william bennett: aborting Black babies would lower the crime rate, but that would be wrong.

I mean, this is why no one on ILX can ever run for office -- just think of the horrible out-of-context things you've said on this board.

"The president believes the comments were not appropriate," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said.

Although not-in-Bennett's-defense, there's something very shitty and right-wing-radio about leaping to black babies as your future-criminals example (though again, I think the Freakonomics research may have focused on urban poor).

http://us.news3.yimg.com/us.i2.yimg.com/p/ap/20050930/capt.nyet25009301457.bennett_race_nyet250.jpg

That's what I was just thinking. Surely nobody's outraged that he suggested aborting Black babies, the problem is that it sprang so readily to his mind as an example of the point he was trying to make.

NB the White House is one to talk -- I'm a million times less offended by this than by Bush's "you black men should want to change Social Security, cause most of you are gonna die before you ever collect it."

But yes, much less offensive than Bush's race-based Social Security pitch -- not least because Bennett's not the president.

http://images.calorieking.com/branding/ck/runtime/updates/344.jpg

"But 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," Bennett said, according to an audio clip posted on Media Matters for America's Web site. "That would be an impossible, ridiculous and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down. So these far-out, these far-reaching, you know, extensive extrapolations are, I think, tricky.""

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/29/AR2005092902126.html

What about this guy?
http://www.coolwallpapers.org/celebrities/jeff_garlin/jeff_garlin.jpg

But he misstated the thesis. He made it about race, which is not the Freakonomics thesis. What's offensive is Bennett's equation of "poor and crime-prone" with "black". Of course he doesn't agree with the thesis, that's not the point -- the point is that he misstated it in a reflexively racist way. And he still doesn't seem to understand why it was offensive, which shows how deeply rooted those reflexes are.

But surely, this is unfortunately true! Not exclusively true, i.e. not every poor person is black and vice versa, but it is a huge problem with America, and is a result of discrimination going all the way back to slavery. But the tragic fact is, an African-American in this country will more likely end up committing crimes, because of the discrimination, lack of opportunity in his immediate environment, etc.

Well sure, the "crime rate" would go down if by "crime rate" you mean those crimes we choose to measure and prosecute because they are committed by young black men.

My bad.

but I don't think racial discrimination in arresting people and prosecuting crimes is the only reason the African-American crime rate is higher? From what I've read, anyway. I don't know if it's possible to have accurate statistics because of its very nature, though.

Well, right. But the issue is this: Either you think black people (or Hispanics, etc.) commit a disproportionate percentage of crimes because of factors other than race -- the legacies of racism, socioeconomics, etc. -- or you think there's something endemic to being black that makes you more prone to commit crimes. If you think the former -- that the reasons are something other than "race" -- then you don't make Bennett's comment, even in the context in which he intended it. You don't say "black babies." By using "black" as a shorthand for "prone to crime," you're making and reinforcing a link between race and behavior. That is racist. I mean, it's the definition of racism. And Bennett's inability to grasp that -- to understand what's offensive about what he said -- reveals his fundamental racism.

What I think is bad is that his comment can so easily be interpreted in the way that you're suggesting, he's putting a sound bite out there where people can infer (as you said) "oh, this authority says there is something endemic to being black that makes you more prone to commit crimes". But I don't think there's anything in what Bennett said that shows he actually believes that.

First, Nabisco OTM when he says, "Witchhunting these kinds of things is kinda shitty insofar as it really kills all possibility of intense or "academic" discussions where one feels free to actually compare alternatives and use examples and metaphors and such -- it kinda recommends that all discussion take place on this bland politician level where you only speak to positive values and never investigate anything."

That's why I feel compelled to defend someone that I don't really want to defend.

He does believe black people are more likely to commit crimes.

Which is unfortunately statistically true, but because as Gypsy put it, they "commit a disproportionate percentage of crimes because of factors other than race -- the legacies of racism, socioeconomics, etc." Were it not true, I would absolutely agree that he was making a racist statement.

I don't think there's anything in what he said that shows he doesn't believe it.

That's true, but in any case I don't think he's promoting racism intentionally, but rather through inadvertent blundering in not considering how some might interpret his example.

More likely to commit crimes or more likely to be convicted of committing crimes?

"but I don't think racial discrimination in arresting people and prosecuting crimes [and convictions] is the only reason the African-American crime rate is higher? From what I've read, anyway. I don't know if it's possible to have accurate statistics because of its very nature, though."

xpost

I don't care if blacks committ more crimes or are convicted of more crimes, it's still a damn racist thing to say. Anyone who believes that those crime stats are a genetic matter of race, and not economics, is a racist.

On the other hand, you guys have good points, and may be right that he revealed a racist streak with that statement. I think I'll put in my final comment here, which is, it was a really stupid thing for him to say.

(a) Assessing a position by pointing out one logical extreme of it = acceptable.

(b) Leaping straight to black people as an example of crime sources = betrays same fucked right-wing worldview lots and lots of people have (and one plenty of people have betrayed w/r/t a city-destroying hurricane lately, often without much censure); there are a million coded ways that people imply this stuff every day (such as when they say Scandinavians can have such nice countries because they're "more homogenous").

Apart from media-dissection zones like this one, the story doesn't lead to meaningful discussion of the second point -- the residue just winds up being "hey you know Bennet suggested we kill all black people to reduce crime."

-- gypsy mothra (meetm...), September 30th, 2005.

I think you're giving Levitt too much credit, race really was at the heart of his abortion cuts crime thesis. Here's an excerpt from the 2001 paper he did with John J. Donohue that became the abortion/crime chapter in Freakonomics:

Fertility declines for black women are three times greater than for whites (12 percent compared to 4 percent). Given that homicide rates of black youths are roughly nine times higher than those of white youths, racial differences in the fertility effects of abortion are likely to translate into greater homicide reductions. Under the assumption that those black and white births eliminated by legalized abortion would have experienced the average criminal propensities of their respective races, then the predicted reduction in homicide is 8.9 percent. In other words, taking into account differential abortion rates by race raises the predicted impact of abortion legalization on homicide from 5.4 percent to 8.9 percent.

Levitt used some proxies to avoid discussing race because he wanted to avoid the reaction Bennett is getting. I was surprised that so many people on the left were willing to sign on for the whole "aborting potential criminals" line (presumably because it seems vaguely pro-choice) without seeing the implications of that viewpoint.

Donohue III, John J. and Levitt, Steven D., "The Impact of Legalized Abortion on Crime" (2000). Quarterly Journal of Economics

I wish he'd said "aborting poor babies" - would have been a much more interesting and less predictable hue-and-cry.

Or better yet, aborting unwanted babies. Oh, wait...

I've seen only a few people on the left cite this study as confirming their opinions, and it wasn't based on the rationale that just getting rid of certain socioeconomic groups will keep them from committing crime -- it was based on some sort of vague argument that "unwanted" children may grow up in kinda bad situations (poverty and poor parenting from people who knew from the beginning they weren't in a position to rear children) and thus wouldn't lead bad lives ending in crime. Therefore legalized abortion would keep some children from winding up in the sorts of situations that breed crime.

Admitting that reading of the study, of course, would ruin Bennett's ability to caricature the whole thing -- he chooses a different reading for the purpose of arguing against abortion, and then chooses a typical right-wingy example that sounds shitty in whole other ways.

Yet I cannot feel sympathy for The Gambler. Also, and apologies if this has already been said, as I have been reading this through the customary red mist, it seems as if Bennett is really thinking this but uses the qualifier so as not to invite even more criticism

Instead, we should be castrating blacks! WHITE POWER!