Black lives matter: a short analysis

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Index

• Introduction 
• Questions 
• Two groups 
• Startingpoints 
• Culture 
• Black immigration to America
• The black startingpoint
• The white startingpoint
• The asian startingpoint
• The outcome
• Statistics
• Different roads taken
• Mental content
• Circumstances
• Drugs and the ghetto
• A few answers
• A vicious cycle of discrimination
• Factors
• The result 
• Isolated event versus issue 
• The absence of the leader
• Conclusion
  

Introduction

Racial malcontent has flared up in the United States. It is all over the news, in talk shows and on the Internet. Black lives matter is currently the most famous slogan. Police brutality against the black community seems the focal point. However, it is not the first time that this has happened. Over the decades there have been various periods of racial unrest between black and white, sometimes accompanied with violent riots. The core issue each time seems to be the inequality of the black citizen as compared to the white citizen.

We all know that Africans were abducted from Africa to work as slaves in the Americas. It is understandable that from such a disadvantaged starting position it would be hard for the Africans to become equal Americans. However, slavery ended more than a hundred and fifty years ago in 1865. Immigrants from poor European countries like Ireland, Poland and Italy also started at a severe disadvantage, often living in slums. Chinese people had it even worse. They worked as coolies on the railroads. The lowest of the lowest. Despised and ridiculed. Why is it that the African issue still prevails while other groups overcame their disadvantages?

Perhaps it is racism. It seems so clear does it not? Have white people not been creating laws and practices putting the black man down for decades? And still?

Perhaps it is nature. Africans act different from Asians and Europeans, do they not? Gangsta rappers and hostile drug gangs? Hoodies and attitude? Are we civilized people not all secretly afraid of the black man? Is there something wrong with Africans or African American culture?

Maybe you already know all the answers. Then there is no need to read on. But maybe you are still looking like i am. So let's try to deconstruct this phenomenon. Perhaps there is more to find out than what twitter and prime time news show us.

We can start by asking the right questions.

Questions we can ask from what we know

We know there are distinct groups of people in America. Relevant to the issue are the Blacks and the Whites. 

So how do things go between two groups of people in general?

We know that Blacks, Asians and Whites all started out differently in America.

What kind of effect did this have on their respective developments?

We know that Whites and Asians are generally wealthier and better educated than blacks. 

How did this come to be? 

We know from the movies and the news that numerous black ghetto's exist and that these are often riddled with crime and poverty. 

Why do black people live in ghetto's? 

Why is the crime rate high in these areas? 
Why are these areas so poor?

We know there is a strong black gangsta rapper culture. It's all over the popular media and in the movies. Hoodies, gold chains, attitude. A different way of relating to the opposite sex. 

Why do black people seem to act so differently from white people? Do they really?

We know there are more black people in jail for the same offenses than white people. We know black people get harsher sentences that white people. 

Is the justice system racist or do black people simply commit more crimes in a worse way?

We know that black people are proportionally underrepresented in all areas of society except for sports and manual labor. 

Is the blackman underachieving?

Does the white man keep the black man down? Would this be intentional? 

We know that the race issue in America is older than the country. After slavery there was Martin Luther King and now Black Lives Matter. And these events are just the world famous ones.  

Why is this issue still here? 

We know that populism is a very strong factor in todays society. Feminism, anti racism, whitepower, extreme Islam, anti Islam, creationism, etc.

Are we dealing with a real issue or just a few isolated events blown up by media?

Two groups

How do two groups of people generally relate to each other? We know we have very different relations with various countries in the world. Some are our friends, some we respect, others we tolerate, a few we hold in contempt and several are our enemies. The same goes for the different religions and ethnic groups in the world. It even goes for the different types of classmate we meet in high school. Jocks, nerds, goths etc. It applies to the people in our neighborhoods and at work. Ever thought your department was doing the real work while another was pretty much useless? 
We always belong to one group, or another, in any given situation.

Why is this so?

People work in a particular set way. There are mechanics to our behavior. One of these is discrimination, another is group identity. There are many more, but with these two we can explain a lot already.

