Thomas Sowell writes that the culture of most blacks in America today was adopted from early southern white immigrants who came from one of three places, The northern borderlands of England, the Scottish Highlands, and from Ulster County, Ireland. All three of these were, "fridge areas... turbulant, if not almost lawless, regions." These white people brought with them a certain redneck or cracker culture including traits such as, "proneness to violence, neglect of education, sexual promiscuity, improvidence, drukenness, lack of entrepreneurship, reckless searches for exitement, lively music and dance, and a style of flamboyant oratory marked by strident rhetoric, unbridled emotions, and flamboyant imagery."
This culture transplanted from a nearly lawless region did not serve whites particularly well, and (in another essay) Sowell notes that at times, in america, there have been, "No Irish Need Apply" signs. But while this culture mostly faded from white populations, it did not fade from black ones, and today, it is often reinforced by white intellectuals (even though, ironically, it is not African) For instance, Sowell writes of speech patterns that have been traced from england that are today recognised as "black English", including words such as "ax" for "ask", "y'awl" for "you", "bile" for "boil", ect...
Sowell goes as far as to say, "White liberals in many roles-as intellectuals, politicians, celebrities, judges, teachers-have aided and abetted the purpetuation of a counterproductive and self-destructive lifestyle amoung black rednecks." He lists a few specifics, but this post is getting long...
Again, there is much more presented, and no doubt present much better, in his book, Black Rednecks and White Liberals. The book has motivated me to reconsider things which I had taken for granted for a long time.
http://www.tsowell.com/
-John