Vice President Kamala Harris just returned from Guatemala where she discussed the “root cause” of the post-election “surge” of “migrants” to our southern border. Harris said, “People leave home … because they don’t have opportunities there to fulfill their basic needs like feeding their children or keeping a roof over their head, or they’re fleeing some kind of harm.”
But the USA also faces a surge in crime, including homicide, in many American cities. Why aren’t we discussing this root cause? It cannot be because, as Harris says about migrants, people “don’t have opportunities there to fill their basic needs.” After all, these migrants come precisely because they see opportunity here that they do not see in their home countries.
But about Los Angeles, the local NBC affiliate recently reported: “One hundred forty-one people have been murdered so far in 2021, a 22% increase over the same period in 2020. Six hundred people have been struck by gunfire in shootings in 2021, a 59% increase over this time last year.”
About Chicago, the Chicago Sun-Times recently reported: “Children in Chicago are dying from gun violence at a rate three times higher than last year. …
“Ten children aged 15 or younger have been shot dead so far this year, up from the three children fatally shot during the same time period in 2020. … And that’s more than the number killed in all of 2019, the data shows.”
The city of Chicago often leads the nation in the total number of homicides, but the annual homicide rate (murders per 100,000 residents) in a dozen or so big American cities is often higher than that of Chicago — some of them much higher. In 2018, the Pew Research Center wrote: “The cities that perennially have the most murders per capita have homicide rates that are much higher than the nationwide average. In St. Louis and Baltimore, for instance, murder rates in 2017 were more than 10 times the U.S. average of 5.3 homicides per 100,000 people.”
What about the race of the victims? The New York Post writes: “Victims of … homicides are disproportionately African American. At least 8,600 Black lives were lost to homicide in 2020, an increase of more than 1,000 compared to 2019 (7,484). Violent crime is concentrated in primarily low-income, marginalized Black communities where the police are underresourced and Democratic leadership has abysmally failed. In Chicago, 80 percent of gun-violence victims in 2020 were Black. According to the latest data in New York City, 71?percent of shooting victims are Black — even though Black people constitute just 26 percent of the city’s population. The tragic reality is one Black life was killed less than every hour in America last year.”
Is police brutality and/or “systemic racism” to blame? About the racism-is-the-cause argument, the Manhattan Institute’s Heather Mac Donald points out: “Anti-cop activists and many academics claim that racial crime disparities are simply a product of racist police deployment. Cops are oversaturated in African-American neighborhoods, the activists argue (ignoring the pleas for help from community residents). Once there, officers discover the same crimes that go undetected in white communities.
“But the bodies don’t lie. Blacks between the ages of ten and 43 die of homicide at 13 times the rate of whites, according to the CDC, thanks to comparably high rates of violence.”
Unless one is prepared to argue that Blacks are simply genetically more inclined to commit homicide, where is the discussion about “root causes”? When there is a horrific urban shooting, Democrats are quick to call for more gun control legislation. Democrats, when there is an alleged case of police abuse against a Black suspect, demand police reform, with some elected officials even calling for a defunding of the police. Democrats, when it comes to disparities in homeownership or net worth, readily talk about the “legacy of slavery and Jim Crow,” while failing to address, let alone explain, the increase in the rate of unmarried motherhood in America following the ’60s “war on poverty.” And despite clear evidence about the relationship between crime and fatherlessness, the left does not want to talk about that “root cause.”
Larry Elder is a bestselling author and nationally syndicated radio talk show host. His latest book, “The New Trump Standard,” is available in paperback from Amazon.com and for Nook, Kindle, iBooks and GooglePlay. To find out more about Larry Elder, or become an “Elderado,” visit www.LarryElder.com. Follow Larry on Twitter @LarryElder. To read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.
I.A.W. U.S. Census & FBI (Table 43a)
Black males make up about 6% of the U.S. population but commit ~53% of all the murders and ~55% of all robberies in the U.S… Every year in the U.S. there are ~8,600 African-Americans men, women and children killed and ~92% of them were killed by fellow African-Americans.
Now I am not a rocket scientist, but I can see a problem with 6% of the population committing 53% of all murders in the U.S..
But we are not allowed to address this, because the corrupt professional politicians would call it “Racist”.
It is even much less than the 6% because it’s only a certain age group that spikes the rate. Much more like 3%
” After all, these migrants come precisely because they see opportunity here that they do not see in their home countries.”,,,,,,,yes Kamala, criminals who break laws to illegally enter a country DO see greater opportunity to also illegally redistribute OUR wealth into THEIR hands. This chucklehead could not tell the difference between a root cause and root beer but would obviously side with the root beer because of its color. Honest American citizens are dying and being robbed, beaten and raped all about us and she sides with the lawbreakers everytime,,,,because she is one herself.
Have you ever wondered why the Democrat party elected two such mentally deficient fools to be puppet president and embarrass Harris as the misleaders of our country?
Two of the worst candidates in the Democrat party who were running for president.
I would not be surprised if it were leaked that these two fools were put there so that the third in line could advance to the office. Just imagine Nancy Pelosi advancing to the oval office and Adam Schift becoming VP. Yes, I think things could get worse.
They were chosen because they are the most maleable, like putty in the party pervert’s hands. Their handlers know they will always put themselves first and hope they do the same for the party that promotes them. Name me one instance where either one of them EVER put THE PEOPLE ahead of their own interests, or took pain unto themselves to take it off the backs and minds of THE PEOPLE?