Discrimination

We automatically and unconsciously detect differences in whatever group of objects we gaze upon. Whether it is a selection of fruits at the supermarket or a group of students in our classroom. To discriminate actually means to tell the difference between one thing, and another. 
Here is how it works. Animals and plants have many senses. The primary function of which is discrimination: to make sense of the world around in order to select the appropriate behavior for a given encounter. Friend or foe, food or predator, mate or competitor. This discrimination proces between any two objects is not only fed by momentary sensory input, but also past input, imagination and the transfered knowledge of others. In other words by our own experiences, by what we imagine a thing would be, and what we are taught.

Group identity

We automatically form groups with the people most like ourselves in whatever situation. We are a social animal. We want to belong. There is a strong drive in us to seek out a connection. And once we do, we make up a collective mind about our groups identity and the identity of other groups. We decide on our purpose and nature, and that of others, classifying them into friend or foe. Strong factors in all these classifications efforts are relative power, wealth, familiarity, similarity and the compatibility of goals. Of course classification is just a fancy word for a type of discrimination, also fed by salient features, experience, imagination and what we are taught. 

Let's take a look at an example. Imagine it's your first day in highschool. You don't know anybody, and neither does anyone else. Just a collection of clueless individuals. Where do you stand? Whom do you seek out? On what basis? Is it random? Does it happen conciously? 

Now think about what happened in the first six months of your stay. Did people stay individuals? Did they join a group?  Did you? Are the people in your group more like you than those outside, or less? Does your group now dislike a certain other group? 

Here is a could be imagination of what the classical nerd group might think like:  
We nerds are the best people. We do not want to harm anyone. We are open to knowledge and look beyond the superficial. We know there is more to a person besides their looks or muscles. 
When we look at the other groups... Well the goths are to be ignored. Whatever is wrong with them, not our problem.. The jocks and the plastics are the enemy. They have a lot of social power based on superficial qualities. They focus on physical attributes and believe in stupid slogans. They think they are superior and want to boss everyone around. Let them parade their awesomeness on the football field today, we will be the bosses later in life anyway.

Here is another example of the mechanics at work. Remember the early days of America? Chinese people were viewed as stupid little yellow men. Only good for hard labor on the railroads, or running small dinky shops. Today, mainly thanks to world war 2, we view the Chinese, Japanese and Koreans with respect. Our experience with them has changed. We tasted their power and became more familiar with their culture. What we teach each other changed. So many movies have been made in the past 50 years about Japan, ancient China, Kung Fu, etc. They are now seen as our equals, and we fear, our betters. Good at math, well behaved and with a strong work ethic. And cultured. Of course, the Asians themselves did not change much, just our view of them.

What it comes down to

In essence we discriminate and then group. And while grouping, we discriminate. The result is always a complex set of relations between a multitude of different group identities. Some of these relations can be quite hostile, while others can be quite benign. They are subject to change, as much as goals and circumstances change. If you want to know in more detail of how people work on the most basic level, take a look at the mechanics of discrimination.

Using these mechanics we can imagine a whole continuum of possible outcomes when you put two groups of people together. The current outcome of black plus white in America suddenly does not seem so strange does it? Black and white are just group A and group B. The outcome of their interaction proces is the result of circumstantial variables that change over time, such as power, wealth, goals, similarity and familiarity. This description of this proces is what we call history. 

So let's take a look at the initial values of some of these variables. In the next bit we will explore the different starting positions of Blacks and Whites in America.

Startingpoints

 

Culture

Let's first take a look at the importance and effect of culture on startingpoints. Culture is a powerful thing. It is a collection of different types of data shared among a group of individuals. Not only does it contain identity and history, but also various types of knowledge, a belief system and a sense of common purpose. It enables people to work together productively and advance, whatever the circumstances. Culture is an important factor in the power a group possesses.

When people migrate from one area to the another being able to maintain their original culture is of crucial importance. It gives them support in a foreign environment. You need people like you around, even if it's just your own immediate family. People that can be relied upon to know what you mean and have similar goals. Culture also provides the first generation immigrants with identity. Without identity people can not function. Adopting another is virtually impossible after adulthood due to the elasticity of the brain. It is the children of the following generations that take on mixed identities until eventually the identity of the old country is faded out.

