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Untenable: The True Story of White Ethnic Flight from America's Cities
Long accused of racism and “white flight,” the ethnic Americans driven from their homes and neighborhoods—the author included—finally get the chance to tell their side of the story.
“A startlingly honest and poignant look at ‘white flight’ from the white perspective. A necessary and overdue corrective.” —Brent Bozell III, founder and president of the Media Research Center
I asked one lifelong friend, a rare Democrat among the displaced, why he and his widowed mother finally left our block in the early 1970s, twenty years after the first African-American families moved in. He searched a minute for the right set of words, and then simply said, “It became untenable.” When I asked what he meant by “untenable,” he answered, “When your mother gets mugged for the second time, that’s untenable. When your home gets broken into for the second time, that’s untenable.” In researching this project, I found myself repeatedly stunned by the failure of self-described experts on white flight to ask those accused of fleeing why it was they fled. The reason the experts didn’t ask, I discovered, is that they were afraid of what they might learn.
“A startlingly honest and poignant look at ‘white flight’ from the white perspective. A necessary and overdue corrective.” —Brent Bozell III, founder and president of the Media Research Center
I asked one lifelong friend, a rare Democrat among the displaced, why he and his widowed mother finally left our block in the early 1970s, twenty years after the first African-American families moved in. He searched a minute for the right set of words, and then simply said, “It became untenable.” When I asked what he meant by “untenable,” he answered, “When your mother gets mugged for the second time, that’s untenable. When your home gets broken into for the second time, that’s untenable.” In researching this project, I found myself repeatedly stunned by the failure of self-described experts on white flight to ask those accused of fleeing why it was they fled. The reason the experts didn’t ask, I discovered, is that they were afraid of what they might learn.
250 pages, Kindle Edition
Published July 4, 2023
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
September 14, 2024
This was an honest and admirable first-person narrative about growing up in the Northeast, United States; notably in Newark, New Jersey. The author painted are large scale picture of how he experienced growing up in Newark. The social and economic dynamics from within as well as the changing make up of his neighborhood and city, the racial and ethnic demographic. Along with that, he told about other events, places, and people involved in the social perception called white flight.
In a nutshell, Jack Cashill counter-argued the rhetoric of Michelle Obama, Amiri Baraka, and Na-Tehisi Coates that argue ethnic white people are racist and leave neighborhoods & cities as black people move into them. Instead he alluded the point that it has nothing to do with race but with the increase in crime. He didn't say minorities are criminals and violent people but that low-income, lack of education, and single-parent homes result in elevated crime regardless of race or ethnic group.
In a nutshell, Jack Cashill counter-argued the rhetoric of Michelle Obama, Amiri Baraka, and Na-Tehisi Coates that argue ethnic white people are racist and leave neighborhoods & cities as black people move into them. Instead he alluded the point that it has nothing to do with race but with the increase in crime. He didn't say minorities are criminals and violent people but that low-income, lack of education, and single-parent homes result in elevated crime regardless of race or ethnic group.
[Jesse Lee] Peterson traces White Flight not to paranoid anxiety about the"other," but to a legitimate fear of bad actors. There were some scary guys in Gary [Indiana] back then, and their bad behavior forced us kids to adapt, writes Peterson. I began to wonder how white people must have felt. They saw what I saw, and they has options...I had never lived among black kids that were so violent...I had not grown up like that. pg 186-7The book was worth a read was the man's experiences and opinions on the matter. I would recommend this to anyone interested in racial views on American from post-World War 2 to the present. Thanks!
December 1, 2023
Book Review
Untenable
Jack Cashill
5/5 stars
"Black barbarism brought into sharp and uncomfortable focus"
*******
Of the book
-30 chapters over 270 pages, 9pps/chapter
-206 point references. ≈0.75/page
-32 "ibid" and about 1/3 internet articles and YouTube videos
-Extensive use is made of census data
-4~5 hours of reading time
********
On the one hand: This is a good, short, book, that contains a lot of information and a respectable number of quotable quotes.
On the other: It's very painful to read because it brings into sharp focus a lot of uncomfortable things: 1) The highly disproportionate amount of barbarism to be found among black people; 2) The trite way that countries tear themselves apart through mistakes and sorry leadership.
And also it's uncomfortable because I share too much of the same ethnic background of these stupid, destructive, knuckle-dragging social degenerates for my own comfort.
