The black culture of defiance and its continuing expansion

Irv P. writes:

I just had a chance to view the video of the brawl in the subway station. This is not something new to my eyes and ears. For many years I was witness to and was immersed personally in hundreds—yes, hundreds—of these “situations” (as in a school administrator or school security guard saying over his walkie-talkie, “We have a situation here!”).

This is not atypical behavior. It goes on to some degree every time these kids don’t get their way. Years ago I coined a phrase at a school leadership meeting (set up by then chancellor Rudy Crew, consisting of parents, teachers, administrators). I said that our school had and encouraged a “culture of defiance.” I tried to explain to the others in attendance what I meant by this. In vain, I tried to contrast how our dysfunctional school operated, with a functional school such as the ones my own kids attended. The biggest difference was in the overall culture of the school, culture being loosely defined as “the way we do things here.” In a functional, civilized environment, rules are seen as necessary for the good of most participants, and enforcement is desired by nearly all. Sanctions are expected for misbehavior, with consequences increasing if modification of behavior is not evidenced. In the culture of defiance, everyone is “taught” by the way we DON’T do things here, that they can get away with almost anything and defiantly shout “Don’t touch me, get off of me and F … you” or the rule breaker may just walk away knowing that nothing of significance will ever be done to make him regret his actions. This culture has been growing steadily for about 43 years. I would place its origins at the time of the Ocean Hill-Brownsville community school board take over in 1968 (although white liberals in the education establishment had been pushing for decentralization for several years before it came into being). It may have even been the beginning stages of “Black Run America.”

What you are seeing in this video is the school culture of defiance taken into the public realm by an ever emboldened pampered “defier,” just as all of the mob convenience store robberies, fairground “wildings” and the like are expressions of this same phenomenon.

The restraint you see by the police exists because they know that they can’t win if their behavior turns “unprofessional.” It is what I call the “he said damn” defense, known and used cunningly by instigators like the girl swinging her striped bag at the cop in the video. If he used his baton on her, the entire focus now becomes his actions rather than the fare jumpers’. In schools with cultures of defiance, the angered kid will curse the poor schnook teacher with every expletive known to man and beast. At some point the overwhelmed pedagogue will utter something like “That’s enough, damn it.” The kid will then say “Why you cursin me … you cursin me.” That may or may not get the teacher to erupt even further. If he does, better for the kid. If he maintains his cool, he’s still sunk when and if the parent is summoned, because the feckless administrator, usually black, will invariably take the side of the underprivileged family against the unprofessionalism of the interloping white teacher (or Uncle/Aunt Tom teacher). In their minds, whoever defends this civilization is an enemy. You see, they realize they are taking over, and keep putting their toes in the water to see just how far they can go.

As you have said time and again, until the majority in our society reassert their dominance over our culture, with confidence, courage and resolve, we will only continue to see the dismantling of this once great Republic.

- end of initial entry -

Mark Jaws writes:

Ahh, Irv P. walked me down memory lane reliving the good old days at Corlears Junior High School 56 on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. I remember fondly the antics of the black and Puerto Rican lads who terrorized the remaining white (Jewish) kids still around in 1967. Within seven years, by the time my youngest sister entered the JHS, the white school population had shrunk to under five percent. But why did Lower East Side Jews engage in white flight and refuse the joys of diversity, particularly when their uptown cousins at the New York Times spoke so highly of it?

Well, maybe the Jewish girls did not appreciate the constant probing of brown and black hands up their thighs on the stairwells. Or the scrawny and pale red headed kid did not like having to turn his lunch money over to Juan, particularly with a knife pointed at his chest. And the piece de resistance of the lads was their stripping and attempted penetration of the young Turkish immigrant boy because his father had kicked them out of his candy store on Grand Street for shoplifting.

Oh, to have had the privilege of seeing the monstrosity known today as Black Run America take its first baby steps while white Jewish liberals stood passively by with their mouths open and their feet pointed towards Long Island. I was blessed indeed.

A female reader writes:

I remember back in the 1970s that people used to criticize whites for moving out of neighborhoods that blacks were moving into, because it was so wrong to assume that the neighborhood would go downhill and turn into a crime-infested ghetto. Yet today, blacks are fairly open about not wanting Whitey even visiting their neighborhoods, and ditto for Hispanics in Hispanic neighborhoods. Enter Funkytown at your own very considerable risk.

I have always had my own theory on teens-gone-bad. The first generation without a daddy in the house produces some delinquent boys, but some of the boys and most of the girls turn out OK because of the influence of Grampa, Uncle Fred, Sunday school teachers, Scout leaders, etc. But most of the boys and girls from these families grow up to have children out of wedlock themselves, and their own children produce feral boys (Great Grampa is now dead) and a mix of feral and highly-dysfunctional girls. The third generation out from having a daddy in the house is COMPLETELY feral. They have been raised by bad-ass mommas and abused in every way imaginable by an endless series of paramours, and the neighborhood no longer has ANY positive male role models of any kind, nor does it have any married couples. The schools are staffed by women from dysfunctional homes, etc. The behavior of young black males has been getting worse since the ’70s, or even earlier, but prior to say 1990, or even 2000, you did not see nearly as many out-of-control teenaged females.

Did you know that by the age of 21, one out of every three black women has a shoplifting conviction? People with experience with security have said that any time blacks walk into a store you should assume that they intend to walk out with freebies. I wonder what percentage of blacks NEVER buy a subway ticket unless they KNOW that they are being watched.

LA replies:

But according to “Culturalist John” Press, “the vast majority of Black people are wonderful law abiding and productive citizens.”