So people tend to bunch up. All immigrants behave in this fashion, if at all possible. Culture provides the startingpoint of any immigrant in a new country. The first settlers immediately tried to recreate the English, German or Dutch way of life. Nigerians like to live close to other Nigerians, newly arrived Mexicans next to Mexicans, and so on. However if you look at older families of Italian and Polish Americans you will find them a lot more spread out among earlier Anglo Saxon people. Dutch people behaved this way in Australia. Some ethnicities remain closely grouped even after decades. The Chinese in Indonesia and the Cubans in America. In fact, there are still Irish community bars in New York. 

Black immigration to America

Blacks were brought to the Americas to support the booming resource economy. They were needed for labor intensive crops such as cotton and tobacco. Whites colonists would demand fair pay and working hours. Furthermore most white labor was already in use. Slavery was the answer.

Africa at the time was a relatively powerless continent. There were few nations and mostly tribal cultural identities. Technology in most areas had not advanced from the iron age. Due to the vast cultural difference between renaissance white people and iron age black people it was easy for whites (and Arabs) to consider black people less than human. This made trading in humans quite easy for the Arabs and the Europeans. Discrimination and group identity took care of any moral concerns, and greed provided the motivation to sell and buy for all involved. Blacks were only good for hard labor and could be sold like any other animal of burden. The authorities and slave owners in the new country were more than happy to reinforce this believe at every turn, making huge profits along with the merchants.

The black startingpoint

Black people came into America owning nothing, not even their own bodies. Once freed, their bodies was all they possessed. Most lands around them were already owned by white people. The same was true for any position of power and influence.

There was no discernible culture or identity among African Americans just after slavery, except that of being former slaves and the bits they picked up from their former masters. This was the result of the way slavery worked. Slaves were taken as individuals or small groups. Never as a people. After the initial taking, slaves were moved to huge markets. Like in the Roman Empire, they were mixed up with other slaves from all over Africa. After the sale, they were shipped to America and once there, sold at auction. Again mostly as individuals or in small groups.

The result of this was that little remained of family ties, let alone cultural. Slaves usually found themselves working with total strangers of different tribes, or even different countries. This meant that almost all culture these people had, was lost. And as a slave, any communication with the homeland was impossible. In effect, Africans had to start completely anew, in a foreign country. 
Of course with only their former masters as a source of cultural input this did gave African Americans a degree of similarity and familiarity with their white counterparts. Perhaps it's the reason why the current black culture bears more resemblance to white culture, than to that of any African nation.

The relations between black and white did not change much immediately after the abolition. The freeing of the slaves had been done merely out of nobility, since the civilized people in the North did not like to keep slaves. It was quite another matter for black and white to be equals or spend time together. White people had known the blacks just as slaves. The image of the good for nothing African did not change with their freedom. Now these former slaves were competing with whites for jobs and influence. And since they were in the minority, without power and wealth, only the worst jobs and housing were given to them. Blacks tended to find themselves in all black neighborhoods in the worst parts of town. It was all they could afford.

In summary: the African Americans started out as a poor, powerless, and unwanted minority now competing for the same space as white people. They had no sense of identity or belonging. This lack of a well developed and widely shared culture along with their starting position made them the most vulnerable members of this new and free America. More so than other groups.

The white startingpoint

The story of the white man could not be more different. White people retained their identity. Often they came in with their entire families and strong cultural and communication links to the homeland.  They came in as conquerer and quickly became the majority. As masters of the Americas they divided among themselves the land and its resources. All other peoples could be treated with contempt since none could match their power. Whether it was native Americans, the Chinese or the Blacks.

The Asian startingpoint

The Asians fell somewhere in between the fate of the white man and that of the black man. They came in possessing very little, and also as an unfamiliar minority. But they did have their freedom, their family and with each new arrival, links to the homeland. Asians were able to preserve their rich and advanced cultures, which enabled them to form productive groups in the large cities, a part from any negative white influence, eventually clawing themselves out of their social and economic disadvantages. Due to world events, and their strong cultural identity, relations with the whites improved over the centuries.

The Latin startingpoint

Well, just see the Asian startingpoint and you can probably imagine their process from there. Though not entirely the same, for the purposses of this text, it is similar enough.

The outcome

We now know how groups of humans basically relate to other groups of humans that differ from them on some characteristic. We also know the startingpoint of the various racial groups that compose America. We can now state that the mechanics of discrimination fed by these startingpoints produced a predictable outcome. The racially divided society we know today. 
In the next bit, let's explore some statistics.

