Metcalf died as a result of being stabbed in the heart after he had told Anthony to leave a tent he wasn't supposed to be in. According to reports, Metcalf grabbed Anthony's backpack, and was stabbed as a result. It's a senseless killing that never should have happened, but it did, and the detail being most focused on is the race of the two boys. Metcalf was white, and Anthony was black. 

These two facts have sent the internet into a mass-scale debate about the violence of black men, and has naturally brought out everyone from all walks of life to debate it. This includes Matt Walsh, who laid down a post on X that kicked a massive hornet's nest, and every single occupant has their stingers out:

If I told you that a young man stabbed another young man to death for telling him that he was in the wrong seat, and then I told you that one young man in this altercation was white and the other black, and then I asked you to guess the race of the assailant, every single person would know the answer immediately. Young black males are violent to a wildly, outrageously disproportionate degree. That’s just a fact. We all know it. And it’s time that we speak honestly about it, or nothing will ever change.

Walsh is doing something that I find very annoying, and it's something the left usually does. He's taking a kernel of truth and leaving out loads of information, including the why. Whatever you might say about Walsh, one thing he's very good at is using controversy to create virality. This single post has him at the center of many different conversations, most of which are a testament to his infamy, which is just how he likes it. 

But while Walsh is a little correct, his post misses an entire point that needs to be made. 

Are black males "violent to a wildly, outrageously disproportionate degree." Yes. The statistics are very clear about that. 

According to the FBI, black people accounted for 26.6 percent of the total arrests, with over 51 percent of those being murder arrests. The black community accounts for 12.2 percent of the population, making this an incredibly shocking statistic. 

If we were to stop there, then it would seem like the first problem with black crime is that these people are black, but that's like saying the sky is blue because it is, ignoring the science behind the hue. 

The real problem isn't black people. There are a myriad of black people in the United States that don't commit crimes, and are normal citizens just like everyone else, and with no inherent desire for violence or racism. In fact, most of the black people I know are harmless nerds. 

There's a common thread here that isn't being addressed, and that's the lack of masculine influence. In other words, the black community is plagued with fatherless homes. According to the Census Bureau, in 2023, 54 percent of black children live with a mother only. 

The relationship between fatherlessness and crime is well-documented. 

The America First Policy Institute indicates that the absence of a father in the home causes hindrances to psychological development, more tendencies toward poverty, higher drop-out rates, drug use, and school violence. 

This comes with other striking facts: 

• In a study of 56 school shootings, only 10 of the shooters (18%) were raised in a stable home with both biological parents. 82% grew up in either an unstable family environment or grew up without both biological parents together.
• Some data suggests 72 percent of adolescent murderers and 70 percent of long-term prison inmates come from fatherless homes
• Children who feel closeness to their father are 80% less likely to spend time in jail 75% percent of adolescent patients in substance abuse centers are from fatherless homes.

You see this stat repeated quite a bit from various organizations. 

Allforkids.com speaks of a UNICEF report from 2007 indicating that fatherlessness around the globe affects kids the same way: 

According to the 2007 UNICEF report on child well-being in advanced nations, kids in the U.S., Canada, and the U.K. rank extremely low in social and emotional well-being. A largely ignored factor among child and family policymakers is the prevalence and devastating effects of father’s absence in children’s lives.

Studies show that children without fathers at home suffer greatly. Even before birth, a father’s attitudes regarding the pregnancy, prenatal behaviors, and the father-mother relationship may indirectly influence risk for adverse birth outcomes. School-aged children with good relationships with their fathers are less likely to experience depression, disruptive behavior, or lying and more likely to exhibit prosocial behavior.

Black people aren't inherently violent, but they do have an overwhelming amount of fatherlessness in their communities. With a father-shaped negative space in so many lives, it shouldn't be any wonder why so many in the black community are destabilized, and thus destabilizing everything around them. 

This is a cultural matter for the black community that's only reinforced with government rewards. Welfare even goes so far as to disincentivize marriage by reducing benefits if there is a father present, effectively making it more lucrative to be a single mother. It should be the opposite. Tax benefits should be given to rewarding nuclear families. 

Moreover, in our greater cultural zeitgeist, fathers are considered an afterthought, or unnecessary altogether. It's pretty clear that this has been severely damaging to society overall, but it's been particularly hard on the black community. Fathers should be looked at as integral. The presence of a masculine figure and the effect they can have on a young life should be seen as essential. 

I'm not entirely sure how things change without changes to how we reward and encourage fatherlessness. Until we do differently, the black community will continue to be plagued with violence and crime, especially toward each other.