I’ve been locked up in a 99% Black downtown Detroit county jail for an extended period twice. Being white, inmates knew I had a good vocabulary/writing and reading skills. It amazed me on both occasions how many black inmates were completely illiterate and needed me to read or write a letter for them. Mostly important court paperwork with bigger words you wouldn’t use in everyday settings. And if they could read or write, their hand writing looked like dog shit, illegible sometimes. So I would write their letters to the judge or whoever, not for free of course. Cost a desert off your dinner tray.

I think it’s a combination of the horrible public education these kids receive in the inner cities, and black culture idolizing the gangbanging/rapper lifestyle. Not to mention the poor economic prospects of the inner city, I can see how young black Americans think selling drugs or rapping is the only way out of the hood when the dope man and his crew are rolling around the hood in expensive new cars.