Surprise, Surprise... Ohio is the worst place for Black people to live in the country

Lending Tree put out a list of best and worst places for Black people to succeed economically. Akron, Cleveland and Toledo are at the very bottom of the list.

Sep 01, 2023

Lending Tree put out a list of best and worst places for Black people to succeed economically.

Akron, Cleveland and Toledo are at the bottom of the list. (Washington DC is FAR above all other places at $82,045 median household income for Black residents. Austin is #2 at $61,272.)

I was spending some time with a few homeless people in Boston last week (I have video and thoughts on that visit I will be sharing soon.) I told them where I lived (Akron Ohio) and this one guy was like, “Oh, damn. That place is dangerous.”

It is widely known that if you want to survive on the streets of Akron you need to carry a gun.

Look at these headlines in the last 7 days:

I haven’t seen pictures of all these murders yet. But I would be willing to bet they ALL are Black victims and Black murderers.

Sloppy thinkers will say something like:

“that’s bad family values.”
“they need more dads.”
“their community doesn’t care about their kids.”

This is always from people who have never spent a single minute in a Black community or Black church. There is incredible pressure on Black communities to fight these stereotypes. There are many people who work incredibly hard to help these communities. I just don’t believe those ideas are any more or any less true for low income White people compared to low income Black people.

I’ve got a theory:

When you live in a country where every single thing is controlled by how much money you have, the less money you have will directly correspond to how worse your life is going to be in every single way.

So, when you can’t afford to live in your community you turn to alternative forms of employment and escape. Drug use and crime go up in direct correlation to how much money you have. I don’t think that is a particularly revolutionary idea.

Now… this is where my theories start to get fringe… when we start to compare Black low income people to White low income people.

I know a lot of low income people. Both Black and White.

I watch them smoke drugs, inject drugs, steal from stores, steal from each other. I watch them beat each other. And now I have a friend who was shot on our property almost certainly by another person I know.

My observations are anecdotal. And there are many factors at play that would potentially throw off my observations. Primarily, I focus on drug addicted people who exhibit extreme mental illness. So, that is where my perspective comes from.

But, in general, I find that Black men sell more drugs that other groups of people.

That is a very general statement. I certainly know White men drug dealers. And I know women drug dealers of both races.

But what I find is that in general, White men prefer to scrap metal and buy drugs and sex. Black men, in general, don’t love scrapping metal. They like selling drugs.

Selling drugs typically aligns with gangs. And gangs are territorial. That leads to more violence.

And here is where my theories become even more fringe.

The White drug dealers I have known often end up getting out of the game and getting a regular job. It’s usually a well paying job in a factory or something like that.

I don’t see Black drug dealers doing that. My theory is that they aren’t given those chances. They are blackballed. When they show up at a factory interview the White manager carries all this prejudgement with him. The Black drug dealers have a much much harder time getting back into the system.

A Black man with a felony will have a harder time getting a job than a White man with a felony. That’s not radical thinking. Here a a Harvard Business Review article outlining those findings in a study on hiring and race.
Give Job Applicants with Criminal Records a Fair Chance

Research shows that 17% of white Americans with a criminal record get called back after a job interview, compared to 5% of Black Americans with the same history.

So, a big reason I see more Black drug dealers is because they tend to stay in the game until they either go to prison for a very long time or they die. White drug dealers can get out of the game much easier at any time.

But just the same, when 2 people are homeless and broke and addicted and mentally ill… I’ll tend to see Black men turn to selling drugs. And I’ll tend to see White men turn to stealing copper. White men prefer to buy drugs and sex, not sell them.

(For what it’s worth, White women are the most diversely industrious. They scrap metal. They sell sex. They steal from neighbors. They steal from big box stores. They will steal from drug dealers no matter how violent a reputation they have. And they will kill you if you cross the line. But that line is usually really far away. A Black man will kill you if you tarnish his name.)

And then it comes down to respect and dignity. BY FAR, a Black man demands respect and dignity more than any other person I have met. You can beat the shit out of a White woman and she will crawl right back into bed with you after she gets out of the hospital. A White man doesn’t much care what you think of him. As long as he has got some drugs to get him through the next 8 hours he’s pretty content. But a Black man just can’t take another minute of being disrespected. And he is willing to kill and die for it.

Every single second a Black man has been on North American soil for the last 400 years has been nothing but disrespect and shame and dishonor.

I have never met a more proud person in my life than a Black man.

And he lives in a country where everyone looks down on him and judges him as a failure and a loser. So, it isn’t hard to imagine that when another Black man comes into his territory talking shit and slinging drugs, shit is going to go down. It’s inevitable.

And now we learn that Toledo and Akron and Cleveland are the 3 worst cities for a Black person to make a decent living legally.

You shouldn’t be surprised that Black people are killing people. The pressure cooker is just too much to take.

If you want to reduce drug use and sales, reduce crime, reduce violence, reduce murders: raise the median income. That’s the answer. But that isn’t talked about because we live in a free market where a business owner can do whatever he wants. The slightest increase in minimum wages is like asking a business owner to give away his kidney.

If it were me and I had any way of doing it… I would move to one of the top cities on this list. Ohio is a nightmare for poor people. But honestly, I’m constantly telling my upper-middle class son who is going to college in Boston to never come back here either. I firmly believe I could have been much more financially successful living in another state.

Sage Lewis - The Nomadic Spirit

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