And we British enslaved our own people too. Most indigenous Britons reading this essay will have had ancestors who were slaves. The Anglo-Saxons made slaves of the Ancient Britons and the Anglo-Saxons were in turn enslaved by the invading Danish Vikings. When Oliver Cromwell conquered Ireland in the middle of the 17th century, he sent over 100,000 men, women and children to the West Indies to be sold into slavery.

The Muslims were perhaps the world’s biggest enslavers, an estimated 19 million people becoming the victims of Islamic slavery. Their slave trade ran for far longer than that of the Europeans. Muslims enslaved both Black African and White European alike.

Africa itself also had its own domestic and international slave trade long before the appearance of the Europeans. Most African societies did not recognise private property in land so slaves often acted as one way in which individuals could own means of profitable production. Enslavement was often a by-product of localised warfare where the vanquished became the slaves of the victors.

Africans also sold their own people amongst themselves and to others as well. Caravan routes had long linked sub-Saharan Africa with North African and indeed the wider Mediterranean and the Middle East, so Africans used this route to establish a trans-Saharan slave trade. When the White man came, there was already a large scale African slave trade in existence that was then adapted to the European market. It did not have to be created for him.

I wouldn’t assume, bobbo, that being raised in a religious household is a predictor of single parenthood.

I also think it’s important not to suggest that single parents necessarily, or even usually, choose that status. Obviously, some do, but many do not, particularly those who are hardest-hit by that status.

I think the welfare programs of the 60’s encouraged fathers to leave/not join their families

Thanks to your encouragement with this comment, I’ve made a separate blog entry to explain why I believe that these and similar concerns about welfare are based on pervasive myths.

why wouldn’t the difference be caused by Jim Crow and/or continuing discrimination or are those also slavery legacies?

If I’m reading you correctly, then yes, I do believe that continuing discrimination against blacks can be seen as a legacy of slavery and past discrimination. It’s not as if the idea of discriminating against blacks, or such contributing notions as racial stereotypes, have appeared out of nowhere.

Ann Coulter claims a study was made of the family history of prison inmates and 86% came from home’s with mothers only. Ann was more specifically criticizing women who chose to become single Moms rather than widows and divorces but I wonder if her statistical source broke it down any? Quite high–shocking in fact, always “if true.” xxxxx Gosh==only took 30 seconds to find a relevant website. I googled (prisoners “single mothers”) and got:

# 78% of the nation’s jail and prison inmates grew up in a fatherless household, even though only 15% of today’s adult population grew up without a father.

From: http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:WkoLtAfABpkJ:inkarcerated.intrasun.tcnj.edu/womeninprison/Prison%2520Statistics.doc+prisoners+%22single+mothers%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=5&gl=us&client=firefox-a

So, my “joke” was to figure out who would most likely chose to be a single mom and I came up with being raised religious without a counterbalancing education. I’m sure there would be other stimuli for this as well.

I agree correlation implies but does not prove causation==but many “serious” correlations turn out to be causation. I think the welfare programs of the 60′s encouraged fathers to leave/not join their families==women got more money without men around to spend the welfare check on beer which led to being able to live on welfare by having kids.

When I said black disadvantages lead to crime I was thinking of the still vague legacy of slavery, welfare, Jim Crow, etc. Your challenge is a good one though by comparing two groups of matched disadvantaged groups, black with white. I’ll assume the blacks would show more negative impacts still? Hard to control for all variables==but if we could, would the remainder be the slavery legacy? Seems like it would. ((Correction before posting–why wouldn’t the difference be caused by Jim Crow and/or continuing discrimination or are those also slavery legacies? I think they are different, but close enough?))

Reminds me of two jokes by Richard Pryor, otherwise relevant to nothing much, but==one was about the criminal types drinking and playing cards and the joke was in recalling how the handle of a knife broke when a guy was stabbed and the criminal types laughed and guffawed about that for a long time ((commentary about humor in different groups?)). Then the second joke was about being glad prisons existed for these types of people ((commentary that most people have a similar reaction to such depraved outlooks?)).

I was actually thinking that I’d post about these and other crime statistics, prompted by Louis’ comment. I’m in Connecticut this morning to speak at a church symposium, but I’ll see if I can get a post up later today. [Edit: I did make such a post, available here.]

In the meantime, the source for those 2005 homicide statistics is the U.S. Department of Justice, and they can be found at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/race.htm.

I assume the following: More blacks commit crime because they are more poor/uneducated/disadvantaged.

I’d suggest that the reasons for black crime are more than simply the reasons why whites are disproportionately likely to commit crimes when poor, uneducated, or otherwise disadvantaged. There is a substantial legacy to our history of slavery and race, which includes suspicion and mistrust, as well as a lack of access to education, jobs, housing and other issues which have a racial as well as a socioeconomic component.

You’re certainly right that one important reason why so much crime involves perpetrators and victims of the same race involves segregation. So much of the lives of white or black Americans revolves around people, communities, and institutions dominated by members of their own race.

I’d be interested in knowing more about the basis for Ann Coulter’s statement about prison and single mothers. I’ve heard a lot of loose talk about single parents and poverty, crime, etc., and I hope she’s doing more than simply observing correlation, for instance, that poor communities tend to have many single parents but that poverty isn’t caused by the rise in single parenthood.

wouldn’t being religious without a counterbalancing education be more determinative of propensity to crime?

I certainly don’t believe that “everything bad that happens to blacks” is the result of the legacy of slavery. For instance, as you know, you can go into any poor white community in this country and observe many of the same issues which are constantly, and falsely, attributed to blacks as a race.

But I’m not sure what you mean by this line. Are you suggesting that those who are uneducated but religious would be inclined to commit crimes? If so, why?

I assume the following: More blacks commit crime because they are more poor/uneducated/disadvantaged.

But like everything else in America, crime is also segregated, so there is more black crime on more black victims. All groups tend to prey on their own perceived groups.

Ann Coulter is making the rounds right now identifying unwed motherhood as the precipitate cause of 86% of the jail population. Unless by definition “every thing bad that happens to blacks” is the legacy of slavery, wouldn’t being religious without a counterbalancing education be more determinative of propensity to crime?

I think you raise an important concern when you say that we need to consider the impact of slavery on all Americans. This is a major message of Traces of the Trade, for instance, in which Katrina Browne devotes quite a bit of attention on the psychological issues which some white people have inherited from our nation’s history of slavery and discrimination.

However, I’m afraid that you are perpetuating a myth when you speak of the “extreme[ly] disproportionate” rate of black-on-white crime, or suggest that whites suffer disproportionately from the black crime that results from our history.

Let’s look at the 2005 national statistics for homicides.

In that year, blacks were the victims of homicides at six times the rate that whites were.

Meanwhile, 86% of white murder victims were killed by other whites.

So it seems that whites are certainly not suffering disproportionately at the hands of black criminals, and in fact black citizens are bearing the brunt of the legacy of slavery in this area.

Daily we discuss slavery’s damage to blacks, but what about the extreme disproportionate number of black on white crimes–some horrible?