The United States Government is Directly at Fault for America’s Gang Violence
By Andrew Perez | November 13, 2024 (Writing Contest)
Andrew Perez
Professor Aldi
UUNI110
11/13/24
The United States Government is Directly at Fault for America’s Gang Violence
America’s government has proven time and again that it is not only extremely lacking in its response to the issue of gang violence, but has also directly contributed to its success. I will hereon assert and prove the following contentions: those in our government consistently view the lives of Americans, especially minorities, as expendable, want to perpetuate a fear of poverty and of the government not having enough power to “protect” us, and aim to maintain/widen class and racial divides as well as prioritize doing that over any honest pursuit of prosperity for the American people. The American people deserve better than such inadequate treatment of this deliberately constructed issue. Racism permeates this topic and is also a significant factor and driving force behind this entire story. It is essential that Americans recognize these issues and the factual causes behind them so they can sufficiently inform themselves and know what to look for when pursuing positive change. Our country has been through a multitude of eras surrounding government maintained oppression and this is simply the modern day version of it.
Politicians in our government often see the lives of minorities as trivial, expendable statistics and act as such. This leads to racist policies and an overall miscarriage of justice when making decisions concerning minorities in a criminal context. Even both Hillary and Bill Clinton, recent democrat politicians, have had their share of racist remarks. Hillary Clinton coined the racist term “super predators” while discussing black youths and crime rates, saying they have “no conscience, [and] no empathy.”(Cox, 2020) Bill Clinton was a big proponent of the phrase “black-on-black crime” as many politicians were at the time, this phrase was strategically used to shirk the responsibility and overall blame for the economic and criminal plight of many minorities in America from the government to those minorities themselves, accusing them of bringing about their own suffering (Mauer, 2016). When our politicians harbor mentalities such as these, it is no surprise we stay in this perpetual cycle of minority individuals disproportionately being represented in poverty and crime rates.
The reason for our system being the way it is today can be traced back to systemic, deeply-rooted yet quite simple processes within our society that can be explored through theory, like Gramscian theory. Gramscian theory observes that “by understanding history, people can come to realize that their everyday lives are the products of choices made in the past, which in turn influence the choices being made in the present.”(Tovares, 2024) Although quite simple on its face, one can apply this idea to an overall telling of how our society functions and makes decisions that can have profound implications on our lives. Our country was built on oppression, from invading and permanently seizing indigenous land to importing slaves to perform unpaid labor. Although we no longer actively participate in stealing additional land from native americans or allow slavery to take place on american soil, this history has undoubtedly left an unaddressed gash on American society to this day. Our technology contains cobalt mined by child slaves in other countries, we know about this but often choose to do little to nothing about it. We still live on the land we stole from indigenous peoples, yet we still cram them into small reservations and just try not to think about it. The same can be said about how we treat minorities, especially black Americans, in America. A horrifying pattern of consistent disadvantage, violence, and poverty has plagued black communities to this day at the hands of American society collectively. When slavery ended, America swooped in and created Jim Crow laws. When those were abolished, suddenly drugs started magically appearing in black neighborhoods, and coincidentally black people were incapable of meeting banks’ completely reasonable guidelines that barred them from getting loans and mortgages. This led to poverty which led to desperation and now America has the audacity to turn around and point at the mess of chaos and suffering it’s created and say it’s solely the fault of those people.
This issue shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who follows the historic plight of black Americans, as the US government has famously (or not famously enough) gone so far as to facilitate the importation of drugs to black communities. Known as the Iran Contra scandal, the CIA helped create and funded a militant group called the Contras behind the rest of the federal government’s back in order to have a hand in the conflict between Iran and Nicaragua and influence the appointments of certain politicians in Nicaragua. They fueled the Contras with illegal arms and, more importantly, looked the other way as they smuggled drugs into cities across America which were then sold to American gangs (Inspector General, 2024).
