Book Review
Untenable
Jack Cashill
5/5 stars
"Black barbarism brought into sharp and uncomfortable focus"
*******

Of the book

-30 chapters over 270 pages, 9pps/chapter
-206 point references. ≈0.75/page
-32 "ibid" and about 1/3 internet articles and YouTube videos
-Extensive use is made of census data
-4~5 hours of reading time
********

On the one hand: This is a good, short, book, that contains a lot of information and a respectable number of quotable quotes.

On the other: It's very painful to read because it brings into sharp focus a lot of uncomfortable things: 1) The highly disproportionate amount of barbarism to be found among black people; 2) The trite way that countries tear themselves apart through mistakes and sorry leadership.

And also it's uncomfortable because I share too much of  the same ethnic background of these stupid, destructive, knuckle-dragging social degenerates for my own comfort.

The author has a great, dry sense of humor about a topic that is actually pretty morbid.(He reminds me of a hybrid between Bob newhart and Ann Coulter.)

But, I think that the best function served is that of telling a story (that has happened countless times) that people have collectively tried to deny out of existence:

Black people move to the neighborhood that was otherwise just fine, and they bring a lot of crime and destruction with them and white people (logically enough) just choose to move elsewhere to avoid the inextricable links between enough black people and complete social collapse. Of course, there is always a Jesse Jackson/Ron Karenga / Louis Farrakhan to keep the pot stirred.

And this never seems to happen with anybody else.

The story that (the left of) the United States is trying to sell itself is more like: 

Hard-working black people who are identical in EVERY WAY to these white neighbors that they move next to cause a panic, and white people leave and take their business with them for NO REASON other than hate, racism and spite. And Every Bad Thing that happens afterward is a result of structural/systemic/environmental/ goonie-googoo racism and the black people involved in this have no free will and no agency other than to act like animals.

It's like a gigantic national psychic epidemic.

1. Almost none of these black homes had fathers. The white ones did, at a higher rate than the national average.

2. There were Cassandras that questioned the wisdom of these series of policies. (In this case, it was Daniel Patrick Moynihan, among others.) Predictably, they were ignored.

Corrections and highlights of the historical record:

1. Many businesses left Newark long before anyone ever heard of the word "White flight."

2. Working class whites did not flee with their new GI benefits, because there was no reason to flee at that time. (1950 Newark, 24 murders).

3. There was plenty of integration even before Brown v. board of education. A lot of the angriest writers (Amiri Baraka/ Ibram Kendi) grew up in integrated neighborhoods.

4. Black people's destruction of Newark New Jersey took only about 10 years (p.98).

5. (p.234): More black men were dying in the streets of American cities than were dying in the jungles of Vietnam.

*******
It seems like history imitates itself without any real talent-- and it seems like the black people are particularly untalented in this way:

1. The corrupt black mayor that runs the city into the ground cliche showed up here. (We've all seen Coleman Young / Herbert Worthy/ Kwame Kilpatrick here in Michigan.) Cashill added Ken Gibson and Richard G. Hatcher, and that's not even a rounding error of the total number.

2. Repurposing other religions and mixing elements of Christianity into them. Kwanzaa looks an awful lot like Hanukkah. The Nation of Islam looks like what would happen if a jackleg preacher added some Islamic symbols. (In his way, it seems like the cultish, ignorant Black Hebrew Israelites are just so much old wine in new bottles.)

3. Nation of Islam prefigured Prislam, (which actually started out of Newark).

4. Let's burn down everything that we own! (1968 riots; Rodney King riots; George Floyd riots; Detroit) and then sit in a burned out city for decades because of lack of competence to rebuild it.

5. A lot of black people rely on the government to be their best friend, and really it was (and is) their worst enemy

Second order thoughts:

1. Cashill's experience is completely consonant with what I have seen before. And yet it took so long for this book to be written; how many history books does somebody have to sort through before they find one that gives a real version of events versus a sanitized, fictionalized one?