The author has a great, dry sense of humor about a topic that is actually pretty morbid.(He reminds me of a hybrid between Bob newhart and Ann Coulter.)
But, I think that the best function served is that of telling a story (that has happened countless times) that people have collectively tried to deny out of existence:
Black people move to the neighborhood that was otherwise just fine, and they bring a lot of crime and destruction with them and white people (logically enough) just choose to move elsewhere to avoid the inextricable links between enough black people and complete social collapse. Of course, there is always a Jesse Jackson/Ron Karenga / Louis Farrakhan to keep the pot stirred.
And this never seems to happen with anybody else.
The story that (the left of) the United States is trying to sell itself is more like:
Hard-working black people who are identical in EVERY WAY to these white neighbors that they move next to cause a panic, and white people leave and take their business with them for NO REASON other than hate, racism and spite. And Every Bad Thing that happens afterward is a result of structural/systemic/environmental/ goonie-googoo racism and the black people involved in this have no free will and no agency other than to act like animals.
It's like a gigantic national psychic epidemic.
1. Almost none of these black homes had fathers. The white ones did, at a higher rate than the national average.
2. There were Cassandras that questioned the wisdom of these series of policies. (In this case, it was Daniel Patrick Moynihan, among others.) Predictably, they were ignored.
Corrections and highlights of the historical record:
1. Many businesses left Newark long before anyone ever heard of the word "White flight."
2. Working class whites did not flee with their new GI benefits, because there was no reason to flee at that time. (1950 Newark, 24 murders).
3. There was plenty of integration even before Brown v. board of education. A lot of the angriest writers (Amiri Baraka/ Ibram Kendi) grew up in integrated neighborhoods.
4. Black people's destruction of Newark New Jersey took only about 10 years (p.98).
5. (p.234): More black men were dying in the streets of American cities than were dying in the jungles of Vietnam.
*******
It seems like history imitates itself without any real talent-- and it seems like the black people are particularly untalented in this way:
1. The corrupt black mayor that runs the city into the ground cliche showed up here. (We've all seen Coleman Young / Herbert Worthy/ Kwame Kilpatrick here in Michigan.) Cashill added Ken Gibson and Richard G. Hatcher, and that's not even a rounding error of the total number.
2. Repurposing other religions and mixing elements of Christianity into them. Kwanzaa looks an awful lot like Hanukkah. The Nation of Islam looks like what would happen if a jackleg preacher added some Islamic symbols. (In his way, it seems like the cultish, ignorant Black Hebrew Israelites are just so much old wine in new bottles.)
3. Nation of Islam prefigured Prislam, (which actually started out of Newark).
4. Let's burn down everything that we own! (1968 riots; Rodney King riots; George Floyd riots; Detroit) and then sit in a burned out city for decades because of lack of competence to rebuild it.
5. A lot of black people rely on the government to be their best friend, and really it was (and is) their worst enemy
Second order thoughts:
1. Cashill's experience is completely consonant with what I have seen before. And yet it took so long for this book to be written; how many history books does somebody have to sort through before they find one that gives a real version of events versus a sanitized, fictionalized one?
2a. A lot of people like Ibram X. Kendi ($300,000 in one year for consulting fees), Ta-Nehisi Coates (net worth $6 million) and Robin D'Angelo make bank in consulting fees repeating this narrative.
2b. It's a running theme here that these real life problems become academic talking points for people who live nowhere near the actual situation. (p.131) "Everyone with whom I spoke knew exactly why they left. It's just that no one bothered to ask them."
Authors have written entire interesting books about a snapshot of History by just taking the time to INTERVIEW PEOPLE THAT WERE ACTUALLY THERE. ("The Corpse Walker." Liao Yiwu.)
3. Is there an algorithm to use when selecting history books? Is it even worth the time that it takes to sort through all of these books in pursuit of the truth? It's not always possible to believe the statements even of people who were there. And then people who were not there are likely to be even less accurate.
4. I think the position of black people is probably going to get worse over time in the States. We have a lot of people coming in from outside who don't feel that they owe any debt to black people and will be a lot less tolerant / willing to give them the benefit of the doubt in any situation.
5. The university system also has a hand in this. It's amazing how many people: a) participate in riots/murder, b) go to prison, and then c)are awarded an academic job. Angela Davis. Ron Karenga. William Ayers.
After this civilization has collapsed, future historians may look back and decide that the tenure system and the inability of governments to keep certain professional pot stirrers in prison was a Very Bad Idea.