Press therefore must presumably believe either that blacks’ universal ecstasy over the acquittal of O.J. Simpson in October 1995 was a further demonstration that the vast majority of blacks are wonderful law abiding citizens, or, at the least, that blacks’ universal ecstasy at Simpson’s acquittal did not suggest that they were not wonderful law-abiding citizens.

I took a different take on it at the time. I said that it demonstrated that the majority of blacks were anti-police and pro-criminal.

Irv P. replies to female reader:

Yes, you are right on target about the progression of decadence going hand in hand with the absence of daddy or any male figures in the neighborhood. The school should be acting as Uncle Fred, Sunday school, etc. However, by its complete negligence in using any institutional muscle, it has sent out the signal that defiance is acceptable. School and its personnel are no longer given the respect of authority. Nearly all NYC schools are run by black administrators who condone the mayhem by their silence and cover up, or by their indictment of those who try to enforce some behavioral standards. Regardless of what happens on a given day, tomorrow all is forgiven and forgotten. Swept under the rug. And people wonder why Jamal and Lakeisha can’t write a cogent paragraph or read even close to grade level.

As to the shoplifting and fare beating: If the cops in uniform were white, they probably would have ignored the whole thing because they know it’s a no win situation. The brats become incensed when they are caught red handed by black cops or diligent teachers and break out their bag of tricks that has worked for them time after time. They’re always smart enough to know how to “get over.”

Finally, yes, the mammas of today were the defiant ones just a few years ago. They got over. They expect their kids to also. Shouting real loud and acting like spoiled bullies worked for them. They pass it right along. You’re also quite correct about the abuse from their paramours. My wife was a guidance counselor who was privy to things that would make your hair stand up!

Sophia A. writes:

I have never read anything more searingly honest and beautifully written than Irv P.’s comment on black defiance. All I can say is, “bravo.”

All of us of a certain age have witnessed black defiance many times over. And we can all remember a time when it wasn’t daily fare. In fact, some of us are old enough to remember when blacks considered this default reflexive defiance deviant and self-defeating.

What makes this all the more horrible is that the defiance, once considered low-class and deviant, has become so normative that it characterizes black behavior up the line, encompassing the black elite. I’m not talking about rap stars (although their valorization is certainly a part of this disgusting phenomenon). I am referring to people such as Henry Louis Gates. Behaving defiantly towards “the Man” is your proof that you haven’t sold out, that you are authentically black. Keepin’ it real.

I don’t think this will end soon, at least, not in our lifetimes. This is something that will burn itself out eventually, but not by human agency. It will just happen.

Mark Jaws’ comment was hilarious.

October 12

Sophia A. writes:

It strikes me that the culture of defiance is everywhere in our society, not just blacks. In Amy Chua’s book, THE BATTLE HYMN OF THE TIGER MOTHER, she observes rather wittily that one of her jobs as a “Tiger Mother” was to nullify the effect of a major popular culture trope on her daughters. This trope was the rebellious cheeky female, who goes against everything she is taught by her parents and brought up to be. (Whether Chua’s approach is right or wrong is irrelevant to this discussion, what’s relevant is: she’s quite right about the trope, and she certainly was successful in nullifying its effects on her older daughter. And her younger daughter—who was rebellious—didn’t turn out so badly.)

Now, this culture of defiance, if diffused in the right way, can turn out some incredible products. I get stomach acid when I read empty phrases about “teaching kids to think creatively” because I know that it’s usually just a cover-up for massive educational AND PARENTAL failure, but—isn’t thinking creatively how America produced guys like Steve Jobs?

When you encourage kids to think creatively, it is in a sense, a culture of defiance. But it is OK to do that when families are solid, when the kids are grounded in the basics, when you have mastered a subject. Another example would be the Israeli chemist who just won the Nobel Prize. He came up with an idea so weird he was ridiculed and kicked off his research team.

That was a case of intellectual defiance, no? The thing is, the Israeli chemist was right. He knew his stuff. He had mastered a difficult subject. In any case, he was defying people. He wasn’t defying nature.

The thing about black defiance is that it is empty, childish, and grounded in nothing but existential resentment. It defies nature itself. It can never be assuaged. It can only be put down by a concerted effort, or as I earlier said, burn itself out for lack of oxygen. We won’t do the former, so it will have to be the latter.

Kristor writes:

Sophia A. writes of black defiance:

I don’t think this will end soon, at least, not in our lifetimes. This is something that will burn itself out eventually, but not by human agency. It will just happen

But of course black defiance is sustained in existence, given room for existence, by human agency. It is a creature of the welfare state. Cease that massive work of continuous human agency, and blacks would soon discover that they had to start getting along to go along. There would be riots first, of course. But they would play themselves out after a few days without food, heat and electricity.

Nik S. writes:

The depressing demographic trends would not be nearly so significant if whites were still held to traditional standards of excellence. Unfortunately excellence has been forsaken for equality, and now many would-be high-achieving whites have actually dumbed themselves down so that they can better fit in. Individual blacks rarely achieve true academic distinction, so the schools put their emphasis on athletics instead. Since blacks are cool and whites are not, athletics are cool and academics are not. What this means is that any bright, young white guy’s coolness in high school will not be gained via academic achievement. He will find it through other means: by playing football, ditching school, or doing drugs. But academic success? Save it for the nerds. Intelligent, athletic young white men find themselves in a quandary. They can either be jocks or dweebs, but both? Banish the thought. We can’t have the same guy in high school be BOTH the quarterback AND the valedictorian. That would reek of unequal opportunity. Can’t we just let every dog have his day?

LA writes:

Nicholas Stix responds to Irv P.’s essay. He has an apocalyptic view of race relations in America.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at October 11, 2011 05:17 PM | Send