45 murders in 31 days
August 29, 2015 5:03 PM Subscribe
"July saw 45 homicides across Baltimore, a toll that matched the deadliest month in the city’s modern history and came amid a violent crime surge that has stretched the entire summer. The killings occurred across the city, overwhelmingly in historically impoverished neighborhoods. The victims included a 5-month-old boy and a 53-year-old grandmother, a teen stabbed to death in a dispute over a cell phone and a carryout deliveryman killed in a robbery. The Baltimore Sun sought to profile each victim, through interviews with relatives, friends, neighbors and police, as well as information on social media — and to chronicle the impact on those left behind."
Its like a Season VI of The Wire; over and over again.
posted by buzzman at 7:47 PM on August 29, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by buzzman at 7:47 PM on August 29, 2015 [2 favorites]
I keep thinking about Beachhouse, Colby Keller, John Waters--about the white boy cultural elite poltiical shit that people think is political, and i think about these black kids. I get so angry, i am angry about all of this, but the blindness of White Liberal America to all of this is a huge part of this.
posted by PinkMoose at 8:39 PM on August 29, 2015 [5 favorites]
posted by PinkMoose at 8:39 PM on August 29, 2015 [5 favorites]
SELECT A HOMICIDE VICTIM TO READ THEIR STORY
And so you should. Fuck.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 10:03 PM on August 29, 2015
And so you should. Fuck.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 10:03 PM on August 29, 2015
45 murders in July
Tip of the iceberg. The Baltimore Sun keeps a running tally.
32 in August
45 in July
29 in June
42 in May
22 in April
15 in March
13 in February
23 in Jaunary
I guess the best Baltimore can hope for is a long, cold winter.
.. the blindness of White Liberal America to all of this is a huge part of this.
Blindness is probably not the right word unless you add the adjective "ideological" in front of it. Although 43 of July's victims were black, poverty and not race would seem to be the common thread.
Martin O'Malley's record as Baltimore mayor is key to his 2016 bid.
posted by three blind mice at 11:11 PM on August 29, 2015
Tip of the iceberg. The Baltimore Sun keeps a running tally.
32 in August
45 in July
29 in June
42 in May
22 in April
15 in March
13 in February
23 in Jaunary
I guess the best Baltimore can hope for is a long, cold winter.
.. the blindness of White Liberal America to all of this is a huge part of this.
Blindness is probably not the right word unless you add the adjective "ideological" in front of it. Although 43 of July's victims were black, poverty and not race would seem to be the common thread.
Martin O'Malley's record as Baltimore mayor is key to his 2016 bid.
posted by three blind mice at 11:11 PM on August 29, 2015
I agree that "ideological blindness" is a more accurate term. We see it, we just don't care.
posted by zoinks at 11:21 PM on August 29, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by zoinks at 11:21 PM on August 29, 2015 [1 favorite]
It's actually not like The Wire at all, buzzman. Because as wise and humane as the show is, it's still a scripted television program-- and this is real life.
posted by balmore at 11:28 PM on August 29, 2015 [5 favorites]
posted by balmore at 11:28 PM on August 29, 2015 [5 favorites]
Blindness is probably not the right word unless you add the adjective "ideological" in front of it. Although 43 of July's victims were black, poverty and not race would seem to be the common thread.
Class in America is deeply constructed from race and moreover, black affluence doesn't even hold a candle to white poverty:
Class in America is deeply constructed from race and moreover, black affluence doesn't even hold a candle to white poverty:
So this idea that we can just change the subject and pretend that middle-class blacks and whites are, somehow, the same is erroneous. They aren't. Black people — regardless of class — live around way more poverty than even poor white people. Incidentally, this is also the reason one should be very skeptical when people say things like "controlling for income" or "controlling for class." For black people, class is racism. We should not be shocked by this. We've had some 350 years worth of policy with that exact goal. America is working as intended.posted by Ouverture at 12:04 AM on August 30, 2015 [18 favorites]
"Remember how the media made a huge fuss over Chicago's homicide rate recently? That city saw 52 homicides in July 2015--but it has several times the population of Baltimore."
US Census data for 2013 gives Chicago's population as 2.7m and Baltimore's as 0.6m - which makes Chicago 4.5 times bigger.
Baltimore's 45 murders represent one for every 13,824 citizens there, which translated to Chicago at the same per capita rate, would have produced 195 murders in 31 days. Divide your own city's population by that 13,824 figure to see what Baltimore murder levels would look like where you live.
posted by Paul Slade at 2:06 AM on August 30, 2015 [5 favorites]
US Census data for 2013 gives Chicago's population as 2.7m and Baltimore's as 0.6m - which makes Chicago 4.5 times bigger.
