The first essay challenges the traditional theoretical explanation of black violence based on Eurocentric explanations of behavior and focuses on certain ethnic and cultural differences as factors contributing to the high incidence of black violence and homicide. A microecological analysis of black homicide examines how structural features of neighborhoods generate social contagions which make those neighborhoods dangerous places and promote disproportionate rates of black homicide. Other essays examine racial disparity in case processing decision outcomes and case dispositions involving black violent offenders, examine factors contributing to crime in the black community in general and homicide in particular, examine the nature and pattern of woman- battering among a sample of black female victims, and study patterns of aggression among black students. The final two chapters discuss the widespread public fear of being victimized by black men and the politicization of the term black-on-black crime. Chapter references