Bennett’s Race Problem, and Mine
By Callimachus | Related entries in Abortion, Dumb Things Said By Smart People, In The News, RaceLike Bill Bennett, I probably should just keep my mouth shut.
I confess, I’ve completely lost track of what “racist” means in contemporary American political discourse. I know what I think it means, but evidently I’m one of the people who are disqualified from knowing anything about it because I am a racist.
That is, I get called a racist at least once a week by people who don’t know a thing about me, because I ask certain questions or make certain statements (like Bennett’s, the truth of them is never questioned) or simply because I voted for candidate X. In spite of what Justin would like to believe, race is off-limits in politics if you voted for candidate X. Which, by the way, is why Republicans have a bee in their collective bonnet about Bob Byrd’s long-ago Klan membership: Candidate X is never from Byrd’s party. There’s a double standard, as there is in public speech with certain words having to do with race, gender, and sexuality. Some Americans are allowed to use them without consequences, some aren’t.
Let’s face it; the social aspect of race is a shifting quagmire. It provides endless fodder for Spike Lee movies. I’ve recently been reading a kerfluffle over some right-leaning blogger’s use of the word “articulate” to describe a black leader (I now forget which one). Left-leaning black blogger Oliver Willis jumped all over him for it, because it suggests most blacks aren’t (he might have added, it has a dubious historical heritage in American racial dialogue, and that it begs the question articulate to whom?). Then I’m reading a profile of the (black, female) president of Brown University, by Frances Fitzgerald, in the painfully politically correct “New Yorker,” and there’s that same word — “articulate.”
The people who slap that “racist” label around do so with utter conviction of moral authority. Often the label is slapped before the question is even out my mouth. Like the “chickenhawk” meme among anti-war folks, it’s not meant to advance an argument or answer one, it’s meant to shut you up at once, de-legitimize you as a political person. Those of you who are not in this situation, those of you who work assiduously and carefully to avoid drawing the attention of the people who wield the “racist” stamp, might not appreciate how that word, which seems such a crushing indictment, loses its sting with too frequent exposure.
I’m a racist? Yeah, I’m a racist, fine, whatever.
The thing is I am aware of being far more cognizant of race than I ever have been in my life. I’ve had the usual suburban white guy string of black friends and co-workers back through junior high school (I once played back-up guitar in a country band with a dynamite black woman lead singer — whip-smart, funny, and very “articulate”). But for the past 15 years I’ve lived in a very edgy, racially mixed urban neighborhood, which is forever on the brink of falling into complete chaos. I’ve learned to be very pro-active with trouble in my block, and when trouble comes to my block it always has the same look, the same profile: young, black, male. I wish that weren’t so. But the statistics override my wishes after 15 years. And I now feel myself, internally, reacting differently to a couple of young black guys moving into the apartment across the street than a couple of Asian college girls. I notice things differently, based on race. That is one of my definitions of racism: the failure to ignore race.
None of that is why I get called a racist. Never. Not once. Instead, I get slammed as a racist if I write about how the Civil Rights Movement took America so far toward equality, but we’ve been stalled at that point for thirty years now, and some decent people are beginning to wonder if perhaps the social dysfunction of the underclass is as much the obstacle as is white racism. Or because I think the Southern states were constitutionally justified in seceding from the American federal union in 1860. Or because, as a historian, I notice certain statistics that indicate the nutritional intake and life expectancy of slaves in New Orleans the 1850s was better than that of free blacks in New York in the same period.
As if learning that justified slavery. As if writing that meant I wish slavery would return. Never mind. Those who hold the label stamp must have their own way of knowing at once. And the word “racist” has been through some radical deconstruction that I fail to understand. Bob Byrd isn’t a racist, though he was a Klan leader. I am a racist, though I’ve championed black history in the community where I was born and raised and written articles that brought attention to certain racial wrongs that might never otherwise have come to light. Fine, whatever.
So I don’t care a damn about Bill Bennett either way, but I look at what he said. It just doesn’t make my hair stand on end the way it does some people.
