There is a strong tendency among liberals --- I know, because I was extremely liberal when I was between 18 and 28 -- to see poverty, and ultimately the larger white society, as the cause of violence committed by poor blacks, thus dimming the light on personal responsibility.  I have no doubt that to grow up black in a poor ghetto immediately puts a child at a disadvantage.  But the child's main disadvantage is that he is raised by the parents he has --- rather I should say parent.  The father is many times unknown.  And the mother is most often uneducated.  The child has little chance --- a trajedy from the start, because we are created as children of God.  This subculture of blacks --- I said subculture --- has taken the last 50 fifty years that many other blacks have used well, and gone in the opposite direction, toward ever-more povertous lives.  The problem is indeed spiritual, and the longer that's denied, the longer their condition is blamed on white privilege, 

con't