. We are called the “model minorities.”
“There is no place for any privilege or oppression in democracy. Everybody has to take responsibility for his own choices and face its consequences”
I believe the argument against that would be that racism/sexism is simply no longer overt but it still manifest itself covertly. At least that is the argument I have heard used. I would still argue that it is just too easy to assume that everything that happens is a result of our actions and none of our circumstances are due to blind luck/being unlucky or racism/sexism.
“I would still argue that it is just too easy to assume that everything that happens is a result of our actions and none of our circumstances are due to blind luck/being unlucky or racism/sexism.”
I do not deny the contribution of luck or hindrances caused by personal prejudices of other people, but the institutionalized discrimination against minority ethic groups do not exist. When cannot always rely on luck to get goodies in life despite all hindrances. One has to take charge of his life and work towards success in life.
” but the institutionalized discrimination against minority ethic groups do not exist.”
I don’t know whether or not this is true (i.e. whether or not institutionalized racism/sexism exists). It is often asserted that it does exists but the proof I’ve seen given, if any is given at all, has always been underwhelming. I do believe that individual people out there, or heck even groups of people like the KKK, are still racist and sexist but I’m not quite sold on the idea that discrimination against race/sex is “institutionalized” (whatever that means).
” but the institutionalized discrimination against minority ethnic groups do not exist.”
This statement is not correct. If we take a step back to note that discrimination can be a rational tool, it’s not a great leap of logic to conclude that it can often be used irrationally – by both individuals and institutions.
Can you provide some examples of institutionalized discrimination against minority ethnic groups.
Hi Rapses – I’ll provide an example that does not depend on a numerical minority:
The Hutu and Tutsi ethnic conflict in Rwanda that resulted in genocide.
Well you seem to be missing the point. We are discussing that there is institutionalized discrimination against ethnic minority communities in the U.S. or not. Where does Hutu and Tutsi ethnic conflict in Rwanda fit in the context.
I did not realize the discussion was scoped to the U.S. only. I take it you agree with my example otherwise, right?
I don’t live in the U.S. – there are residents posting here that are better suited.
But that’s never stopped me before…..not sure if it has been corrected as of yet, but how about the disparate sentencing for crack versus powder cocaine and how that difference impacts certain groups more than others?
The ethnic violence in Rwanda was due to civil war between two ethnic groups for dominance. It is totally different issue from institutionalized discrimination against ethic minority groups in free and democratic country. As for difference is sentencing for crack and powder cocaine, the U.S. congress has declared powder cocaine as Schedule II substance. It can be administered by doctor for legitimate medical uses, like serving as a local anesthetic for some eye, ear, and throat surgeries. Crack cocaine is cheaper and highly addictive with no current medical use.
I am willing to concede to the argument that what Tom said was problematic to get at the meat of what he was trying to say in the twitter conversation. What Tom was getting at is that there is no rational reason why women ought to believe that men are guilty until proven innocent. There is a reason why we have the phrase “innocent until proven guilty” and a very good reason why it is the cornerstone of America’s Justice System. I’m just going to go into a brief anecdote. One day, when I was in college, I was just sitting outside the room where my math class was to be held waiting for the class in the room to leave. I was reading a book, How to Think About Weird Things, which started me on a path that would change my life. As I was sitting there minding my own business a young man a little younger than me walked up to me, asked “How’s it going man”, and sat down next to me. I replied courteously with “It’s going well thank you” and he proceeded to ask me about what I was reading. I told him simply that I was reading a book for a logic class I was taking at the time. He then asked me if there was anything going on in the world that I was worried about to which I replied truthfully that I was worried about some of my friends going off to fight in Iraq, as the Iraq war was just in its infancy at the time. He then said something that immediately gave away what he was trying to do. He told me,” You know there is someone who can help you”. I stood silent knowing that religion was now going to enter into the conversation somehow. He proceeded with asking” Have you ever prayed to God before about your concerns”. I replied politely, “No I haven’t prayed to God or been to church in years”. He asked me why I hadn’t been to church for so long to which I replied “Because