Either he’s a moron who agrees with a proposition in one breath and disagrees with it in the next, or he disagreed with the proposition, and to further discredit it he offered a botched example of the proposition taken to an extreme (a logical tactic called reductio ad absurdum). The latter seems to me to be the sensible way to read the transcript.
It would have been clearly so if he then had said, “That would be an impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible thing to do.” Oh, actually, he did say that.
He didn’t say this ought to be done. He didn’t advocate it. I don’t think he thinks there ought to have been an abortion genocide. If he had said it laughingly, or said “and that would be a great idea,” I’d call that racism. Nor was he wrong, as far as I know, about the statistical relationship between race and spending time in the criminal justice system.
So we’re left with a curiously inept comment, by a man who has been in politics long enough to know what he ought not to say, true or not. A hurtful comment, no doubt, to some. Perhaps a comment that suggests a fixation with race above other issues. When Bennett defended himself with “It would have worked for, you know, single-parent moms; it would have worked for male babies, black babies,â€Â? the follow-up question would be, “so why choose that one example?”
And then, “are they more criminal because they’re black, or because so many of them are born into a dysfunctional underclass?” And then, “why is that underclass in this country so overwhelmingly black?” And I think I know his answer to that: it’s right up his alley: single-parent households, absent fathers, a legacy of counter-productive government social programs, failing public schools, etc.
Interestingly, that does circle back into a pro-abortion rights argument, which naturally would appall Bennett, an ardent anti-abortion type. I’ve seen abortion supporters make the “unwanted children become a burden to society” argument. It goes right back to Margaret Sanger herself.
It was a ghoulish thing to say. It makes me squirm just to read it. But that doesn’t make it racist. It reminds me of Bernie Shaw’s jaw-dropper question to Mike Dukakis during the 1988 presidential debates: how would you feel about the death penalty if someone raped your wife, Kitty? What kind of man thinks of that kind of question? But we learned a lot about the Duke from his answer.
So, go on and stamp me with the racist label one more time. If you can find an un-stamped square inch of me to take the ink.
This entry was posted on Saturday, October 1st, 2005 and is filed under Abortion, Dumb Things Said By Smart People, In The News, Race. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
October 1st, 2005 at 4:28 am
Looking further at it, this is probably what he meant, but he keeps defending his original position. That’s my main problem with the situation now. Obviously, this position is flawed and I wish he would amend it.
However, I don’t think he will. Personally, that’s troubling.
October 1st, 2005 at 10:33 am
He’s someone who used to be more important than he is now, and who said something stupid (morally, logically, politically, all of the above - take your pick). Now, perhaps because his feelings have been hurt by the reaction to his stupid statement, he has failed to issue a complete apology or even logical explanation. That isn’t troubling to me, it just tells me he’s a self-important jerk. If he were actually more important, then I might be troubled.
October 1st, 2005 at 10:30 pm
“Or because I think the Southern states were constitutionally justified in seceding from the American federal union in 1860.”
That just makes you dumb.
And I mean you must have serious reading comprehension problems if you think that.
Yours, TDP, ml, msl, & pfpp
October 1st, 2005 at 11:56 pm
Brilliant. As usual.
October 2nd, 2005 at 2:30 am
In all discussion of natality or not-natality there are hidden themes of eugenics. Abortion and contraception are the only way for women to be truly free of being some man’s baby factory; but they are also the eugencist’s tools of choice because they are more acceptable than genocide. Issues such as this have to be politicized; but they do not fit on to a bumper sticker. No human action is without both good and bad consequences. Politicians, journalists, public policy intellectuals, and bloggers have the job of glossing over nuamce and ambiguity. So it is with race.
October 2nd, 2005 at 4:23 pm
I wasn’t sure if the trackback worked. But, I’ve responded to your post here:
http://jdeanicite.typepad.com/i_cite/2005/10/i_rarely_look_a.html
October 2nd, 2005 at 6:59 pm
“Now, perhaps because his feelings have been hurt by the reaction to his stupid statement, he has failed to issue a complete apology or even logical explanation.”
That’s basically the issue, that he has refused to accept blame for having his own quotes taken out of context to attack him. This subject really doesn’t affect me very much since I never heard of the guy and he might actually be a racist after all, but if it is true that his statements on his radio show were twisted to make people think he is a horrible person, then I just feel sympathy for him.