Statistics

The superior starting position of the white man crystallized in the white dominated mainstream culture we know today. Wealth and power are still mainly concentrated in a small white elite. Relations with other races have vastly improved for most members of the white group, but the sense of better has never gone away.

As for the Asians, it has been a long road towards personal equality. The productive Asian societies managed to gain equality in wealth and social status, with small inroads towards power. As an Asian today you can go anywhere in American culture and (for the most part) not be hindered by the white majority. Their cultural influence however remains small.

The blacks faired less well. Their lack of culture meant that for a long time they were powerless to resist the whims of the dominant white majority, even inheriting some of the former white immigrant slums as their permanent residence. For many groups of black people the wealth level remains low to this day, as does their level of social acceptance and power. It is still harder to move as a black person in a lot of areas of American culture than it is for a white person. 
Only in the 20th century did the black man find himself with some sense of identity and self worth. And only in the 20th century did some of the institutionalized and cultural racism break down. It remains a question however of how strong contemporary black culture is as opposed to white culture, and how much of the racist practices remain. That black and white are not equally represented in American life is a matter of fact however.

If you do not believe this analysis, just count the number of black politicians, administrators, artists, writers, editors, cops, judges, army generals, movie stars, TV stars, talk show hosts, news ankers, company CEOs, fortune 500, etc. Then count the number of white ones.

Here are some statistics:

For every 5,2 whites there is 1 black person.

For every 3,9 whites there is 1 Hispanic person.

For every 13,6 whites there is 1 Asian person.

For every 46 white senators there is 1 black senator.

For every 5,6 white movie stars there is 1 black movie star... which is about right!

For every 18,6 white judges there is 1 black judge.

For every 9.5 white millionaires there is 1 black millionaire

For every 0.3 white prisoners there is 1 black prisoner.

.....

The hungry reader is free to finish the list. The end result is obvious.

You can look up my sources here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_United_States

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/01/05/the-new-congress-is-80-percent-white-80-percent-male-and-92-percent-christian/

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/01/12/114th-congress-is-most-diverse-ever/

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/30000-hollywood-film-characters-heres-many-werent-white/

https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2012/mar/28/judges-ethnic-sex-diversity-judiciary

https://apps.americanbar.org/abanet/jd/display/national.cfm

(http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/briefing/minority_senators.htm)

*do note, much of this data is by now outdated. It's roughly from 2010 to 2015.

Different roads taken

Now that the results are in, we could rest on our laurels. The mechanics of discrimination in combination with the different startingpoints produced the current situation.. However, a lot of specific questions have not been answered yet. In the following text i will attempt to answer them by describing the many directions black social development took. First we will start with the main ingredients whoms interaction drives these diverse outcomes: psychology and circumstances.

Mental content

Let's first ist a few likely items of mental content that a former black slave might have just after the abolition.

A possible psychology of former slaves

Identity (who you are): a former slave. A powerless secondclass citizen. Inferior. Not: proud African. An Australian new in America feels like.. an Australian. A Nigerian in America has a Nigerian identity. A former generational slave just has former slave for an identity.

Personality (what you are): the function of an inferiority complex. Slaves were used to being considered inferior by the outside for generations, with no cultural identity of their own to counter this. They were used to having no rights, and no say in their own lives. All slaves were at least exploited, if not ill treated.

If your entirely life you are told you are worthless, eventually this will rub off on your personality.  The same goes for being treated as an inferior form of life. Self loathing becomes part of you. Powerlessness helps to reinforce this image, as does despair.

Of course no human can consciously admit to him self that he is worthless. You can't live like that. It is a major cause in suicide. As a defense your psyche will conjure up such mental coping strategies as a superiority attitude, a victim stance, the demonization of the oppressor and the emulation of the oppressor.

The feelings of inferiority however will still shine though via subconscious attitudes and actions. A disdainful level of expectation of the members of your own group. A gloomy estimate of your own future. Negative slang for referring to others like you, which contains both the superiority attitude (badge of honor), and elements of the feelings of ineptitude (low or negative expectations). The N-word is the most famous example.

A possible attitude of former slaves

Life strategy: various. Depending on the continuous cycles of interaction between psychology on one side and various circumstances like upbringing, education, social environment, wealth, power, opportunity, luck, etc. on the other side.