Those in our government want to perpetuate a fear of poverty and of the government not having enough power to “protect” us. Americans live under an unhealthy mix of socialism and capitalism where the rich benefit from the best, most cushiony socialist principles including the government providing aid, tax breaks, and bailouts. Meanwhile, average Americans must suffer the harshest sides of capitalism where not making an exceedingly high amount of money from a job that likely requires a number of exorbitantly expensive degrees will likely lead to financial insecurity and worries about sufficient healthcare, sustenance, and housing; this includes directly looking face to face at the poverty our government threatens us with keeping those who’ve “failed” the game of capitalism out on display sleeping on our streets. If our government wanted to, it could very easily resolve the issue of poverty but its existence stays as a motivation to work as hard as possible for the establishment for all our lives, sometimes without even being able to experience the luxury of retirement. It is however very possible for governments to more than sufficiently address the issue of homelessness, as evident in the actions of Finland, who boasts having only 0.06% of its citizens experiencing homelessness as of 2023 (ARA, 2024). Finland’s key to success in overcoming this issue, and acknowledging its ability to resolve it in the first place, lies in its “Housing First” initiative, which states “The Housing First principle is guided by the idea that housing is a part of human rights and a fundamental human right. In the Housing First model, all work done for people experiencing homelessness is based on the premise that the first support offered to a person is their own apartment.”(Y-saatio, 2024) Through prioritizing housing for its homeless population and investing into this program that guides homeless people back into a healthy life and part of the workforce, Finland has displayed the reality that it is in fact very possible to nearly completely eradicate an entire country’s homelessness issue. When living under this intentionally fostered threat of poverty, many are faced with the choice to either starve and work minimum wage jobs in the writhing economy of their underserved neighborhood, or create their own rules and business, regardless of the legality or morality of them.
This manufactured fear is evidence of a larger problem of the government receiving the support it wants by creating, or stirring up already existing fears. A government that functions off fear as a weapon to get what it wants is not at all a just government. A prime example of this is covered in the study “The (il)legality of the Iraq War of 2003: An Analytical Review of the Causes and Justifications for the US-led invasion.”(Simuziya, 2003) which focuses on America’s justification of its invasion of Iraq. A large part of how the government justified such a brazen invasion of another country was by creating a “rally round the flag” effect where traumatized, enraged, and passionate post-9/11 Americans who wanted justice for the terrorist attacks they witnessed rushed to enlist in the army and throw the full power of our military at any nation the government says might have terrorists in it.
Those in our government aim to maintain/widen class and racial divides as well as prioritize doing that over any honest pursuit of prosperity for the American people. The plight of black Americans didn’t end after slavery, in fact our country’s continued oppression of black Americans has persisted since then, merely evolving with the times. First Jim Crow laws were implemented, and once they were gotten rid of, oppressors came up with new ways of keeping black Americans disadvantaged. That came in many forms but the main economic weapon used against black people in America was redlining. Stopping black people from acquiring loans led to a snowball of said communities lacking housing, business loans, and generally any needed investment into their initiatives from banks. According to “The Evolution of Redlining in the United States Housing Market.”, “Residential housing is a complex topic because its effects are economic, social, physical, and psychological.”(Scott III, 2024). As stated in this quote, lacks in specifically housing can have a detrimental effect on communities, especially ones that have already been greatly disadvantaged during their entire time in our country. When faced with such economic woes, it’s no wonder youths gravitate toward gangs that provide a sense of belonging, structure, and a way to feel successful in such a struggling environment.
America further wrenches its wealth classes apart through implementing systems which keep those who are poor (disproportionately consisting of black people due to the aforementioned causes) down in poverty while keeping the wealthy as rich as possible, at the lower classes’ expense. A prevalent system that is used to do this is the implementation of taxes on different tax brackets. Politicians glorify ideas like trickle down economics and tax breaks for the rich as if they aren’t blatantly a way to give money to those who are already swimming in wealth in the hopes that they’ll find the kindness within themselves to give enough to the poorer classes to sustain them. Donald Trump’s tax plans aim to do just that, providing the rich with much softer tax obligations which will then create more slack in our government’s necessity for funding, slack that will inevitably be picked up by the lower classes (York, et al., 2024). When a government behaves in such a way that so blatantly prioritizes the welfare of the rich, it’s no wonder those who it’s taking away from feel enraged and engage in their own means of acquiring wealth. Gang violence is a direct result of the desperation felt by a consistently ignored, disrespected, and used people.
