Bill Bennett's final solution: aborting all black babies could reduce crime

I believe I've responded to every one of your counter-responses. I even withstood the rancor of FB for replying to you a matter that he thought he had satisfied... by him.

 

The "association" of crime with blacks has been in the headlines for a generation. What is the common stat cited: 1/3rd to 1/4th of all adult black males are somehow involved in the criminal justice system? Something like that.

And you have the temerity to criticize someone, no let's say castigate someone and demean them by calling them racist, because they recognize and call on that well-known problem to illustrate something?

 

But some of his defenders later do. I mean, your post above this one implies that even if Bill didn't mention the pre-disposition for blacks toward crime it's still a valid and major issue that could be solved with his solution.

It took the mere reference of race for his defenders to fall in line, subsequently his criticizers also fell into that shorthand.

Either Bill is really smart or really stupid.

 

Pre-disposition or incidence? I don't have time to go back and re-read all the posts; can you cite one which does what you say it does?

 

I'm not calling out the person who wrote the quote below.

 

You challenged me for erroneously using the term "genocide." I asked you what term to use and you conveniently didn't answer.

So again, what term would you like to give to the systematic termination of all black babies in America? You say it isn't genocide. Then what is it?

 

I didn't challenge you for erroneously using genocide. I rebuked you for chastizing me for taking the thread off-message when you (and others) had done so beforehand.

You referred to Bennett's scenario of black abortion as genocide. I very coyly asked if this was an admission that abortion itself was some form of genocide.

Bennett raised a hypothetical question to illlustrate something and you and others are threatened by it. I see no reason to further discuss it myself.

 

Committing genocide is certainly racism (or tribalism or some other form of group discrimination, as it can occur within the same race, see: Rwanda). Stating facts is not racism.

 

Okay, for your short-term memory problems, I'll recap for you:

At 1:24pm today, you made the following comment to me.

In question form, you challenged me that Bennett never suggested genocide. To which I questioned you, if aborting all black babies isn't genocide, then what is it?

I still haven't received an answer.

Yes, at 1:17 you attempted to derail the thread by questioning my personal beliefs on abortion ...which has nothing to do with this thread. Please point out one time in this thread where I attempted to derail you? Thanks for playing.

Of which I responded by saying, YES, when one aborts ALL BLACK babies.

I'm more threatened that people, such as yourself, give his commentary any credence.

If I punch you in the stomach, do I have any right to tell you it doesn't hurt? If you make a racially charged comment towards me, what right do you have to assess whether I should be offended by it?

 

That wasn't the topic. It is not racist to talk about the percentage of Black males who go to prison if that is the topic. However, that wasn't the topic.

Let us say in a parallel universe 1/3 or 1/4 of all Black males are huge polluters. That means a large majority aren't huge polluters. Let us also the reason that they pollute isn't because they are black.(You yourself said it wasn't a causal effect.)

Pretend you and I are talking and you say that you went on a vacation and everything was great but the water was dirty, and you couldn't go swimming in the ocean becuase of the filthy water. The vacation was lovely, the wife, and kids had a good time, and the food was great. Despite all the fun you wish there was something you that could be done about pollution. You had read a book that said if there were less people there would be less pollution.

Out of the blue I say, "You know if they aborted all black children, the pollution would be better. I think it is a bad thing to abort black children, but it is a fact that the pollution would go down."

What would you say my association with the Black race is? How would you guess that I internally viewed blacks?

As with the real universe the fact that more black adult males are incarcerated than white males does not excuse making a blanket statement about all black babies.

It is almost as simple as the psychiatrist word association exercise where they say the first word that comes into their mind.

Psychiatrist: Crime

Bennet: Blacks

That is what happened. But accept in Bill Bennet's and some others who harbor racist thoughts the Black race is not defined by crime. Yet as soon as crime was brought up, that is where Billy B took the conversation, despite the fact that it isn't a cause for crime. In an off the cuff remark, Bennet clearly showed the nation what he associates with crime. The answer is the black race.

The fact that a vast minority of blacks go to jail, but Bennet still associates the entire black race with crime is racism. I don't dare to call him anything, but what he exhibits.

 

stating facts can be indicitive or racism if they are brought up out of the blue, as soon as the topic hinges on a subject of something which only a minority of a certain race exhibits a characteristic, and the person mentions the whole race when addressing the situation of which race wasn't even part of the discussion until Bennet made his claim.

 

My point was that re-casting a hypothetical argument which sought ostracize the notion of pan-black abortion as a solution for crime into a plea for genocide is in and of itself the ultimate sidetrack.

While I am all-powerful, making a small observation about one of your remarks is not really an attempt at derailment. Why are so many of you so threatened by a hypothetical argument? Is it the Jesse Jackson Syndrome-- seing racist motives everywhere?

 

The original topic was Social Security. The caller made the point that if all the babies who had been aborted since Roe v. Wade had not been aborted then we would have adequate Social Security funding.

Bennett challenged the assumption of that argument that all of those aborted babies would have been productive citizens-- since a good percentage of the babies aborted came from poverty and a good percentage of those born into poverty never escape it. No mention of race yet, is there?

Why did Bennett choose black babies to illustrate his next point? I would guess it is because: 1) He had to choose a minority group just to illustrate how a change in a variable would impact the remaining larger group, and 2) because of the well-known plague of crime in that population.

To me it is but a logical choice to make the illustration he sought to make. Did he distort the truth? No. Did it make some uncomfortable with his choice? Yes.

If you listen to the audio, he hastened to add that this was an unethical and undesireable "plan" yet all the critics want to talk about is Bennett's plan for genocide.

 

[Clue Phone ringing.]