Former slaves may strive to emulate their former masters. Some will try to become like their former masters while keeping a hateful distance of them. They will prove to themselves that they are every bit as good. Setting up their own businesses, houses of worship and communities in the exact image of those of the oppressors. Some of King's followers were good examples. Others might want to associate closely with those that for generations have been the image of a successful human being. The most famous example of such a person is the fictive character of Carlton in the Fresh Prince.

Others might want to be completely different from the former master. They will develop their own language adaptations, behavioral customs and beliefs. Like in Jamaica.

Some could develop a very negative attitude, a can-do-nothing-right culture. The worst outcome of a (former) inferiority complex. Focused solely on personal and immediate satisfaction, with no regard for the future. If you are the scum of the Earth, you might as well behave like it. The gansta rapper culture has been professed to be about pride, but can you really build a health modern society with the behavior models that are promoted?

Now that we took a look at psychology, let's take a look at the other ingredient. The different circumstances people found themselves in.

Circumstances

Initially the former slaves were mostly spread out in the south in small groups. However local circumstances varied somewhat. 

Equal education might available or not.
The opportunities to form a religious community varied.
There could be a lot of work or hardly any.
Decent housing could be available, or just slums. 
The level of discrimination varied from high to low. 
The means to move to a better part of the country could be attainable or not. 
Social mobility might be possible, or not.

Various communities

Most humans and groups are continually shaped and reshaped by the cumulative interaction between their (group) psychology and circumstances. Your own self is the result of what you have been through, and how you deal with something depends on the self. All this meant that a varied Scala of black communities arose from the historic interaction between the various initial post abolition identities and circumstances. 
At one extreme end there was the new civilized blackman. They were able to attain the white life style, if not entirely in wealth then certainly in customs. They build churches and schools, bought cars and art, and raised their children to be model citizens. People like Martin Luther King or Oprah are fine examples. If King had not been black, he could not have been told apart form an upper class, civilized and highly educated white man, if people passed him in the street (of course after talking to him, a European would call him an enlightened reformer, while an American might call him a socialist fanatic). Some of these successful black communities gradually integrated into mainstream society. Others kept apart from their white neighbors. Either by choice or, often, by discrimination.

On the other extreme end there was the ghetto dweller, the under civilized poor third class citizens. They were not able to find a reliable source of legal income, education and religion. They lived on the fringes of society, ignored by all, and always guilty of anything negative, by default. The classic Negro of the popularized mainsteam culture.

Drugs and the Ghetto

The arrival of the age of narcotics in the nineteen sixties meant the downfall of many of the poorer communities in the USA, both black and white. White society has some ghetto's, but far fewer and usually a strong middle class adjacent to counter this. Most white drug addicts and criminals are simply part of the general makeup of society.
The poor uneducated black concentrated ghetto dwellers however suddenly found themselves with a source of quick income and the means to have a momentary relieve of every day hardships. It devastated the social structure of whole neighborhoods. Parents no longer raised their children, as they died, went to prison or simply stopped caring.

This produced a fascinating result, if only for social psychologists. A hunter gatherer society with the modern world as their foraging area. 

We humans have a large programmable space. Our upbringing and education make us civilized modern human beings. As for the poor ghetto children, enough of them found themselves without much parental input and education. Without this, people can only form the most primitive example of human culture. The hunter gatherer society. Or in modern words: the gang. Their hunting ground became all of society. Their activities are mostly limited to their immediate environment, the ghetto, and to their immediate needs, survival. Their prey, money, lives everywhere. It is the only usable substance that can be hunter-gathered form the concrete jungle. It converts into anything, food, housing, sex, etc. So while ghetto style crime is mainly black on black, it does also spread out to anywhere money can be found.

A characteristic of these ghetto gangs is that they mostly consist of males and have a very poor attitude towards females, merely regarding them as sex objects. The males of our species from hierarchical groups very quickly by assessing each others strengths via non lethal and often seemingly harmless interaction. Boasting and posturing are among these. A leader arises and choses his lieutenants. They develop the culture and set the goals. Of course sometimes there is violence within human groups, often between two alpha males. But it is far less than a lot of other mammalian species. Chimpanzees and wolves do the same. This is because we are social animals that rely on having all the available males as active members of our groups. It gives us a survival edge: manpower. As for many other species, like Elephants, all males compete with lethal force for the right to mate, and do not form part of the social group afterwards, but lead solitary lives. This leaves these species much more vulnerable to predation. All of us human males engage in this behavior. In the school yard, in the club house and even at work we form our clubs with leaders and lieutenants.

