The Elephant in the Room
Over at the National Review, the guy from Weekend At Bernie’s thinks we’re being too harsh on Bill Bennett :
It was in this context that Bennett remarked: “I do know that it’s true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could — if that were your sole purpose — you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down.” Was he suggesting such a thing? Was he saying that such a thing should even be considered in the real world? Of course not. His whole point was that such considerations are patently absurd, and thus he was quick to add: “That would be an impossible, ridiculous and morally reprehensible thing to do.”Bennett’s position, clearly and irrefutably, is that you cannot have tunnel vision, especially on something as emotionally charged as abortion, in addressing multifaceted problems. It is almost always the case that problems, even serious ones, could be minimized or eliminated if you were willing to entertain severe solutions. Such solutions, though, are morally and ethically unacceptable, whatever the validity of their logic. The lesson to be drawn is not that we can hypothetically conceive of the severe solutions but that we resolutely reject them because of our moral core.
Exactly! Bill Bennett wasn’t saying that we should abort all black babies. Only a monster would even suggest such a thing. He was simply pointing out the obvious fact that black people are inherently criminal. He’s not some sort of racist that approves of abortions, he’s a racist who hates abortion. Big difference.
In defending Bennett, the guy from Pretty in Pink was forced to point out an uncomfortable fact about America that most conservatives have spent the last few decades trying to sweep under the rug :
Statistics have long been kept on crime, breaking it down in various ways, including by race and ethnicity. Some identifiable groups, considered as a group, commit crime at a rate that is higher than the national rate.Blacks are such a group. That is simply a fact. Indeed, our public discourse on it, even among prominent African Americans, has not been to dispute the numbers but to argue over the causes of the high rate: Is it poverty? Breakdown of the family? Undue police attention? Other factors — or some combination of all the factors? We argue about all these things, but the argument always proceeds from the incontestable fact that the rate is high.
Are African-Americans more likely to commit crimes[1]And by “crimes”, I mean the scary kind that they talk about on the news like robbery and assault, not the “everyone does it” variety that’s so popular in Washington these days like insider trading, money laundering, and obstruction of justice.? Possibly so, but notice the string of questions that follow this assertion, as if to imply that “this stuff is so complicated, nobody really knows the causes”. This is complete bullshit. African-Americans are also more likely to be living below the poverty level, get shitty educations, have inadequate access to healthcare, etc. All of which are actual factors[2]As opposed to skin color. in determining whether or not someone is going to be a criminal. The lack of insight of assholes like Bill Bennett and the guy from St. Elmo’s Fire is so great, they can’t see the statistics that have “long been kept on crime” and come to any conclusion deeper than “black people commit crimes”. In other words, they’re too fucking stupid to understand the statistics that they use to defend themselves.
But pointing this out inequalities doesn’t make someone a racist. No, Bill Bennett and the guy from Mannequin are racist because they’re pea-brained shitheads who refuse to look at the racial inequality in this country and search for answers beneath the surface. Why are African-Americans less likely to have healthcare than whites? Why do predominantly black schools get less money and have larger class sizes? Why do back people die sooner, make less, and are more likely to spend time in prison than their white counterparts? People like Bennett like to point out that the “black” part of town is usually the “bad” part of town, but it’s never really bothered them enough to ask “Why?”.
The reason for this cultural myopia is that the “If I can’t see it, it doesn’t exist” brand of conservatism has long held that racism is a thing of the past. To them, Martin Luther King Jr. cured racism with his “I Have A Dream” speech, and any remnants of inequality is due to some unexplained “cultural difference”[3]A slimy way to leading people to that other conservative maxim, that all poor people are lazy.. If you point out the obvious fact that the scars of slavery are still healing, they’re quick to respond “I’ve never owned any slaves”. Well, duh! The question isn’t whether slavery is over, but whether African-Americans are fully integrated into American society. The very fact that there are serious differences makes the answer a resounding “no”.
To cut this rant off while it’s still semi-coherent, lemme go back to the remark that started all this. In response to a question about whether the increase in abortions reduced the crime rate, Bennett said “you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down”. Even if that comment was defensible on its merits, one has to wonder why the first example that popped into Bennett’s head was the nexus between race and crime. The fact that there are still people like Bill Bennett who think there’s a causal relationship between skin color and crime tells you all you need to know about where we stand in terms of race relations in this country.
1 : And by “crimes”, I mean the scary kind that they talk about on the news like robbery and assault, not the “everyone does it” variety that’s so popular in Washington these days like insider trading, money laundering, and obstruction of justice.
2 : As opposed to skin color.
3 : A slimy way to leading people to that other conservative maxim, that all poor people are lazy.
UPDATE : Yes, I know the Andrew McCarthy who wrote the NRO article isn’t the same one who acted in all those movies in the 80’s. It was supposed to be a joke, so you can stop emailing me about it. Sorry for any confusion. I hope nobody got the impression that the actor from those John Huges movies was a racist or that the writer for the National Review was talented enough to star alongside Molly Ringwald or Rob Lowe.
