What Went Wrong in Milwaukee?

This article first appeared in Eagle Rising.

As I write this, we have now seen two nights of violence in Milwaukee after a black cop shot an armed black man in self defense during a confrontation Saturday. In spite of the circumstances, black rioters deliberately targeted and attacked white motorists and bystanders. It is easy to feel anger toward this obvious manifestation of hate, which, in all likelihood, will never be criminally charged as a hate crime. The videos are sickening, and they are outrageous as well. Also outrageous are the statements of some of Milwaukee’s black “leaders”, who are quick to charge white racism and complain about the intolerable living conditions on the city’s black inner city.

Milwaukee County Sheriff, David Clarke, an outspoken conservative African-American, who speaks often on Fox News, has stated that this is a result of welfare and a government dependency mentality that has devastated the black family. I agree with him. How else to explain that the black out-of-wedlock birth rate some 50-60 years ago during the dark days of Jim Crow was about 25% as compared with some 70% today?

Indeed, I recall reading decades ago that black families were migrating to Wisconsin, principally from Chicago, due to Wisconsin’s generous welfare benefits.  I had had occasion to visit Milwaukee three times during the 1950s and 1960s. It was a different city then. It was not a place where white people would be attacked on the streets simply for being white. In 2011, similar attacks happened in Milwaukee during the Wisconsin State Fair. Sorry, but white racism is no excuse for this. There is no doubt that a large segment of black society was left behind in the inner city by the Civil Rights movement. But when you look at out-of-wedlock births, absentee fathers, drugs, gangs, corrupt city governments (routinely under Democrats), and failing schools, white racism is far down on the list of problems plaguing black America today.

It is time to set aside the political correctness and the asking, “What can we do?” What we can do is make the streets safer for all including the majority of law-abiding black families who have to live among the hoodlums. Forget the excuses. The people shown on those videos attacking people who happened to be of a different skin color need to be in jail until they are too old to be a threat to anyone, white or black.