Baltimore's 45 murders represent one for every 13,824 citizens there, which translated to Chicago at the same per capita rate, would have produced 195 murders in 31 days. Divide your own city's population by that 13,824 figure to see what Baltimore murder levels would look like where you live.
posted by Paul Slade at 2:06 AM on August 30, 2015 [5 favorites]
Wow. I started reading the profiles and then had to start just scanning. So many young people. So many families. And yes, the fact that all the victims were black - except for the baby killed by the suicidal mother- really brought home the racial divide to me.
posted by biggreenplant at 5:20 AM on August 30, 2015
posted by biggreenplant at 5:20 AM on August 30, 2015
Good god. Horrible.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 5:41 AM on August 30, 2015
posted by flapjax at midnite at 5:41 AM on August 30, 2015
Eesh. To my recollection (I'm 47), that's more homicides in a month than Toronto has ever had in a year. The population here is 2.6M.
posted by You Should See the Other Guy at 6:50 AM on August 30, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by You Should See the Other Guy at 6:50 AM on August 30, 2015 [1 favorite]
Jaswinder Singh — killed in a robbery — came to America from India four years ago, against the advice of his relatives.
Why on earth would anyone moving to America from another country decide on Baltimore?
posted by You Should See the Other Guy at 6:55 AM on August 30, 2015
Why on earth would anyone moving to America from another country decide on Baltimore?
posted by You Should See the Other Guy at 6:55 AM on August 30, 2015
Why on earth would anyone moving to America from another country decide on Baltimore?
Because it's cheap, at least in the neighborhood that you move to. Because you know a guy who's already there. Because there aren't any stores in the neighborhood and you see an opportunity there. Because things are just that bad where you're from. Because whatever other negatives Baltimore has, it also has a world-class university. Lots of reasons.
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:21 AM on August 30, 2015 [6 favorites]
Because it's cheap, at least in the neighborhood that you move to. Because you know a guy who's already there. Because there aren't any stores in the neighborhood and you see an opportunity there. Because things are just that bad where you're from. Because whatever other negatives Baltimore has, it also has a world-class university. Lots of reasons.
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:21 AM on August 30, 2015 [6 favorites]
Although 43 of July's victims were black, poverty and not race would seem to be the common thread.
Could there be a more textbook example of white liberal blindness? You're confronted with a lineup where over 95% of murder victims are black, you acknowledge it, and then you say that race isn't the common thread.
One of the galling things about statements like that is that while you actually know their race, you just assume that they're poor. The Long Shadow, a 2014 sociology book about the prospects of children who grow up in the Baltimore ghetto, starts by examining the assumption that the ghetto is monolithically poor, uneducated, and unemployed. The authors position themselves against David Simon's vision of black Baltimore, particularly in The Corner, which is a remarkably one-sided image of urban realities even as it presents itself as a journalistic portrait of a neighborhood. Simon affirms the white liberal assumption that those who live in the ghetto are poor, uneducated, and unemployed, and that almost all have lives intimately connected to the drug trade. One thing that Simon gets right is that it's a violent neighborhood. Five people have been killed within a three block radius of Simon's corner this year.
However, while there is a lot of poverty and there are a lot of people connected to the drug trade in Franklin Square, the neighborhood Simon writes about, there's more diversity than people often assume. The authors of The Long Shadow show this using census data. In 2000 the poverty cutoff line for a family of four was $17,050. 42% of Franklin Square households earned more than $25,000. 25% earned over $35,000. Unemployment rates are quite high (18%ish of those in the labor force), but on the other hand about 80%ish of Franklin Square residents in the labor force are employed, 40%ish of whom are in jobs outside the service and labor sectors. And one would do well to keep in mind that the black and grey markets flourish in poor neighborhoods, so many of the unemployed likely work in the informal economy and census reported income statistics do not represent the full story of poverty in the neighborhood. While the neighborhood as a neighborhood is obviously and deeply disadvantaged, the economic status of households in the neighborhood varies significantly, and many people who live in the ghetto are essentially middle class (at least where income and not wealth is concerned).
So, while you're right to believe that it's likely that many of the victims here were impoverished, to call it a common thread - and especially a thread more common than race - is an extreme oversell based on false assumptions. That isn't to say that class isn't an important factor, but being black and living in a disadvantaged and segregated neighborhood is clearly and unambiguously the common thread here. I suppose there's a way to spin that as being about class. However, it's not the poverty of the victims (which, again, you can't infer with real confidence) but the way that lower and middle class black people are affected differently by their economic status.
posted by vathek at 7:29 AM on August 30, 2015 [20 favorites]
Could there be a more textbook example of white liberal blindness? You're confronted with a lineup where over 95% of murder victims are black, you acknowledge it, and then you say that race isn't the common thread.
One of the galling things about statements like that is that while you actually know their race, you just assume that they're poor. The Long Shadow, a 2014 sociology book about the prospects of children who grow up in the Baltimore ghetto, starts by examining the assumption that the ghetto is monolithically poor, uneducated, and unemployed. The authors position themselves against David Simon's vision of black Baltimore, particularly in The Corner, which is a remarkably one-sided image of urban realities even as it presents itself as a journalistic portrait of a neighborhood. Simon affirms the white liberal assumption that those who live in the ghetto are poor, uneducated, and unemployed, and that almost all have lives intimately connected to the drug trade. One thing that Simon gets right is that it's a violent neighborhood. Five people have been killed within a three block radius of Simon's corner this year.