October 2nd, 2005 at 8:53 pm
Good grief! When you are on talk radio several hours a day, even a briliant person such as Bill Bennet will make a mistake and say something that may be correct, but said in a stupid way. Not even someone as brilliant as Bill Bennett can think through the consequences of everthing they say on a live broadcast.
BTW, Bill Bennett is an honorable man who worked hard in BUSH I to funnel money into the inner city schools. I cannot imagine that he is a racist.
I do not think he should apologize for offending someone. Too many people are just looking to be insulted. I agree with Josh that Bill Bennett should not be held responsible for others using his words out of context to attack him.
October 4th, 2005 at 6:45 am
I think it’s suspicious that almost every article on Bennet avoids citing his actual statement:
“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. 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, extensive extrapolations are, I think, tricky.”
What does that say to us? Sry, but in his wording this is a statement that crime rate would go down if you abort every black baby. He admits that that would be morally wrong, and he says it is ‘tricky’, but he really seems to believe that. He is implying that black babies will probably become criminals. He doesn’t say there is a higher chance that kids from poor families or single mothers will later get a criminal record, he concentrates on the race issue. No, this isn’t a honest way to discuss the lessons from statistics. What would everybody say if he had stated “you could abort every baby in the more christian states, and your homicide rate would go down.” There are statistics to support that view, but it simply isn’t scientifical to interpret the data this way, it is plain demagogy.
Oh, and btw, his attempt at reductio ad absurdum is flawed because he didn’t arrive at an obviously absurd argument. The reaction shows that the broad population doesn’t view racial genocide as absurd, but as a dangerous possibility. An absurd argument would have been to abort all babies, because this obviously would result in mankind to die off.
What should he have said? Maybe something like “The authors of Frewakonomics seem to suggest you could abort every baby of a single mother in this country, and your crime rate would go down. That would be an impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible thing to do, and this argument ignores the fact that there are a lot of humane ways to fight crime. I think it is a shame that the authors publicly state such idiocy.”
It was a live radio interview and Bennett screwed up badly. Well, shit happens. The ethically right thing to do after disasters like this is to apologize to the people and to clarify the bungled statement. Instead, he chose to insist he didn’t say anything wrong and to protest that he was misunderstood. That’s not his brightest hour and it’s the real scandal.
October 4th, 2005 at 2:12 pm
And oddly enough, Media Matters For America originally posted it and included ALL the informaton, including audio of what he said. So did the author of Freaknomics.
So the bloggers are actually being the most comprehensive? Interesting.
I agree wholeheartedly. He should at least clarify the statement since it was inconsistent.
But the only problem is, the more and more he refuses to clarify, the more and more I feel that he actually meant what he said and doesn’t realize he actually made a mistake.
Anyway, odd to say the least. Great points.
October 17th, 2005 at 5:59 pm
I guess my comments don’t get posted.
November 17th, 2006 at 4:20 pm
Everybody says there is this RACE problem. Everybody says this RACE problem will be solved when the third world pours into EVERY white country and ONLY into white countries.
The Netherlands and Belgium are more crowded than Japan or Taiwan, but nobody says Japan or Taiwan will solve this RACE problem by bringing in millions of third worlders and quote assimilating unquote with them.
Everybody says the final solution to this RACE problem is for EVERY white country and ONLY white countries to “assimilate,” i.e., intermarry, with all those non-whites.
What if I said there was this RACE problem and this RACE problem would be solved only if hundreds of millions of non-blacks were brought into EVERY black country and ONLY into black countries?
How long would it take anyone to realize I’m not talking about a RACE problem. I am talking about the final solution to the BLACK problem?
And how long would it take any sane black man to notice this and what kind of psycho black man wouldn’t object to this?
But if I tell that obvious truth about the ongoing program of genocide against my race, the white race, Liberals and respectable conservatives agree that I am a naziwhowantstokillsixmillionjews.
They say they are anti-racist. What they are is anti-white.
Anti-racist is a code word for anti-white.