2a. A lot of people like Ibram X. Kendi ($300,000 in one year for consulting fees), Ta-Nehisi Coates (net worth $6 million) and Robin D'Angelo make bank in consulting fees repeating this narrative.

2b. It's a running theme here that these real life problems become academic talking points for people who live nowhere near the actual situation. (p.131) "Everyone with whom I spoke knew exactly why they left. It's just that no one bothered to ask them."

Authors have written entire interesting books about a snapshot of History by just taking the time to INTERVIEW PEOPLE THAT WERE ACTUALLY THERE. ("The Corpse Walker." Liao Yiwu.)

3. Is there an algorithm to use when selecting history books? Is it even worth the time that it takes to sort through all of these books in pursuit of the truth? It's not always possible to believe the statements even of people who were there. And then people who were not there are likely to be even less accurate.

4. I think the position of black people is probably going to get worse over time in the States. We have a lot of people coming in from outside who don't feel that they owe any debt to black people and will be a lot less tolerant / willing to give them the benefit of the doubt in any situation. 

5. The university system also has a hand in this. It's amazing how many people: a) participate in riots/murder, b) go to prison, and then c)are awarded an academic job.  Angela Davis. Ron Karenga. William Ayers. 

After this civilization has collapsed, future historians may look back and decide that the tenure system and the inability of governments to keep certain professional pot stirrers in prison was a Very Bad Idea.

Quotable quotes: 

1. (p.42): Before government made work more or less optional, people had no choice but to go where the jobs were. They felt an obligation to make a living.

2. (Hoffer): "Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket."  (Cashill insert): "Kendi's brand of anti-racism skipped the first two phases. It was conceived as a racket."

3. (p.120): Brennan apparently failed to anticipate the parents of all races might object to putting their little ones on buses for exhausting hours every day to solve someone else's theoretical problem.

4. (p.123) Between 1960 and 1980, Newark lost more than 150,000 white residents. During the same. Detroit and Chicago each lost close to a million, the great majority of whom were ethnic and working class.

5. (p.145) Election fraud is a cottage industry in Newark.

6. (p.220) Whites in Newark saw the world more clearly. Having grown up around and among people of color, they do not romanticize them..... As one friend tells me, "I had the guilt beaten out of me a long time ago."

7. (p.234, Jesse Lee Peterson): "In Alabama, I had been taught not to hate..... Hate of the white man in particular gave me a satisfying way to explain all my other failures."

8. (p.240, Amiri Baraka): "Rob whitey, rape his daughter, and burn him." / "You can help by dying. You are a cancer. You can help the world's people with your death."

Verdict: Recommended

Supplemental notes:

The 10 worst run cities in the United States (according to WalletHub), and how black they are:

150. Detroit, MI (82%)
149. St. Louis, MO (48%)
148. Jackson, MS (71%)
147. Shreveport, LA (56%)
146. Flint, MI (60%)
145. Stockton, CA (12%)
144. Gary, IN (84%)
143. Toledo, OH (27%)
142. Memphis, TN (63%)
141. Cleveland, OH (53%)
140. Baton Rouge, LA (50%)

I am surprised that Baltimore wasn't in here. I know that of their last 3 mayors one had to step down and a couple more had fraud charges. (For the record, they are #129, 64% black.)

Average percent black. 55%
Standard Deviation. 20%

The 10 best run cities in the United States, and how black they are.

1. Nampa, ID (1%)
2. Provo, UT (1%)
3. Boise, ID (2%)
4. Durham, NC (37%)
5. Lexington-Fayette, KY (8%)
6. Las Cruces, NM (3%)
7. Billings, MT (1%)
8. Virginia Beach, VA (20%)
9. Missoula, MT (1%)
10. Fargo, ND (3%)

Average percent black. 7.7%
Standard deviation. 11.2%

Interesting. (Durham should probably be thrown out because it is such an outlier. But I'll leave it in just the same.)

Correlation coefficients of the first and last 10.:
r=0.82
r^2=0.64