Wednesday, May 7, 2008
What Senator Barack Obama might learn from Emily Dickinson
In 1880, a journalist called Horace Redfield published a book about homicide rates in America. He found that states belonging to the former Confederacy had a murder rate four to 15 times higher than that of Northern states.
"In Kentucky that year there were more homicides than in the eight States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and Minnesota," Redfield wrote in "Homicide: North and South," referring to the year 1878. "In South Carolina that year there were more homicides than in the eight States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Michigan, and Minnesota."
Redfield's access to good data was limited, but his findings have been replicated many times in the last century. Whites living in rural areas in Southern states still have a homicide rate 1 1/2 times higher than that of their Northern counterparts, said Matthew Lee, a Louisiana State University sociologist. Poverty exacerbates the risk of gun violence: The homicide rate among rural whites with an annual income of $20,000 is nearly three times the rate among rural whites with an income of $50,000.
Redfield was not running for president, but he showed more caution in his book than presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama, (D-IL), who suggested at a recent California fund-raiser that economic deprivation in small-town America caused people to turn to guns, religion and xenophobia.
To read the full article, click here...
To read the ePaper, visit: http://www.newsindia-times.com
"In Kentucky that year there were more homicides than in the eight States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and Minnesota," Redfield wrote in "Homicide: North and South," referring to the year 1878. "In South Carolina that year there were more homicides than in the eight States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Michigan, and Minnesota."
Redfield's access to good data was limited, but his findings have been replicated many times in the last century. Whites living in rural areas in Southern states still have a homicide rate 1 1/2 times higher than that of their Northern counterparts, said Matthew Lee, a Louisiana State University sociologist. Poverty exacerbates the risk of gun violence: The homicide rate among rural whites with an annual income of $20,000 is nearly three times the rate among rural whites with an income of $50,000.
Redfield was not running for president, but he showed more caution in his book than presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama, (D-IL), who suggested at a recent California fund-raiser that economic deprivation in small-town America caused people to turn to guns, religion and xenophobia.
To read the full article, click here...
To read the ePaper, visit: http://www.newsindia-times.com
Labels: America, Emily Dickinson, homicides, Horace Redfield, journalist, learn, Senator Barack Obama, States of Maine
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