http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/o...es/011506.html
Cynthia Tucker's great column:
Is this why the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. made the ultimate sacrifice? Is this why Rosa Parks refused to yield her seat? Did countless civil rights veterans put everything on the line so that, someday, a handful of black men and women could make a fortune encouraging young blacks to lawlessness?
The popularity of thug culture is among the most serious of modern-day threats to black America, far more dangerous than any lingering institutional racism. Its mores mimic prison culture: the ubiquitous droopy-pants look drew its inspiration from jail procedures, where men are stripped of their belts upon arrest. It romanticizes casual violence, helping to ensure that black fratricide will go on unabated.
According to the FBI's Uniform Crime Report, black men are the likely perpetrators in more than 40 percent of the homicides in which a suspect has been identified. That's staggering — given that black men account for only about 6 percent of the population. But black men are their own worst enemies: They also account for about 40 percent of the nation's homicide victims.
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