Discussing the racial implication of his comment IS the topic.

[/Clue phone stops ringing]

Then save it.

If you can't understand why people are offended by this "hypothetical argument," then just accept this universal truth.

Fact: The sky is blue.
Fact: Blacks will be offended by suggestions of genocide.

As a white guy, you don't get to tell blacks there have no reason to be offended ...simply because you are white. Just accept it and move on.

Dude, if suggesting genocide isn't a racial motive, then I don't know what is.

 

Accept it and move on is so 1970's. I think its crap.

 

At night the sky is black; is that a racial observation?

If Bennett had "suggested" genocide I would agree with you...

 

So what you are saying is, because of our race, you think we should not have the same rights that black people have. Check. Who is a racist again?

 

True, there was no mention of race at this point. It is possible to be productive and remain poor however. There are many thousands of people who are poor and work full time jobs. There are even homeless who work full time jobs.

I disagree that he had to choose a minority group at all. That wasn't necessary. The caller mentioned the book freakonomics, which talks about abortion and crime, but not race. That was Bennet's doing, and the first association he made when talking about crime and abortion was all blacks.

I have heard the audio, but have you read my other posts. Nobody is claiming he suggested that as a good thing to do. I have said many times that Bennet clearly states that it is morally reprehensible.

However that has nothing to do with whether his automatic association of crime with blacks is racist. It is. He did apply it to the whole race because said aborting all black babies, not those in conditions that have a track record of leading to crime or anything else. He said all Black babies.

It has zero to do with Bill BEnnet suggesting it would be a good thing to do that. He clearly didn't. I have said it time and time again.

What Bennet did do, is automatically associate crime with an entire race.

 

Here's a good read on the Bennett "foot in mouth" incident. It makes some good points, some that have been made here already:


A Specious 'Experiment'

By Eugene Robinson
Tuesday, October 4, 2005; A23

There's no need to pillory William Bennett for his "thought experiment" about how aborting all black children would affect the crime rate. I believe him when he says he wasn't actually advocating genocide, just musing about it to make a point. Instead of going into high-dudgeon mode, let's put him on the couch.

Bennett, the former education secretary and anti-drug czar who has found a new calling in talk radio, told his audience last week 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." He quickly added that doing so would be "impossible, ridiculous and morally reprehensible," which is certainly true.

So why would such a horrible idea even cross his mind? How could such an evil notion ever pass his lips?

Bennett was referring to research done by Steven D. Levitt, a University of Chicago economist and lead author of the best-selling book "Freakonomics." The iconoclastic Levitt, something of an academic rock star, argues that the steep drop in crime in the United States over the past 15 years resulted in part from the Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion.

In defending his words, Bennett has said he was citing "Freakonomics." So why did his "thought experiment" refer only to black children?

Levitt's thesis is essentially that unwanted children who grow up poor in single-parent households are more likely than other children to become criminals, and that Roe v. Wade resulted in fewer of these children being born. What he doesn't do in the book is single out black children.

Perhaps the ostentatiously intellectual Bennett went back and read Levitt's original 2001 paper on the subject, co-authored with John J. Donohue III. The authors do mention race briefly, in a discussion of the falling homicide rate, but attribute most of the decline to those race-neutral factors that Levitt later cited in "Freakonomics." To bolster their argument, they cite research on abortion and lowered crime rates in Scandinavia and Eastern Europe -- not places where you're likely to find a lot of black people.

If he was citing Levitt's work, Bennett could have said that to lower the crime rate "you could abort every white baby" or "you could abort every Hispanic baby" or "you could abort every Asian baby," since every group has unwanted, poor children being raised by single mothers.

So now that we have Bennett on the couch, shouldn't we conclude that he mentioned only black children because, perhaps on a subconscious level, he associates "black" with "criminal''?

That's what it sounds like to me. I grew up in the South in the days when we had to drink at "colored" water fountains and gas stations had separate "colored" restrooms; I know what a real racist is like, and Bennett certainly doesn't fit the description. But that's what's so troubling about his race-specific "thought experiment" -- that such a smart, well-meaning opinion maker would so casually say something that translates, to African American ears, as "blacks are criminals."

What makes it worse is that his words came in the context of abortion. That Bennett staunchly opposes abortion is beside the point. He should know enough history to understand why black Americans would react strongly when whites start imagining experiments to limit black reproduction. For hundreds of years, this country was obsessed with the supposed menace of black sexuality and fertility. Bennett's remarks have to make you wonder whether that obsession has really vanished or just been deemed off-limits in polite discourse.

I've heard people argue -- mostly in discussions of affirmative action -- that the nation's problem of racial discrimination has mostly been solved. The issue now is class, they say, not race. I'd like to believe that, but I don't.

Bennett is too intelligent not to understand why many of us would take his mental experiment as a glimpse behind the curtain -- an indication that old assumptions, now unspoken, still survive. He ought to understand how his words would be taken as validation by the rapper Kanye West, who told a television audience that "George Bush doesn't care about black people," or by the New Orleans survivors who keep calling me with theories of how "they" dynamited selected levees to flood the poor, black Lower Ninth Ward and save the wealthy French Quarter and Garden District.

I have a thought experiment of my own: If we put our racial baggage on the table and talk about it, we'll begin to take care of a lot of unfinished business.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/03/AR2005100300952.html



Keep D&D Civil.

 

Automatically? Can you prove that? Isn't that a little overly-sensitive? He extrapolated the solution to a whole subset (all black babies) to prove a point. If he extrapolated to the majority group he would have wiped out the majority of the population sample and skewed the crime statistics in a way that would not prove the assumed aim of reducing crime stats but rather he would have raised them. Would that have illustrated his point? No.