In ordinary hunter-gatherer societies respect for females is present. Initially boys and girls form separate groups in any society. Interactions and friendships do occur with great frequency, however it is the presence of strong positive pro female adult role models that cements the male-female relationship.

Without strong positive pro female adult role models the much more aggressive and more cohesive boy groups tend to not be able to interact with females on an equal level after they grow up. Many societies all over the world still have similar problems (Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kenia, South Africa, etc.). The ghetto society certainly has this problem.

In summary, we can say that drugs and poverty produced male dominated sexist gangs. Evidence of this can be found in many cultural expressions, such as TV series, movies and music. It can be found in prison populations. The prevailing image of the gangster-rapper found its origin in this phenomenon. It is also a factor in the ratio of black to white prisoners. Ghetto culture reinforces white discrimination.

A few answers

Now as for the questions. We can now answer some. Poverty created the ghettos and a higher than average crime rate. Drugs created the gangsta rappers, gangs, broken families and thus an even higher crime rate. This part of the reason there are more black people in jail per 100.000 units than white people. 
These factors also created the infamous African American ghetto behavior. A predatory form of behavior, accompanied with bad language, slang, hostility, and sexism. The gang banger. However, this behavior has been very much popularized via various forms of media. It's a source of entertainment. It remains a question for this writer how much of the African American population actually behaves like this. Martin Luther King and his followers certainly didn't.
Especially the defective family unit and defective neighborhood culture in the ghetto seem to be large contributers to the social misery that the black man lays claim to.

It should be obvious that these factors also contributed to a relatively low participation in the higher levels of society.

Note: there are white gangs too, who behave in the same fashion. However, for any group goes the following. Criminals within our own group are perceived as, well, criminals. Criminals in other groups, well... the whole group is perceived as criminal.

We have taken an extensive look at how and why the Scala of present black communities have developed the way they did. We mostly just hinted at one of the most important factors. So let's take a look now at the social constraint faced by any black community in the USA. White people.

A vicious cycle of discrimination

So how did the whites behave from the start of abolition till today? Let's first take a look at their mental content and circumstances.

Mental content

A possible psychology of former masters

Identity: the best people in the world. The proper people. The good sort of people. The right people.

Personality: confident, optimistic, superior.

A possible attitude of former masters

Life strategy: continue as before. Generally, a confident and optimistic go-getter.

Circumstances

The circumstances white people found themselves in also varied. Many areas in the South found themselves suddenly poor. The industrial revolution also continued or created great divisions in wealth and opportunity. However, in general white people had a higher level of access to power, work, education and housing.

Outcome

Of course a whole Scala of white communities developed (or continued). This happens in any group faced by historical change. However the differences between these communities were much less pronounced. They had a shared mental content and life strategy. White was the main overal culture. There was nothing to resist for white people. No negative stimulant to take different cultural and behavioral roads, depending on your education, wealth and power. The change after abolition had much less impact, especially in the North which relied on paid white industrial workers, as opposed to forced agricultural laborers.

So how did white people treat others after the end of slavery? Let's take a look at some factors.

Factors in the discrimination of non whites

1. The mechanics of discrimination. Salient features of the African American are skin color and perceived behavior. Skin color is just a physical feature. It has salience because it contrasts with white. It forms the initial basis for the perception 'hey those people are not like us'. However it is explained in the mechanics of discrimination that this feature need not have any (lasting) effect. It really depends on intimate familiarity with people of different color. Your own experience. If you grow up in a mixed community, it is likely your perspective vastly differs from that of a person growing up in an all white community.

When it comes to discrimination what we teach members of our own group is very important, especially when we have limited experience with the different people. Since this was so from the start, the the image of the good for nothing black slave prevailed, also preventing future interaction. It has been carried among whites to this date. Most whites can not be faulted for never having had a real conversation with a black person. They have just been taught by their enviroment that black is black and white is white.

