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All of this breeds a shadow society where traditional values are scarce and violence is promiscuous. For young black men, violence can become a warped form of self-assertion, a kind of "I kill, therefore I am." Snuffing out another life perversely affirms their own. Almost 40 years ago, Ralph Ellison wrote in Invisible Man about violence as a way for black men to assert their existence to themselves: "You ache with the need to convince yourself that you do exist in the real world, that you're a part of all the sound and anguish."
But why are blacks killing other blacks? That is the one question on which there is almost universal agreement: proximity. "You pick on what's close," says Social Worker Evans. Harvard Psychiatry Professor Alvin Poussaint suggests in his book Why Blacks Kill Blacks that such violence is a manifestation of self-hatred and repressed rage, which he says are a legacy of racism. Killing someone who mirrors oneself is a reflection of hating oneself. "Violence can be a potent drug for the oppressed person," Poussaint says. "Reacting to the futility of his life, the individual derives an ultimate sense of power when he holds the fate of another human being in his hands." Poussaint goes so far as to suggest that ultimately the victims may bring their fate upon themselves, subconsciously provoking the murder and making it a kind of willed suicide. Poussaint notes, as do many others, that the easy availability of handguns gives power to the powerless. What the Colt six- shooter was to the Wild West is what the "Saturday-night special" is to the ghetto: the great equalizer.
Some suggest that for blacks in the ghetto, crime and a life of violence are an occupational choice, like becoming a doctor or lawyer is for a child from the suburbs. In the ghetto, suggests Benjamin Carmichael in an article in Black Perspectives on Crime and the Criminal Justice System, the successful criminal cuts a glamorous figure and projects an enviable life-style, becoming a role model for youngsters whose only glimpse of wealth is on Dynasty or Dallas. Says Joseph Lowery, president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (S.C.L.C.): "You cannot ignore the fact that a poor black guy has little chance of succeeding, except in the seedy world of crime."
One legacy of segregation is that blacks have long viewed the police and the criminal justice system as tools of oppression rather than remedies for it. Even today, some experts argue, the criminal justice system spurs black-on- black violence by practicing a double standard. R. Eugene Pincham, a black Illinois Appellate Court judge, lists the four tiers of crime: white on white, white on black, black on white, and black on black. "The punishment is most severe for black-on-white crime," he says, more severe than either white on white or white on black. The punishment is mildest for black on black. Notes Pincham: "It thereby gives tacit approval of black-on-black crime."