Quotable quotes:
1. (p.42): Before government made work more or less optional, people had no choice but to go where the jobs were. They felt an obligation to make a living.
2. (Hoffer): "Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket." (Cashill insert): "Kendi's brand of anti-racism skipped the first two phases. It was conceived as a racket."
3. (p.120): Brennan apparently failed to anticipate the parents of all races might object to putting their little ones on buses for exhausting hours every day to solve someone else's theoretical problem.
4. (p.123) Between 1960 and 1980, Newark lost more than 150,000 white residents. During the same. Detroit and Chicago each lost close to a million, the great majority of whom were ethnic and working class.
5. (p.145) Election fraud is a cottage industry in Newark.
6. (p.220) Whites in Newark saw the world more clearly. Having grown up around and among people of color, they do not romanticize them..... As one friend tells me, "I had the guilt beaten out of me a long time ago."
7. (p.234, Jesse Lee Peterson): "In Alabama, I had been taught not to hate..... Hate of the white man in particular gave me a satisfying way to explain all my other failures."
8. (p.240, Amiri Baraka): "Rob whitey, rape his daughter, and burn him." / "You can help by dying. You are a cancer. You can help the world's people with your death."
Verdict: Recommended
Supplemental notes:
The 10 worst run cities in the United States (according to WalletHub), and how black they are:
150. Detroit, MI (82%)
149. St. Louis, MO (48%)
148. Jackson, MS (71%)
147. Shreveport, LA (56%)
146. Flint, MI (60%)
145. Stockton, CA (12%)
144. Gary, IN (84%)
143. Toledo, OH (27%)
142. Memphis, TN (63%)
141. Cleveland, OH (53%)
140. Baton Rouge, LA (50%)
I am surprised that Baltimore wasn't in here. I know that of their last 3 mayors one had to step down and a couple more had fraud charges. (For the record, they are #129, 64% black.)
Average percent black. 55%
Standard Deviation. 20%
The 10 best run cities in the United States, and how black they are.
1. Nampa, ID (1%)
2. Provo, UT (1%)
3. Boise, ID (2%)
4. Durham, NC (37%)
5. Lexington-Fayette, KY (8%)
6. Las Cruces, NM (3%)
7. Billings, MT (1%)
8. Virginia Beach, VA (20%)
9. Missoula, MT (1%)
10. Fargo, ND (3%)
Average percent black. 7.7%
Standard deviation. 11.2%
Interesting. (Durham should probably be thrown out because it is such an outlier. But I'll leave it in just the same.)
Correlation coefficients of the first and last 10.:
r=0.82
r^2=0.64
Untenable
Jack Cashill
5/5 stars
"Black barbarism brought into sharp and uncomfortable focus"
*******
Of the book
-30 chapters over 270 pages, 9pps/chapter
-206 point references. ≈0.75/page
-32 "ibid" and about 1/3 internet articles and YouTube videos
-Extensive use is made of census data
-4~5 hours of reading time
********
On the one hand: This is a good, short, book, that contains a lot of information and a respectable number of quotable quotes.
On the other: It's very painful to read because it brings into sharp focus a lot of uncomfortable things: 1) The highly disproportionate amount of barbarism to be found among black people; 2) The trite way that countries tear themselves apart through mistakes and sorry leadership.
And also it's uncomfortable because I share too much of the same ethnic background of these stupid, destructive, knuckle-dragging social degenerates for my own comfort.
The author has a great, dry sense of humor about a topic that is actually pretty morbid.(He reminds me of a hybrid between Bob newhart and Ann Coulter.)
But, I think that the best function served is that of telling a story (that has happened countless times) that people have collectively tried to deny out of existence:
Black people move to the neighborhood that was otherwise just fine, and they bring a lot of crime and destruction with them and white people (logically enough) just choose to move elsewhere to avoid the inextricable links between enough black people and complete social collapse. Of course, there is always a Jesse Jackson/Ron Karenga / Louis Farrakhan to keep the pot stirred.
And this never seems to happen with anybody else.
The story that (the left of) the United States is trying to sell itself is more like:
Hard-working black people who are identical in EVERY WAY to these white neighbors that they move next to cause a panic, and white people leave and take their business with them for NO REASON other than hate, racism and spite. And Every Bad Thing that happens afterward is a result of structural/systemic/environmental/ goonie-googoo racism and the black people involved in this have no free will and no agency other than to act like animals.
