It is why I would suggest to read the post twice. Once does not do it justice.
Why is what I am writing and what Michael Smith* wrote is that Mr. Smith is by his own admission a liberal.
So it is very important to read Mr. Smith's perspective thoroughly.
And I will start to analyze from the end because again, this is important to understand that this is not the ranting of some right-winger race superiorist.
Read the following two paragraphs and tell me that the truth has not smacked Mr. Smith in the face:
I am a liberal. I believe that those of us who are able to produce abundance have a moral duty to provide basic food, shelter, and medical care for those who cannot care for themselves. I believe we have this duty even to those who can care for themselves but don’t. This world view requires compassion and a willingness to act on it.
My experience has taught me that we live in a nation in which a jury is more likely to convict a black defendant who has committed a crime against a white. Even the dullest of blacks know this. There would be a lot more black-on-white crime if this were not the case.
The second paragraph is true, unfortunately. Yes, a white-dominated jury will convict a black who has committed a crime against a white. And yes, it is done in reverse. Can we all say O. J. Simpson?
It appears to me what drives Mr. Smith even with the truth smacking him in the face is that he maybe able to reach one of those he represents and hopefully turn that person's life around.
The reality is that a conservative could not get away with the brute honesty Mr. Smith writes about. Whether I like it or not, it takes someone that thinks they can change the outcome to explain that in reality, they can't.
Mr. Smith is a public defender in a major Southern metropolitan area. According to Mr. Smith, 10% of the population is black. Yet they overwhelmingly make up the majority of his cases, fully 90% of his caseload are blacks. Mr. Smith has also represented whites, Hispanics and Asians. Amazingly, he says out of all the thousands of cases, only three are where he represented Asians and one of those was partially black.
Mr. Smith goes on to describe the attitudes of those groups he has represented.
Whites are respectful of his role. They come to court, dress appropriately, keep their head down and follow instructions and it is over. Ditto the Hispanics. Nothing about the Asians, but knowing their culture I am sure that they follow the whites and Hispanics.
When it comes to blacks, it is beyond a whole different story.
According to Mr. Smith, court is like a carnival to many of those he defends. To Mr. Smith it appears that whole families congregate in and around the courthouse and that they all seem to know each other. They gossip, laugh, wave at each other and congregate around the halls adding to the carnival atmosphere.
It also appears that blacks have no respect for Mr. Smith or any of those that are trying to help them. He is not given the respect of being called Mr. Smith. It's usually his first name (where do I see that on a national scale? Hmm, maybe the Dear Leader, President Obama?!) or even worse. Mr. Smith wrote that some openly refer to him, to his face, as 'dog'. For those of you not up on pop culture slang, the word dog is used as in friend. "What's up, dog?" Uh, correct me if I am wrong but referring to your lawyer with such familiarity shows absolutely no respect. Respect that he or she deserves. It also shows a familiarity that is not there. Why should Mr. Smith or any other public defender try in any way to help anyone who shows such little concern for his or her own fate?
Not only are they disrespectful but they do not understand that a public defender or any defense attorney are not Svengali. They can not snap their fingers and all the information regarding their case magically appears.
Upon their first meeting, while Mr. Smith is doing introductions and trying to explain their particular case, the blacks are totally impatient and want quick answers. In that first meeting, the public defender does not have all the case particulars. He tries to explain to them that they have to wait and get all the evidence and information before he can tell them everything and what options there are. But blacks, they live in the immediate. The here and now.
And the worst thing is that blacks, unlike any other group, do not see their public defender as there to help but part of the "man" and thus by nature against them. Ready to cut deals to their detriment. Thus they are hostile to the person that is trying to help them from the beginning.
Which leads to an interesting observation about the criminal acts he has noticed from each of the race groups Mr. Smith has represented.
Whites commit all kinds of crime from sexual to violent and everything in between. Hispanics generally are in the system due to sexual assault on children and or driving under the influence. Blacks seem to do everything but sex crimes in general. And keep in mind this is what Mr. Smith sees in his particular area of the United States. It is not meant to be a nationwide analysis.
Where I find the aspect of Mr. Smith that is actually sad and troubling is that the blacks he deals with, whether it is the suspected criminal, that family and the usual black victim and their families are essentially barely functional illiterate.
Mr. Smith asserts that if a case gets to trial, he tries to not have the black defendant take the stand in their own defense. For that is because, again in Mr. Smith's words,
Most blacks are unable to speak English well. They cannot conjugate verbs. They have a poor grasp of verb tenses. They have a limited vocabulary. They cannot speak without swearing. They often become hostile on the stand. Many, when they testify, show a complete lack of empathy and are unable to conceal a morality based on the satisfaction of immediate, base needs. This is a disaster, especially in a jury trial. Most jurors are white, and are appalled by the demeanor of uneducated, criminal blacks.
