I know that I'm gonna give myself a label here, but in New Orleans, there are certainly places in the city that you just don't go to. I'll let you guess the demographics of these areas. New Orleans is now the murder capitol of the US (we just passed Compton because of our drop in population by over half, while the murder rate remains the same). It is extremely evident if you watch the news that the murders are taking place in the same areas. Constantly. Since I moved here, I can only remember one instance of a shootout with police perpetrated by a white guy and he was absolutely certifiable. Yeah, white folks around here will occasionally kill each other, but it's a VERY small percentage.

I do, however, believe that the vast majority of the crime is drug and or gang related. I also believe that it is a cultural problem, not a race problem. More specifically, it's a class problem. Those with almost nothing to lose are far more likely to commit a crime.

In other words, I don't believe that blacks are genetically more prone to violence, however, because of their situation, certain blacks, at least around here, are the ones exhibiting violent behavior. How to fix it? Beats me. If I could figure that out, we could save our society billions if not trillions.

I would also point out another weirdness I've encountered. When I went to college, one of my best friends freshman year was a black guy named Keith. Really cool guy, fun to be around. But something happened sophomore year. If we were hanging out, and another black guy showed up, his attitude toward me completely changed. It was as if he was expected to behave a certain way toward white people. It was..... odd. Especially coming from him, whom I felt I knew well. Shortly after, he joined a black fraternity and he ceased hanging out with me completely. It actually bothered me quite a bit.

That brings me to another point. How is it OK to have a black-only fraternity? Is that not racism right there? If not, then why is it racist to start a white-only fraternity? I'm not trying to bait anyone, but seriously, isn't this causing a deeper rift? I mean, BET is fine, but let there be a WET channel. Whooo, think of the shitstorm.

At my college, you had to score a 19 on the ACT to be accepted if you were white, but a 17 if you were black. Huh? How does that help anyone? Take it a step further, College is tough enough if you're on an even playing field. If you're behind your classmates when you start, you're much more likely to fail. If you fail, now you have a significant amount of debt with nothing to show for it. IMHO, this is NOT helping the guy with a 17 on his ACT. He'd be much better going to a school where the mean ACT score is 16. Meanwhile, there are people that score 19 and better that get rejected because their slots are being filled by people with 17's. That isn't fair to them either. Ah well.