It's like a gigantic national psychic epidemic.
1. Almost none of these black homes had fathers. The white ones did, at a higher rate than the national average.
2. There were Cassandras that questioned the wisdom of these series of policies. (In this case, it was Daniel Patrick Moynihan, among others.) Predictably, they were ignored.
Corrections and highlights of the historical record:
1. Many businesses left Newark long before anyone ever heard of the word "White flight."
2. Working class whites did not flee with their new GI benefits, because there was no reason to flee at that time. (1950 Newark, 24 murders).
3. There was plenty of integration even before Brown v. board of education. A lot of the angriest writers (Amiri Baraka/ Ibram Kendi) grew up in integrated neighborhoods.
4. Black people's destruction of Newark New Jersey took only about 10 years (p.98).
5. (p.234): More black men were dying in the streets of American cities than were dying in the jungles of Vietnam.
*******
It seems like history imitates itself without any real talent-- and it seems like the black people are particularly untalented in this way:
1. The corrupt black mayor that runs the city into the ground cliche showed up here. (We've all seen Coleman Young / Herbert Worthy/ Kwame Kilpatrick here in Michigan.) Cashill added Ken Gibson and Richard G. Hatcher, and that's not even a rounding error of the total number.
2. Repurposing other religions and mixing elements of Christianity into them. Kwanzaa looks an awful lot like Hanukkah. The Nation of Islam looks like what would happen if a jackleg preacher added some Islamic symbols. (In his way, it seems like the cultish, ignorant Black Hebrew Israelites are just so much old wine in new bottles.)
3. Nation of Islam prefigured Prislam, (which actually started out of Newark).
4. Let's burn down everything that we own! (1968 riots; Rodney King riots; George Floyd riots; Detroit) and then sit in a burned out city for decades because of lack of competence to rebuild it.
5. A lot of black people rely on the government to be their best friend, and really it was (and is) their worst enemy
Second order thoughts:
1. Cashill's experience is completely consonant with what I have seen before. And yet it took so long for this book to be written; how many history books does somebody have to sort through before they find one that gives a real version of events versus a sanitized, fictionalized one?
2a. A lot of people like Ibram X. Kendi ($300,000 in one year for consulting fees), Ta-Nehisi Coates (net worth $6 million) and Robin D'Angelo make bank in consulting fees repeating this narrative.
2b. It's a running theme here that these real life problems become academic talking points for people who live nowhere near the actual situation. (p.131) "Everyone with whom I spoke knew exactly why they left. It's just that no one bothered to ask them."
Authors have written entire interesting books about a snapshot of History by just taking the time to INTERVIEW PEOPLE THAT WERE ACTUALLY THERE. ("The Corpse Walker." Liao Yiwu.)
3. Is there an algorithm to use when selecting history books? Is it even worth the time that it takes to sort through all of these books in pursuit of the truth? It's not always possible to believe the statements even of people who were there. And then people who were not there are likely to be even less accurate.
4. I think the position of black people is probably going to get worse over time in the States. We have a lot of people coming in from outside who don't feel that they owe any debt to black people and will be a lot less tolerant / willing to give them the benefit of the doubt in any situation.
5. The university system also has a hand in this. It's amazing how many people: a) participate in riots/murder, b) go to prison, and then c)are awarded an academic job. Angela Davis. Ron Karenga. William Ayers.
After this civilization has collapsed, future historians may look back and decide that the tenure system and the inability of governments to keep certain professional pot stirrers in prison was a Very Bad Idea.
Quotable quotes:
1. (p.42): Before government made work more or less optional, people had no choice but to go where the jobs were. They felt an obligation to make a living.
2. (Hoffer): "Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket." (Cashill insert): "Kendi's brand of anti-racism skipped the first two phases. It was conceived as a racket."
3. (p.120): Brennan apparently failed to anticipate the parents of all races might object to putting their little ones on buses for exhausting hours every day to solve someone else's theoretical problem.
4. (p.123) Between 1960 and 1980, Newark lost more than 150,000 white residents. During the same. Detroit and Chicago each lost close to a million, the great majority of whom were ethnic and working class.
5. (p.145) Election fraud is a cottage industry in Newark.
6. (p.220) Whites in Newark saw the world more clearly. Having grown up around and among people of color, they do not romanticize them..... As one friend tells me, "I had the guilt beaten out of me a long time ago."