2. The ghetto culture. As explained before, the development of the black ghetto is a natural phenomenon. It has nothing to do with being black, purple or orange. It has everything to do with poverty, drugs, culture and power. However, ghetto culture has been popularized. Both as a seductively primitive and violent life style and as a dangerous threat hanging over society. Seductive to the grey office worker driving to work or the teenager in his room. Dangerous to anyone with possessions or wives. It doesn't matter that most black crime is black on black. It doesn't matter that the majority of black people on this planet are decent. Ghetto is the prevailing image. It feeds into the mechanics of discrimination. It reinforces discrimination.

3. Power. Imagine white people as a herd of fat cows. Why should they do what you want? Because of the wolf, the big bad black wolf. As explained in the mechanics of discrimination, those that realize how mankind works, can exploit it. Isis does it. Bad Wolf: America. America does it. Bad Wolf: black people and now also Muslims. China does it. Bad Wolf: Japanese, Koreans, Americans. African Hutu tribal members do it. Bad Wolf: African Tutsi clansmen. Dutch people do it. Bad Wolf: those against cheese and wooden shoes (mainly the Belgiums, who wrongly swear to bonbons and leather shoes).

4. Greed. Imagine again white people as a herd of fat cows. How do you get them to handover their milk and meat? The bad wolf again.

As a lesser factor: greed also plays an important factor in gang banging. And, most obviously but never stated: in gangsta rapper music. There are two types of gansta rapper: old skool and commercial. Old school rappers produce protests songs. They shine a light on social misery. Like the rapper Chase. Commercial rappers sell danger and excitement to the white man and black man alike, at the expense of their own communities. Example: well you probably know better than me. There is no way you actually have a shot at getting rich when there is a thousand people trying. You are much more likely to die trying in the resulting melee. Generally for most individuals (you) it is better to cooperate in a civil enterprise than to do crime in a violent gang in the futile hope of getting all the bitches. Only bankers get away with that (and only because they do cooperate).

5. Stupidity. Incredibly, even people in high office, those you would expect to understand the mechanics of discrimination still fall victim to it. What you are taught during early life, your upbringing, is a very powerful factor.

 

The result

These factors, among others, produce a vicious cycle of discrimination. Self reinforcing. Power lust and greed keep feeding the basic human system, the mechanics of discrimination. It has produced some interesting results. Among them, the return of slavery. Countless black people convicted of minor offenses now labor in prisons for the greed of commercial operators. Police are taught to hate black and summoned to fill monthly quotas. Laws are formed and enforced in a way to oppress those with a different skin color. All to keep black people poor, and, as a result, their image that of a dangerous subhuman. The Obama presidency itself has even been presented by right wing mass media outlets as a dangerous phenomenon. Of course behind this example lays a ordinary power struggle between the progressive and the exploitative. But there are no scruples felt when using the skin color of this president as a scare for mentally vulnerable people.

Isolated events versus real issue

The question:

Why is this issue still here? Or are we dealing with just a few isolated events blown up by media?

can be partly answered. There is now a theoretical framework to support the claim that the African issue still exists and that we are not dealing with isolated events. The factors behind the persistence over time are white racism, social economic differences and black culture. However the relative influence of these factors remains undetermined.

How much does white racism hold back the black community?

What is the effect of the ghetto culture on the life of the black man?

Sadly this author does not have sufficient data to determine what the main cause of the black suffering would be. All that has been put forth, is a theoretical framework on how human groups work, and a theoretical analysis of the historical interaction of certain groups in America. Not how big the impact of a specific factor is on daily life.
We did look at a lot of figures earlier. I explained how humans work in general. This might give you the idea of: Well hey, now it get it all. We live in a racist society, which is a natural phenomenon. The black man is the victim since they started out as slaves. However, do note, i just gave a few figures of how jobs are divided. I did not give any figures of how people came to hold these jobs. The general theory of how human groups work is not by itself sufficient proof to justify social action. Nor is the theoretical analysis of how this mechanic and the various starting positions produced the current divisions. That racism is natural, and when it comes to America, that the black man is the main recipient, does not mean that it is necessarily a significant factor in black lives. Perhaps the consequence of early discrimination, the ghetto, and the subsequent criminalization of drugs produced a new and much more significant factor that holds back black people: the ghetto culture. If you grow up in poverty with the ideals of mo' money mo' bitches, the man is out to get you and gangbanging is more important than education, well...  Who is to say? A good study by professional scientists could give us the answers.
In any case, a real problem for the movement seems to be the high horse effect. How much of the movement is based on opinions and beliefs, and how much on reality? There is a real possibility for unnecessary violence when people get high on beliefs and forgo the concious act of examination.
White racism is claimed as the most significant issue for blacks to be worried about. That we are not dealing with isolated events is clear. That white racism still exists is also clear. It might be a significant factor in the shootings. However if this racism is based on old beliefs or the perceptions generated by the ghetto culture remains undetermined. Next the sole focus on racism by the movement closes the option for unbiased examination of the status quo. Low social-economic participation seems the real African issue in America, racism is merely a possible causal factor of undetermined size. It is possible that a divergence from the popular media hiped ghetto culture by everyone might help to resolve black poverty and as a consequence significantly alter the perception of blacks in the US.