I’ve never seen any evidence for God’s existence”. He then asked “Well how do you know he doesn’t exist” to which I replied” That it isn’t up to me to determine it is up to you to prove that God exists if you wish for me to believe you”. He sat silently for a little bit puzzled by what I had just said as though it didn’t fit some script he had in his head of how the conversation should have gone. I broke the silence with a question of my own “Do you believe in Bigfoot” to which he chuckled a bit then said “No”. I responded back with “How do you know Bigfoot doesn’t exist”? He seemed puzzled by the question and didn’t seem to fully comprehend what just happened. He got up to leave and said some parting words to me “Well you know you don’t have to be a genius to accept Jesus but can I at least pray for you”? To this I replied “Yeah”. The point is that the burden of proof lies with those making a claim. If women wish to make the claim, even in their heads, that men are guilty until proven innocent, then it is women’s claim to justify. It is not up to men, just like it wasn’t up to me in the above scenario, to prove that their claim is false. This “Guilty until Proven Innocent” mantra is the stuff of racism and sexism as that is partly what those are based on. Any good man, or woman, or child, or creature for that matter; would do well not to succumb to such sloppy thinking. I don’t mean to imply that a good person has no sloppy thinking as I don’t think it fair to hold any human to a perfect standard. I do say though that the sign of a good person is one who cares about whether or not their beliefs are true and endeavors to change those beliefs which aren’t to comport with reality. Anyone who does walk by a man and thinks “Gee …. He could be a rapist” isn’t necessarily a sexist. However, a person who actively seeks to ignore that fact, the fact that those who say such things have the burden of proof, and doesn’t seek to change their behavior cannot be considered a good person.
I’m a guy. I’m not a rapist. If a woman wants to take precautions because I’m around, I’m good with that. If she didn’t, I’d thinking about telling her she ought to.
The problem starts with Hugo saying “guilty until proven innocent”, which is a bad idea in any context. Much better if he had said “dangerous until proven safe”, which is much more reasonable. By and large, everyone gets to choose what counts as “safe” on pretty much whatever bases suggested by their own judgement, including gender and actually also including race.
Then Tom picked up the wrong end of it, and it all went downhill.
i agree… we must listen more…
Here is why I believe that blacks do indeed commit a disproportionate number of crimes:
1. Arrest and victimization surveys
2. There are a disproportionate number of black victims of crime. This is the most important point. Criminals are opportunistic and tend to commit crimes in places that are familiar. I would expect a disproportionate number of white victims since whites should have more access to the criminal justice assuming that society is racist. . More black victims imply more black perpetrators.
3. I know the academy, media etc is heavily biased to not believing blacks commit more crimes due to their liberalism. This inclines me even more in the opposite direction.
And here is one final question. What about Boyz in the Hood. If the story is accurate and it comes from “unprivileged” black voices than aren’t we supposed to listen even more carefully to what it says. It says that there is an epidemic of violence in some black neighbourhoods. Am I just supposed to ignore that. Or is there a another version of this I don’t know about called White Boyz in the Hood.
I will say the same thing to you that I said to “Mike.”
The problem is that you are not disaggregating the data. Violent crime is a problem of poor communities, not Black communities. When you disaggregate to look at poor White communities (or poor Latino communities or poor Asian communities, etc) you find that similar rates of violent crimes exist. Numerous studies (chief among them the work of Ching-Chi Hsieh and M. D. Pugh as published in the Autumn 1993 edition of Criminal Justice Review) prove that there is a causation relationship between poverty and violent crime.
The problem in your logic, though, is that you ignore the fact that Black people are disproportionately poor, so, according to the studies like Hsieh’s and Pugh’s, they will have disproportionate levels of crime. You seem to be arguing that Black people are more violent, but the reality is that poor people simply commit more violent crime (as a result of extreme economic circumstance).
The victim reports do not, in fact, remove racism from the equation. All they tell us is that when you disaggregate the data, we have a problem of poverty that breeds violence, and we need to deal with this problem, not simply enact harsher sentences on certain races because we perceive them as being more violent.
Yes, Boyz in the Hood is acknowledging a problem with violence in poor, Black communities, but that is not a problem that is exclusive to Black communities; it is a problem of economic inequality in a Capitalist system.