7. (p.234, Jesse Lee Peterson): "In Alabama, I had been taught not to hate..... Hate of the white man in particular gave me a satisfying way to explain all my other failures."
8. (p.240, Amiri Baraka): "Rob whitey, rape his daughter, and burn him." / "You can help by dying. You are a cancer. You can help the world's people with your death."
Verdict: Recommended
Supplemental notes:
The 10 worst run cities in the United States (according to WalletHub), and how black they are:
150. Detroit, MI (82%)
149. St. Louis, MO (48%)
148. Jackson, MS (71%)
147. Shreveport, LA (56%)
146. Flint, MI (60%)
145. Stockton, CA (12%)
144. Gary, IN (84%)
143. Toledo, OH (27%)
142. Memphis, TN (63%)
141. Cleveland, OH (53%)
140. Baton Rouge, LA (50%)
I am surprised that Baltimore wasn't in here. I know that of their last 3 mayors one had to step down and a couple more had fraud charges. (For the record, they are #129, 64% black.)
Average percent black. 55%
Standard Deviation. 20%
The 10 best run cities in the United States, and how black they are.
1. Nampa, ID (1%)
2. Provo, UT (1%)
3. Boise, ID (2%)
4. Durham, NC (37%)
5. Lexington-Fayette, KY (8%)
6. Las Cruces, NM (3%)
7. Billings, MT (1%)
8. Virginia Beach, VA (20%)
9. Missoula, MT (1%)
10. Fargo, ND (3%)
Average percent black. 7.7%
Standard deviation. 11.2%
Interesting. (Durham should probably be thrown out because it is such an outlier. But I'll leave it in just the same.)
Correlation coefficients of the first and last 10.:
r=0.82
r^2=0.64
August 29, 2023
The framing device is a memoir of the author, intermixed with a collection of oral histories of former residents of Newark, New Jersey. The prose is serviceable, the content interesting, and the commentary sensible. Especially striking is the contrast between the generally laudatory commentary by mainstream media on radical black activists of the 1960s and '70s versus their incendiary rhetoric. The author contrasts the behavior of certain activists with Anthony M. Imperiale Sr, an Italian civic leader who tried to rally against the civil disorder and crime in Newark.
October 27, 2023
Cashill's "Untenable" made me see the past with new eyes. Most ethnic Whites hung onto their homes and neighborhoods as long as possible. Neighborhoods were destroyed by federal and state policies, which tore down long-established communities and replaced them with subsidized housing. The systematic destruction of Newark, New Jersey's Italian neighborhoods was heartbreaking. Intenable is when your mother is mugged in her own neighborhood ... twice; when your home is broken into ... twice. Cashill writes with dispassionate accuracy about the past as he lived and observed it. Where was the justice for these people?
February 10, 2025
stirring and poignant
with a simiar background and life experiances, this book really hit home . I could add copious anecdotes of my own but Cashill’s work here is plenty. Great book!
with a simiar background and life experiances, this book really hit home . I could add copious anecdotes of my own but Cashill’s work here is plenty. Great book!
December 6, 2023
Interesting book as goes against the main stream narrative that whites left the cities because of racism. The book does interviews and research to see if another option exists. Obviously some folks left because of racism etc. but is the the real story? The author says no, it just became "untenable". He gives the example that one person gave of when your grandmother gets mugged for the second time it is time to find another option of place to live
September 25, 2023
Good read..
Very enjoyed reading this interesting and provocative tale. I do wish the ending could have been a bit more resolute. Cash I’ll is a good author and I will watch for more from him.
Very enjoyed reading this interesting and provocative tale. I do wish the ending could have been a bit more resolute. Cash I’ll is a good author and I will watch for more from him.
November 12, 2023
Tell 'em like it is, Jack.
September 5, 2023
Why did so many flee the once-thriving inner cities: Newark, Detroit, Chicago, etc?
The argument is initially posited that the cities were collections of neighborhoods, dominated by their national origins: Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, German, etc. All mostly white. Everybody knew their neighbors. Getting to work, school, the store was often a matter of walking a short distance. Kids played safely nearby. Families were mostly "complete"...husband, wife, kids, uncles, aunts, grandparents.
And then it all changed.
Why?
The issue is summarized by Cashil:
The Black community collapsed,
due to a breakdown of the Black Family,
enabled by well-meaning bureaucrats (e.g. welfare regs) and
encouraged by complicit media...and fueled by incendiary rhetoric.
Neighborhoods were leveled and replaced by spiffy, new high rises...strangely decimated by residents.