WHOA! Could you imagine if any conservative were to write this? It is true, but Mr.Smith is blunt and to the point. Who can forget the testimony of one Rachel Jeantel in the George Zimmerman trial regarding the death of Trayvon Martin. While the article that I linked was from the Puffington Post and generally sympathetic to Miss Jeantel, no doubt that even they could not avoid the obvious.
That for whatever reason, and this is not where to address that, a lot of blacks can not effectively communicate and it will invariably hurt rather than help their cause.
And this, this maybe the most horrific, yes horrific, indictment about black defendants.
That they have absolutely no empathy for others.
Mr. Smith describes a case of three robbers and he was representing one that beat up a girl while his cohorts committed the robbery. According to Mr. Smith the defendant asks what are the chances for his case and Mr. Smith told the truth. That it was not good. And while the defendant was angry with Mr. Smith and delving into conspiracy theory, Mr. Smith pointed out that there was a video of the whole event. Mr. Smith asked the defendant what he thought a jury would think. The defendant said “They don’t care.” But it gets better. When Mr. Smith asks said defendant if he felt any remorse for what he had done, well its so precious:
“What do I care? She ain’t me. She ain’t kin. Don’t even know her.”
WOW! What can anyone say when faced with such a response? Except again, there is no remorse and or empathy for what they may have done in the commission of a crime.
Here are several other tidbits that I found sad and disturbing all at the same time.
Mr. Smith acknowledges that one the threads common in his clientele is the fact the black males do not have an active father in their lives. Sometimes the defendants meet their fathers for the first time in court and it is a meeting that is unemotional in every way.
An observation I want to note is Mr. Smith mentioning a 47-year old grandmother. I did some math and figured that granny probably had a child roughly between 17-20 years old. That child had a child probably at a younger age. Hence, a granny at 47. For some reason, it just blows me away.
Mr. Smith also notes that the women are having multiple babies with multiple fathers and that all are essentially wards of the state. All involved in some way get some kind of assistance from the government. And the males actually working?! Are you kidding?! They are sponging off of someone and collecting either social security disability for some kind of mental issue and or some kind of physical ailment that he sure can't figure out. When Mr. Smith asks what a defendant does all day, he gets a response that goes “You know, just chill.” That chill is courtesy of the United States taxpayer.
Oh and explaining how a defendant should dress for court appearances is amazing.
Mr. Smith tells a couple of situations involving a female and male defendant. The female is on trial for drugs and shows up wearing a baseball cap. A cap that has a embroidered marijuana leaf on it. And for the male, the defendant shows up wearing a t-shirt with this charming line: "Rules are for suckers". And the public defenders office has dress shirts, suits, neckties, and dresses for female defendants. Yet, mostly the males, want to wear the cool gang colors. And it's a group effort among Mr.Smith's co-workers to try desperately to convince a black, gang-banger defendant to wear at the very least a dress shirt and necktie.
The sadness is that this is not just Mr. Smith's metropolitan area in the South where this takes place.
This is nationwide in many an urban area. And at all levels from cities, counties, states and federal courts. Mr. Smith shares a statistic that, to me, is disturbing. Twelve percent of the United States population is black. Yet they make up 40% of the prison population. The chart below is as of 2009 but probably worse today than better.
How does this one group seem to have self-destructed in this nation?
Mr. Smith alludes to the breakdown of the traditional family among blacks.
And Mr. Smith does not go much further but I will.
Education is not separate but equal but abysmal for blacks in the inner city. No one seems to want to get a handle on it because it will break some sacred cows that the so-called black "leadership" has vented over the last 40 years. Money, money and more money has been poured into the predominately black inner-city schools and scores at all levels have worsened, not improved. Essentially, many teachers just show up and put in their time and hope not to get killed.
Since there is usually not a mom and dad, the gang that many of the black male youths eventually gravitate to become family. Ditto for the girls.
Yes, I am a white male and according to the PC forces, I have not only no right to note the problems but I am privileged simply by the grace of God of being born white. Yet I have grown up where I am the minority. Most of my friends have been Hispanic throughout my life. Many of them are at a much better station in life than I am. There goes my "white privilege".
But what seems to have prompted Mr. Smith to write the piece he did is he wanted to tell the truth. And it is clearly painful for him to do so. The truth is there is a serious problem in the black community. There are real solutions but it will take a concerted effort of many people, groups and forces. And some of those people, groups and forces need to end some of their rhetorical flourishes and realize there are a lot of us that want to help. That want to improve education for blacks. That want to restore as much of a traditional family structure as possible. That want blacks to stop gangs and make them unattractive for their children to ever join.
The conversation has to start somewhere and it has to start with truth.
That is why this is the most dangerous post of 2014.
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