Those who don’t recognize the culpability of America’s government in the fostering of gang violence may claim it’s the fault of the individuals who commit these crimes, and these communities for raising children in such environments. This view, however, reflects a lack of understanding for the issue at hand, as black people are just as intelligent and capable as white people. Although proponents of said arguments would likely agree with this statement, their argument fails to consider this fact as it would require black communities to be incapable of creating their own successful economies free of crime, gangs, or violence of any kind and it’s all their fault due to some ineptitude on their part. This is obviously an extremely problematic and racist view, and the plight of black Americans, who are just as intelligent and capable as anyone else, can’t have come about without some external attacks on their ability to be successful.
Throughout this paper I’ve asserted the clear reasons the American government is at fault for the prevalence of gang violence through viewing the lives of Americans, especially minorities, as expendable, wanting to perpetuate a fear of poverty and of the government not having enough power to “protect” us, and aiming to maintain/widen class and racial divides as well as prioritize doing that over any honest pursuit of prosperity for the American people. These issues didn’t come out of nowhere, and the government is clearly culpable in the rise of such issues. When an oppressive government spits on a minority group throughout its entire history of being in that country, that group is going to have issues and be forced to find its own ways of solving them. This forced suffering is not a reflection on the ability nor morality of the oppressed, but a reflection on the ability and morality of their oppressors.
Works Cited
ARA The Housing Finance and Development Centre of Finland (2024, February 13). Report 2/2024. Retrieved December 10, 2024, from https://www.ara.fi/en/media/101#:~:text=Based%20on%20the%20data%20reported ,all%20groups%20(Table%201).
Cox, C. (2020, October 24). Fact check: Hillary Clinton, not Joe Biden, used the phrase 'super predators'. Retrieved December 10, 2024, from https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/10/24/fact-check-hillary-clint on-called-some-criminals-super-predators/6021383002/?form=MG0AV3
Mauer, M. (2016, April 11). Bill Clinton, “Black Lives” and the Myths of the 1994 Crime Bill. Retrieved December 10, 2024, from https://www.themarshallproject.org/2016/04/11/bill-clinton-black-lives-and-the-myt hs-of-the-1994-crime-bill
Scott III, R. H. (2024). The Evolution of Redlining in the United States Housing Market. Journal of Economic Issues (Taylor & Francis Ltd), 58(2), 588–597. https://doi-org.libproxy.albany.edu/10.1080/00213624.2024.2344442
Simuziya, N. J. (2023). The (il)legality of the Iraq War of 2003: An Analytical Review of the Causes and Justifications for the US-led invasion. Cogent Social Sciences, 9(1), 1–27. https://doi-org.libproxy.albany.edu/10.1080/23311886.2022.2163066 Perez 9
Tovares, Raul Damacio. “Critical Theory.” Manufacturing the Gang : Mexican American Youth Gangs on Local Television News, Praeger, pp. 12–16. EBSCOhost, https://web-p-ebscohost-com.libproxy.albany.edu/ehost/ebookviewer/ebook?sid=71 414e2c-21b3-4de9-833a-dc9b259a77d3%40redis&ppid=pp_13&vid=0&format=E B. Accessed 16 Oct. 2024.
United States Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General. “The CIA-Contra-Crack Cocaine Controversy: A Review of the Justice Department’s Investigations and Prosecutions.” United States Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General, United States Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General, oig.justice.gov/sites/default/files/legacy/special/9712/ch01p1.htm. Accessed 16 Oct. 2024.
York, E., Watson, G., Durante, A., & Li, H. (2024, August 14). Donald Trump Tax Plan Ideas: Details and Analysis. Retrieved December 10, 2024, from https://taxfoundation.org/research/all/federal/donald-trump-tax-plan-2024/
Y-saatio (n.d.). Housing First. Retrieved December 10, 2024, from https://ysaatio.fi/en/housing-first/