Puppets are not elected; they are placed in front with someone (obama) pulling the strings to make look like the puppet is actually alive and well. Obama himself stated that biden was continuing the work he started; daca, obamacare, open borders, more money for lazy people so they can vote democrat, etc. etc.
THOSE two were installed, SPECIFICALLY SO the puppet master (obama/Pelosi/soros) can RUIN THIS NATION, and be shielded from ANY backlash..
Much like a shell company is created, by a criminal business, to try and shield itself from legal shennanigans.
Mrs Harris, the root cause of any problem is of no interest to you nor your Party unless it can be spun in such a way as to make it a Conservative atrocity. Gun control legislation and police reform are the only two “solutions” you people ever come up with and, as can be seen from the daily news they do nothing to remedy the situation. Until you people are willing to actually deal with the root cause, escalation is all we will ever see.
I have often asked the same thing, Larry is.
IF THESE illegal invaders “Need to be given amnesty/asylum here, cause they are fleeing crime back home”, DOESN’T THE CRIME WE HAVE HERE, make us an unsuitable nation for their aslyum claim to be given??”
Especially since a LOT of the crimes we HAVE< is BECAUSE Immigrants BROUGHT THEIR GANGS RIGHT along with them!
They will probably need to stop calling it “homicide” because homicide is a crime. It is now clear that killing is a civil right for certain protected classes, along with what used to be called robbery, arson and rape. The lesson of the annus horribilus of 2020 is that melanin is destiny, and if you have enough of it you are golden. Down with the dictatorship! Biden and pigmentocracy delenda est!
THE WHOLE of last year, and the first six months of this, HAVE PROVEN, if you are black, DO WHAT EVER CRIME you want, as no repercussions will ever come your way.
UNLESS you are a black conservative! Then you will get the book thrown at you.
Kamala, the root cause of a big crime wave: Communist Democrats do not put criminals behind bars, as criminals are free to roam in the streets. There are no penalties for committing crimes. The Democrat communists suffer from immoral depravity. Case closed.
Exactamundo.. THIS IS WHY for years, i have felt, WE NEED TO both civilly and CRIMINALLY HOLD Politicians, judges, DA’s and AG’s ACCOUNTABLE as being accessories for EVERY CRIME committed, because of their CODDLING OF THE CRIMINALS!
The root cause is easy… the demoncrats have created a poor class (mostly minorities) who are dependent on the feds for their sustenance. This is outright theft of their work ethic and pride they could have if they were dependent on themselves.
Then Hollyweird produces shows glamourized rich minorities and the poor people don’t have that, think everyone else does and then go out and become a mobster, kill people to get rich. Or so they think.
Next, prayer and Christian moral education have went right out the window in these left leaning cities, so treating your brother as you would like to be treated attitude has evaporated.
The new media also play a large part in big city killings, as in the thugs mind, killing someone makes them famous. I despise the MSM.
The “root cause”??
Moronic liberals like her and Babbling Biden, the Village Idiot!!
The root cause is the liberal doctrine infecting society. Add the democrats’ contempt for the people they historically enslaved, and the emasculation of the good people and law enforcement and shocker—we have high crime? Say it isn’t so!
ITS not infecting. IT HAS ALREADY INFESTED…
The vast majority of people living in these dangerous neighborhoods DON’T want to live with this risk of death, they want to have their lives, raise their kids, and just not need to worry that their kids won’t come back after playing outside or that they themselves can get to the grocery or church safely.
What needs to be addressed is fatherless families, children left to ‘entertain’ themselves, broken families that encourage young people to look to gangs to create a sense of belonging, drugs readily available to help reduce the innate feelings of despair and worthlessness that come from not working and being productive, and a general lack of accountability and responsibility. Fix those things (not easy but it can be done) and the crime rates will go down.
I suspect if you asked the average person in a poorer neighborhood if they wanted more or less police presence they’d opt for more to keep the crime down so they could go about their lives.
BUT YET THOSE are the same folks, who KEEP ELECTING THE SAME leftist morons back into office…
SO IF THEY WANT A change, STOP ELECTING DEMOCRATS!
True. I suspect that in many areas they don’t even have a Republican candidate and the powers that be in those cities and neighborhoods work very hard to ensure that the liberals stay in power.
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results…we see how that has worked in liberal cities.
It turns the phrase Rule or ruin, into REALITY.
U can ask that Question Twenty Times a Day to this SWAMP RAT and she’ll laugh in Ur Face. Knee Pads Harris is a Incompetent Individual as with Beijing Joe O’Brien Pretending President. Harris is like a infected Pimple on Ur Hind Quarter that needs to be REMOVED. Harris and Pretending President Beijing Joe O’Brien are both Incompetent to do
their Job.
The root cause of homicide or any other crimes committed in America is the Democrat Party and its outright tolerance of it. Democrats have an equivocation to sidestep the issue and the perpetrators while showing little empathy or sympathy for the victims, we need only look at the non-prosecutions and the leniency of the courts to put it into focus.
Let’s give credit where credit is due. The claim of systemic racism is right on. The only error is who the party of slavery, the party of the Ku Klux Klan, the party of Jim Crow, the party of segregation, the party of racial quotas over academic achievement, the party of defunding police in poor neighborhoods, the party of abortions for black women at much greater rates than for the rest of the population, and the party of sensationalizing the death of one black criminal at the hands of police while ignoring the deaths resulting from misguided leniency toward convicted felons, says is the source of the systemic racism. We should all hold up mirrors for them whenever the party responsible for the systemic racism mentions the words.