The message i hope the reader takes from the analysis is the following:  

Do i really know enough to conclude what the main cause is behind the underparticipation of black people in America? 

Perhaps i just hold a belief. 

It's better to reserve judgment and ask questions than to accuse and hate.

The absence of the leader

The question:

Why is this issue still here?

can be answered in more ways than one. We can also look at leadership. Apartheid in South Africa was defeated by a great leader, Mandela. The same happened in India via Ghandi and for the suffragettes via Emmeline Pankhurst. These leaders embodied the movement and focussed it's efforts. Furthermore, they promoted an image of the equality. They showed that blacks, Indians and women are normal human beings with the same feelings as we have. This image was underpinned by the use of non violent and dignified protest. Since the death of King, there has not been one clear leader of the black emancipation movement.

Conclusion

We have answered all the questions. We know that the different starting points of the peoples of America resulted naturally via the mechanics of discrimination in a divided and unequal society early on. The interests of greed and power try to keep it this way. If and by how much there has been change between then and now we do not know. The mechanics of discrimination never stop working, however the factors that are relevant to the proces do. Change does often occur. The actual level of white racism is unknown. There can be no doubt it exists (see: the clan) however the size of this factor is unknown. Perhaps an anonimous study among whites is a good idea.
Poverty and drugs are certainly major factors in the creation and continuation of the black ghetto culture, which in turn seems to be a major component in the continual reinforcement of white discrimination and black underachieving. This ghetto culture is a consequence of historic racism and drugs. It could potentially outlive the early racial concepts from the days just after the abolition. It surely makes it harder to determine without research what factors cause which effects on what scale when it comes to African Americans.
It is dangerous to blame specific groups of people for the phenomenon of black underparticipation, even if racism is the main factor. We are all ruled by the mechanics of humanity. There is no actual difference between black and white, except the superficial color of the skin. It's difference itself that matters. If we had been orange and purple, orange lives matter would still have happened. And if we lived together in a big mix instead of separate neighborhoods, perhaps we would only have half the problems we do now. The salience of skin color would decrease sharply. It's all simply human nature acting out. Any solution would lay in education, and alteration of the factors that keep groups apart.
As for the movement.. It should be clear that beliefs and opinions will not get us very far, without an effort to determine cause and effect through scientific analysis. A belief does not necessarily match reality. There is also a danger that people get carried away by their beliefs and become high. Violence can be a consequence. The black lives matter movement can only achieve their goals in a way that is fair to all of society if they seek to build a body of scientific data that can be shared with all and present it in a neutral narrative. It is natural that shootings produce great anger, but as Yoda said, that will only lead to the darkside. And last but not least, a great leader is needed to carry the movement.

Now that we have come to the end of the analysis, we can safely state the following: since the inequality in wealth, power and social participation, no matter the causes, does continue to exist between various racial groups that comprise America, racial malcontent will remain a reoccurring phenomenon in American society. 

Afterthoughts

Some suggestions quite apart from the attempt at objective analysis:

If you want change: it is up to those that understand how humans work to teach others. Hopefully you goal won't be black lives matter. Because they don't. There is no black and white. Peoples lives matter. Are you a person, or your skin color?

As has been shown before by Martin Luther King, the suffragettes, Gandhi and many others: the best way to get a powerful civilized society to see your point of view is continued non violent protest. Violent revolution only works if you have the majority.