More neighborhoods were obliterated by federal highways.
Living in these neighborhoods became challenging, dangerous, untenable, especially for Whites.
1960s Riots of looting and burning signaled the pinnacle of destruction.
Cashil used his own history as the cornerstone of this work. Supplemented by interviews with former Newark residents.
It all adds up to a sad story.
Oh...by the way...I was born in Newark, went to high school in Newark, worked summers at Prudential in Newark.
The argument is initially posited that the cities were collections of neighborhoods, dominated by their national origins: Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, German, etc. All mostly white. Everybody knew their neighbors. Getting to work, school, the store was often a matter of walking a short distance. Kids played safely nearby. Families were mostly "complete"...husband, wife, kids, uncles, aunts, grandparents.
And then it all changed.
Why?
The issue is summarized by Cashil:
The Black community collapsed,
due to a breakdown of the Black Family,
enabled by well-meaning bureaucrats (e.g. welfare regs) and
encouraged by complicit media...and fueled by incendiary rhetoric.
Neighborhoods were leveled and replaced by spiffy, new high rises...strangely decimated by residents.
More neighborhoods were obliterated by federal highways.
Living in these neighborhoods became challenging, dangerous, untenable, especially for Whites.
1960s Riots of looting and burning signaled the pinnacle of destruction.
Cashil used his own history as the cornerstone of this work. Supplemented by interviews with former Newark residents.
It all adds up to a sad story.
Oh...by the way...I was born in Newark, went to high school in Newark, worked summers at Prudential in Newark.
August 12, 2025
Very interesting, but it felt like you had to know Newark or at least New Jersey to experience it fully.
Stories about streets and areas I have never been to makes the read harder.
Living in Chicagoland one becomes desensitized to the daily violence in every newscast on the radio.
All I know is I don't want to live anywhere near the crime problems and I wish my fellow Americans weren't exposed to that either.
The only personalization is the McDonalds near the Chicago & State el station which we used to visit all the time while in college had a shooting with 10 shot and 3 killed. I always felt super safe when I was there with my girlfriend(now wife) many years ago.
Stories about streets and areas I have never been to makes the read harder.
Living in Chicagoland one becomes desensitized to the daily violence in every newscast on the radio.
All I know is I don't want to live anywhere near the crime problems and I wish my fellow Americans weren't exposed to that either.
The only personalization is the McDonalds near the Chicago & State el station which we used to visit all the time while in college had a shooting with 10 shot and 3 killed. I always felt super safe when I was there with my girlfriend(now wife) many years ago.
October 24, 2024
An interesting history of the neighborhood the neighborhood grew up in, in New Jersey. And while everyone pretends they just don't know what happened and acts like it's white people's fault for white flight, he acknowledges what really happened.
August 2, 2024
I love Jack Cashill as a writer, although I'm pretty sure I'd enjoy having him as a neighbor too, and this book is a joy to read; 2nd half of 20th century urban American socioeconomic history through an honest, detailed and touching autobiographical lens.
I lived as a kid in the 60's in the suburbs of Northern Virginia and so knew about the civil unrest (could see the smoke of DC burning like a forest fire during the riots of '68 after MLK's assassination), but I never realized the extent of the hatred the blacks had for the whites at that time - a lot like what happened again during the Obama years (of "hope and change") when BLM became a national movement. This memoir/social study makes it crystal clear not only how that hatred manifested (random violence, petty crime and resentment) but why (welfare dependency and fatherlessness).
"As the Department of Justice reminds us, it is important to know the impact - "emotional, physical, and financial" - a crime has had on its victims. Consider what follows a victim impact statement. Those eager to "blame the victim" are reading the wrong book." (p.18-19)
I lived as a kid in the 60's in the suburbs of Northern Virginia and so knew about the civil unrest (could see the smoke of DC burning like a forest fire during the riots of '68 after MLK's assassination), but I never realized the extent of the hatred the blacks had for the whites at that time - a lot like what happened again during the Obama years (of "hope and change") when BLM became a national movement. This memoir/social study makes it crystal clear not only how that hatred manifested (random violence, petty crime and resentment) but why (welfare dependency and fatherlessness).
"As the Department of Justice reminds us, it is important to know the impact - "emotional, physical, and financial" - a crime has had on its victims. Consider what follows a victim impact statement. Those eager to "blame the victim" are reading the wrong book." (p.18-19)
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews