It astounds me, sometimes, that some things that ought to be obvious and that ought to be taken for granted have to be spelled out to people; in this case, people who still don’t get was wrong with William Bennett’s remarks about aborting black babies.
I got it as soon as I heard it, as did just about anyone with a couple of brain cells knocking around in their skulls. But because dealing with racist numbskulls like Bennett wears me out, I’ll leave it to John Conyers to spell it out this time.
But what they miss is not the abortion “hypothetical” — as absurd and tasteless as that is — but Bennett’s suggestion that African Americans are synonymous with crime. It is a text book case of sterotyping and racism, and cannot be explained away. Second they say I am a First Amendment hypocrite. I don’t think there are many stronger First Amendment supporters in Congress than I am, but all I am suggesting is that those who use the air waves have a tad responsibility to not foment racism. I am not the FCC after all, but if Members of Congress can’t speak the truth to these wingnuts, who can? (emphasis mine)
Stop the next half a dozen black folks you meed on the street, and ask any of them if they’ve ever been suspected of being a criminal or treated like one for no other reason but their race — whether it’s being placed in handcuffs and put in jail or just being watched closely while shopping at the mall — and I bet you three or four of them will say that they have experienced just that.
No one believes that Bennett thinks abortion is anything but morally reprehensible. On that I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt (though his statement suggests the thought has at least occurred to him). But he doesn’t and shouldn’t get off without criticism for the blatant equating being black with being a criminal.
And it’s not about free speech either. Bennett has a right to say whatever he wants. The public also has a right to respond, and to vocally disapprove of what he said.
Technorati Tags: current events, politics, race
Sorry, T. Your brain is refusing to let in the possibility that you might be wrong on this one.
Bennett isn’t necessarily supposing that blacks are synonymous with crime. It can be that he observes that prisons are disproportionately populated by African Americans — something that we all think we know from viewing movies, such as the recent “The Longest Yard.”
There have also been statistics rattling around that black males are, something like, five times more likely to be incarcerated than whites, as a percentage of their population.
I am sure there are statistics on the internet on all of this, somewhere. But I think that most people are aware of the high percentage of black incarceration. THIS KNOWLEDGE by itself isn’t racist. Certainly, it comes about from a lot of causes: Poverty, unfair judicial systems, unfair laws [crack v cocaine laws, i.e.] gangsta culture and other elements in pockets of black culture that laud bad/criminal behavior.
Bennett’s spontaneous words were insensitive in the extreme. But I do not think that they revealed a well of racism in him. The remarks of Richard Woodson (sic?) tagged it, I think: Sometimes intellectuals get detached from common sense.
Here, from an article Incarceration Rates should Motivate Change:
Here, a paragraph from a Bureau of Justice webpage:
Ain’t buying it, Tom. If Bennett had been concerned about the majority of crime, including violent crime, he would have suggested aborting all white male babies. Though blacks and Hispanics are incarcerated at a higher rate, most violent crime is still committed by whites, usually men. White criminals also tend to get more bodies per bang, leading in serial and mass slayings. Seems to me that a person concerned about crime would care about that.
Of course, I am opposed to genocide against any group to reduce crime (which has been in decline for the last 15-20 years anyway). But, for Bennett’s ‘hypothetical’ to be accurate, he would have needed to use a demographic that he would not think of using — white male babies.
Wrong, Mac Diva,
He said the “crime rate.” The “rate” is capitated; it would go down — in this horrific allusion — if any group that has a rate higher than the average was, um, massacred.
You don’t have to look farther than the present WH Administration, a majority of white, white collar criminals one and all. They get away with it because of their connections to money and property. Huge numbers of Blacks and Hispanics have been kept down by rampant racism for decades; their crimes are mostly out of desperation, lack of opportunity and education; not greed like the ongoing, unpunished rapers of global resources and liberties of citizens world wide and whom are presently connected to or operating from the White House [i.e, BushCo/Cheneyburton]. namasté
I agree, somewhat, neilemac. But let us not make the mistake of indicting Bennett for his intentionally-outlandish supposition.
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