Over at blackprof, Prof. Shavar Jeffries makes the provacative argument that perhaps black-on-black crime should be prosecuted as hate crime. To the extent that black criminals hate their racial identity, they may actually be committing crimes against other black people because of this self-hatred.

The concept of “black-on-black crime” should have been retired years ago. There is no “black on black crime.” There is only CRIME. As David Wilson notes in his new book, Inventing Black on Black Violence the concept reflects a trend of pathologizing black behavior. Crimes against property and persons are usually committed by people living in those same neighborhoods. Remember, car jackers, robbers, and the like tend to be poor and uneducated. They also tend to be creatures of habit. If they are going to commit crimes they are likely to commit them in places they are familiar with, and places they have to spend few resources to get to.

Black people remain segregated. We tend to live in neighborhoods with a high proportion of black people, and in neighborhoods that are poorer than white neighborhoods. Black criminals commit crimes in black neighborhoods not because they hate black people, or because they are somehow have different motivations than non-black criminals. They commit crimes in black neighborhoods because they live in black neighborhoods.

A number of well-meaning folks have bought into what Albert Murray calls the fakelore of white supremacy. “Black people have lost their religion, their culture, their god, and many of us by the way we act, we’ve even lost our minds.” I don’t buy it.