From my experience, most people on the proverbial left have a hard time recognizing the extent to which violent crime is so prevalent amongst young black males, and when they do, the root of the problem is reduced to “systemic racism,” and the solutions are viewed as abstractions like “dismantling white supremacy.” Not to say that historical realities like redlining don’t play a major part in this phenomenon, but racism is. often viewed as a sort of original sin that is to be addressed with repentance, not concrete political change.

When policy is discussed, the conversation tends to shift towards of over-correction of criminal justice mistakes of the past that borders on nihilism and runs counter to what the vast majority of black voters actually support. Attempts to address the class dynamics with a materialist analysis are met with charges of “economic reductionism” and acknowledgement of the cultural aspects, especially the decline of the black family, that while overemphasized by conservatives is still certainly a major factor, is met with outright hostility.

More importantly, as evidenced by this thread, when white “normies,” for lack of a better term, express their concerns about violent black teenagers causing harm to their businesses and the general quality of life of their neighborhoods, they’re met with derision from liberals/leftists and often accused of being straight up fascists for daring to care about the safety of themselves and their neighbors…. And when black normies say the same things, they’re straight up ignored because they’re not going along with the narrative that black people are helpless victims of an oppressive system with no agency.

In general, I think there’s a lot of white guilt that clouds people’s ability to recognize thr social causes that perpetuate racism, that the fear of “ghetto” blacks is based on, to use the parlance of our times, “lived experience.” Which of course is not to say that racism doesn’t unfairly harm the vast majority of black people, including young black men, who are just normal, law-abiding citizens trying to live their lives like everyone else. What it means is that until the complex socio-economic issues that cause the disparity in violent crime amongst young black men (which hurts working black women more than anyone!) are addressed, the social problems caused by that violence will continue to perpetuate racist sentiments, damaging the ability to create the political will through a diverse working class coalition to solve the root of these problems.

I do think there are plenty of serious political thinkers out there who have a good understanding of the problem and possible solutions, ranging from restructuring the welfare state to encourage family building, to delocalizing school funding, to tying industrial policy to vocational training programs in poor areas (both urban and rural) that lost their moorings during deindustrialization. The problem is the discourse is so fraught on the left, that talking outside of the narrow strictures of the culturally ascendent professional-managerial elite is severely frowned upon.