Reddit mentions of Dark Ghetto: Dilemmas of Social Power

Piggybacking on /u/haplogreenleaf 's comment, if you're interested in learning more on why this is I'd suggest reading Dark Ghetto: Dilemmas of Social Power and I'm Not a Racist, But..The Moral Quandary of Race

Fixing these imbalances is the honest to god real question here. What changes can we as a society make to facilitate equality between races. Really tough question. Obama is more the classist type, get people out of the ghetto and you remove the race problem. While others suggest focusing systemic changes based on a race specifically (the problem with this is whites historically don't vote for something that doesn't benefit their worse off).

Books upon books have been written about urban race riots in America. For example, in Dark Ghetto, Kenneth Clark describes Harlem in the 1960s as a domestic colony:

>The
community
can
best
be
described
in
terms
of
the
analogy
of
a
powerless
colony.
Its
political
leadership
is
divided,
and
all
but
one
or
two
of its political leaders are shortsighted and dependent upon the larger political power structure. Its social agencies are financially precarious and dependent upon sources of support outside the community. Its churches are isolated or dependent. Its economy is dominated by small businesses which are largely owned by absentee owners, and its tenements and other real property are also owned by absentee landlords.
>
Under a system of centralization, Harlem's schools are controlled by forces outside of the community. Programs and policies are supervised and determined by individuals who do not live in the community.

This describes a property-less community that is systematically denied self-determination. Police are, among other things, enforcers of property, and when all the property in a community is owned externally, then the police begin to look more like an occupying army rather than protectors of the peace.

After a certain point, all it takes is a spark to ignite a rebellion against the colonizers, their property, and their enforcers.