11 comments
Copy link for RSS feed for comments on this post
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
Excellent post –
Re: Legacy of slavery. If I may add a bit. It’s even more fucked up than just a long, slow struggle back. Right after the Civil War, blacks made a lot of progress. Then, since the 1880s there have been periodic assaults on black progress. Jim Crowe laws, lynchings, just taking a thriving black business community and burning it to the ground, etc.
Some well-meaning (but still somewhat unconscously racist) people (not you) want to believe that “well, because slavery messed up the black culture so bad, and they weren’t given enough help, they just haven’t been able to catch up.” But this isn’t true. Blacks have been making progress but keep getting beat back by a racist establishment.
This is not to say that there aren’t problems in urban black culture that are self defeating (the prison/gang cycle, kicking the shit out of a kid who dares to like to read, for example), but I’m not gonna go there.
Also, it’s a lot easier for a young black teenager to get arrested than a white kid for the same offense. When I was a teenager, we got busted drinking in a park at night and the cops just took our beer and told us to leave. I have no doubt that if we had been black, we would have been hustled down to the station and booked.
And once you’re branded as a scofflaw, the cops will hassle you any chance they get.
Comment by Dave — September 30, 2005 @ 11:49 am
Even if that comment was defensible on its merits, one has to wonder why the first example that popped into Bennett’s head was the nexus between race and crime. The fact that there are still people like Bill Bennett who think there’s a causal relationship between skin color and crime tells you all you need to know about where we stand in terms of race relations in this country.
This is what first came to my mind. I hope the liberal AfAm leadership (excluding the “social conservative” clergypeople whom BushCo has bought off) is paying attention.
Comment by eRobin — September 30, 2005 @ 4:12 pm
Technically, Bennett was correct – of course, if you aborted every white baby too, the crime rate would also go down. Why stop there though, lets kill everyone, then the crime rate will drop to zero!
Comment by webslinger — September 30, 2005 @ 5:30 pm
All else being equal, if you got rid of all the white people in America, the crime *rate* would go down, not up.
“Even if that comment was defensible on its merits, one has to wonder why the first example that popped into Bennett’s head was the nexus between race and crime.”
Well, that’s what this is really all about, isn’t it? The comment is, in fact, “technically true” (ie “true”), which I would equate with “defensible”, but it sounds bad if pulled out of context, so it’s treated as probable cause in the witchhunt for racists.
Comment by David — September 30, 2005 @ 6:48 pm
eep – should be “*up*, not down”. But y’all could probably figure that out. ;)
Comment by David — September 30, 2005 @ 6:50 pm
If we abort all the republican babies, will corporate crime go down?
Comment by kamachanda — October 1, 2005 @ 4:49 am
Not sure if you were deliberately mis-identifying this bozo, but he is NOT Andrew McCarthy the actor. This kind of stuff gets repeated, ya know.
This NRO idiot is a former Federal prosecutor.
Comment by wtlloyd — October 1, 2005 @ 6:39 am
Let me start off by saying that I’m one of those “thinking, listening, observing” types. I heard Bennett’s comments and his explanation of them. I got what he was saying, but question why he would say it in a public forum and then be surprised by public reaction.
I do in deed believe that poverty plays a very important role in the connection of blacks and crime. However, I’m not one of those people who stops there because I grew up poor, got educated, made some money, things went wrong, and damned if I’m not poor again. Along the way, I met poor and impoverished whites and latinos. Guess what?! They have high crime rates in their neighborhoods as well.
One thing that pisses me off when people start to wax supreme on subjects such as this one, the discussion tends to start, middle and end at the group with 47% (a hypothetical number). They never bother to read further or listen to more that would reveal what’s going on with the folks who rate 41% or 39%, etc.
Comment by Jennifer — October 2, 2005 @ 7:34 pm
Planned Parenthood Advocates Abortion to Reduce Crime
And the bizarre thing is that Bennett, who explicitly rejects abortion, is under attack.
Comment by John McAdams — October 2, 2005 @ 7:55 pm
I’m impressed with your article. I’m looking forward to your next blog.
Comment by Simon — October 3, 2005 @ 6:51 am
I’m am somwehat ambilvalent about this discussion. On the one hand, as a mathematician, I understand the objective truth of the statistics that Bennett refers to, and agree with his conclusion that such an action is reprehensible. Further, I agree with his later statement that his larger point was that it’s wrong to use such points in what is essentially an argument about ethics (i.e., “is abortion wrong?”). The many comments about him stating that blacks are inherently more criminal bother me. Again, as a mathematician I understand very clearly the difference between dependence and correlation.
It seems that the one concrete objection to his statements is that the particular example he came up with implies racism.
However, if we are truly trying to cast the liberal agenda as being reality-based, do we really want to start down a slippery slope of attacking people for their unsubstantiated motives? Isn’t that what we accuse the Newt Gingriches of the world of doing?
Besides, if Bennett really is the racist sumbitch he’s being painted as, it’s only a matter of time before he says something that definitely confirms it.
Comment by Robert — October 4, 2005 @ 4:07 pm