Spence on Cosby

Dr. Lester Spence gives a quick and dirty run down of the history of arguments about "the black family."

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• family
• research
• race
• racism
• blackhistory
• africanamerican
• cosby
• critique
• politics

[premoderne]

[1] If the causes for these problems are primarily economic and political, then why is there more crime, drug use, illegitimate births etc in the black community now than say, 1946, when blacks had less access to education, had lower per capita incomes, and less political power?

[lkspence]

what types of crime increased? did they increase solely among the black population or among the population at large? how are you measuring drug use? some drugs...ectasy for example...didn't even exist in 1946. how do you control for this?

[premoderne]

The rate of violent crime increased at a higher rate in black communities than the population at large. You make a good point about drug use, so I will refer to the per capita increase in alcoholism over and above that of the population at at large.

[lkspence]

what type of rate are we talking about? what types of controls are used? rural populations tend to have less crime than urban ones do...and the black population moved to cities en masse during the thirties and forties. i'd also like to see your data on alcoholism. if the character limits pose particular problems for you we can port this over to my blog. thanks for responding.

[BeElTe78]

NPR helped introduce Dr. Spence to the mainstream. It would be nice to see a indepth lecture. I applaude your Materialist(philosophy) concepts regarding media influence on the individual from an IgniteBaltimore piece.

[premoderne]

[2]Surely, even if one buys into this generationally accumulated oppressive slave mindset, circumstances and opportunities have improved significantly since the 1940's, and such a mindset should greatly diminished resulting in improved cultural indicators. But we don't see that do we? In fact, cultural indicators are inversely proportional to improvements in political and economic conditions. Hmmm.

[bygINCpresents]

there was a time when elected officials spoke to our grievances. there is distrust of authority at all levels today. i have seen these gods of gov't debased, brought to the level of every other man. the game sucks. makes little sense to engage with it. i know that's modern power's design. if they belittle the process, we won't come. and so we don't. we just grieve in private and blame each other. i video about this "liquid modernity" on my site. read zygmunt bauman as well.

[HoneyBitchNLovelyLa]

Dr.Spence, I am bewilder by fact that up until today you have had 36 views and no comments. Sir, I appreciate the nature of your message. I am saddened by the fact that many us do not realize the break down begin with the family structure. Your message ended abrupt.

[HoneyBitchNLovelyLa]

. I implore you, please continue your videos. There so many misguided youth who truly do not understand that the quality of their existence is directly related to the family structure? I read Come on People. It was so elementary that it embarrassed me. I anxiously await additional video Dr. Spence.