However, while there is a lot of poverty and there are a lot of people connected to the drug trade in Franklin Square, the neighborhood Simon writes about, there's more diversity than people often assume. The authors of The Long Shadow show this using census data. In 2000 the poverty cutoff line for a family of four was $17,050. 42% of Franklin Square households earned more than $25,000. 25% earned over $35,000. Unemployment rates are quite high (18%ish of those in the labor force), but on the other hand about 80%ish of Franklin Square residents in the labor force are employed, 40%ish of whom are in jobs outside the service and labor sectors. And one would do well to keep in mind that the black and grey markets flourish in poor neighborhoods, so many of the unemployed likely work in the informal economy and census reported income statistics do not represent the full story of poverty in the neighborhood. While the neighborhood as a neighborhood is obviously and deeply disadvantaged, the economic status of households in the neighborhood varies significantly, and many people who live in the ghetto are essentially middle class (at least where income and not wealth is concerned).
So, while you're right to believe that it's likely that many of the victims here were impoverished, to call it a common thread - and especially a thread more common than race - is an extreme oversell based on false assumptions. That isn't to say that class isn't an important factor, but being black and living in a disadvantaged and segregated neighborhood is clearly and unambiguously the common thread here. I suppose there's a way to spin that as being about class. However, it's not the poverty of the victims (which, again, you can't infer with real confidence) but the way that lower and middle class black people are affected differently by their economic status.
posted by vathek at 7:29 AM on August 30, 2015 [20 favorites]
US Census data for 2013 gives Chicago's population as 2.7m and Baltimore's as 0.6m - which makes Chicago 4.5 times bigger.
Baltimore's 45 murders represent one for every 13,824 citizens there, which translated to Chicago at the same per capita rate, would have produced 195 murders in 31 days. Divide your own city's population by that 13,824 figure to see what Baltimore murder levels would look like where you live.
The neighborhoods in Chicago where the murders are concentrated are probably smaller than Baltimore's population.
posted by srboisvert at 10:25 AM on August 30, 2015
Baltimore's 45 murders represent one for every 13,824 citizens there, which translated to Chicago at the same per capita rate, would have produced 195 murders in 31 days. Divide your own city's population by that 13,824 figure to see what Baltimore murder levels would look like where you live.
The neighborhoods in Chicago where the murders are concentrated are probably smaller than Baltimore's population.
posted by srboisvert at 10:25 AM on August 30, 2015
The neighborhoods in Chicago where the murders are concentrated are probably smaller than Baltimore's population.
Maybe so, but why would you compare only part of Chicago to the whole city of Baltimore?
The only way to make a like-to-like comparison on that kind of basis would be to compare the most violent neighbourhoods alone in each city. If reliable population statistics exist making it possible to do that in a statistically valid way, it would be very interesting to see the results.
Until then, total population figures seem to be our best hope of getting some grasp on the per capita murder rate - and it's that per capita figure which really brings the scale of Baltimore's problem home.
posted by Paul Slade at 11:09 AM on August 30, 2015
Maybe so, but why would you compare only part of Chicago to the whole city of Baltimore?
The only way to make a like-to-like comparison on that kind of basis would be to compare the most violent neighbourhoods alone in each city. If reliable population statistics exist making it possible to do that in a statistically valid way, it would be very interesting to see the results.
Until then, total population figures seem to be our best hope of getting some grasp on the per capita murder rate - and it's that per capita figure which really brings the scale of Baltimore's problem home.
posted by Paul Slade at 11:09 AM on August 30, 2015
The Chicago Tribune's crime reporter wrote a fantastic Facebook post about the violence here and how many people are completely blind to it the other day and it ended up on the opinion page, but it's behind their weird registration wall:
here's a link to it on Chicagoist.
posted by jeweled accumulation at 11:54 AM on August 30, 2015
here's a link to it on Chicagoist.
posted by jeweled accumulation at 11:54 AM on August 30, 2015
Eesh. To my recollection (I'm 47), that's more homicides in a month than Toronto has ever had in a year. The population here is 2.6M.
Toronto certainly has far fewer homicides than Baltimore but they've certainly had more than 47. I think 2010 had 60+ for example.
posted by Justinian at 2:02 PM on August 30, 2015 [1 favorite]
Toronto certainly has far fewer homicides than Baltimore but they've certainly had more than 47. I think 2010 had 60+ for example.
posted by Justinian at 2:02 PM on August 30, 2015 [1 favorite]
A quick googling suggests Toronto had 89 murders in 1991. I lived in Toronto in 1991. Am I a serial killer? You be the judge.
posted by Justinian at 2:04 PM on August 30, 2015
posted by Justinian at 2:04 PM on August 30, 2015
This makes me think of one of the recent tragedies in journalism - the folding of Homicide Watch DC, an operation that existed to collect and chronicle the stories of every death.
posted by phearlez at 2:13 PM on September 2, 2015
posted by phearlez at 2:13 PM on September 2, 2015
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posted by Halloween Jack at 5:34 PM on August 29, 2015