Defending Bennett’s Right

Bill Bennett made statements a week or so ago that set the country on fire. We had cries of racism and calls for him to be removed from his radio program.

Bennett stated:

Addressing a caller’s suggestion that the “lost revenue from the people who have been aborted in the last 30 years” would be enough to preserve Social Security’s solvency, radio host and former Reagan administration Secretary of Education Bill Bennett dismissed such “far-reaching, extensive extrapolations” by declaring that if “you wanted to reduce crime … if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down.” Bennett conceded that aborting all African-American babies “would be an impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible thing to do,” then added again, “but the crime rate would go down.” Media Matters

I do not think Bennett should have said it. He should have known that no matter how true a statement is, if it involves race a person will be tagged as a racist. Bennett was using an example to point out how ridiculous another assertion about abortion was. There are those who say that there are a disproportionate number of blacks in jail. This is true because they only make up about 13% of the population but a higher percentage than that is in jail. We also know from FBI statistics, as was pointed out at LostAdam’s, that whites account for 70% of the arrests in this country. I think we could make an argument that this is disproportionate because whites account for only about 50% of the population, but you will never hear that.

We must get past this idea that blacks serve jail time because they are black. We must also realize that anyone can be arrested the ones who are convicted go to jail. When looking at the jail population one needs to look at how many people are there after multiple offenses. Except for violent crimes, most people do not get jail time for a first offense. When the record starts getting longer and longer is when people start going to jail.

Bennett could have said that by aborting white babies we could reduce the number of arrests. That would have been true and it would not have raised an eyebrow. That would be taken as an accepted fact and people would move on. Because we are so racially sensitive in this country people look at any reference to a non-white race as racism. The fact is, a white is 39 times more likely to be the victim of a crime committed by a black person even though they are a small portion of the population. Black-on-black crime is a reality that has hit epidemic proportions. So when Bennett said what he did, he was speaking a truth. He did not say we should do such a thing and he did not say that being black meant a person was inherently a criminal. He just stated a fact. He could have said that if we aborted babies from the people most implicated in crimes the crime rate would go down.

Bennett made a mistake by using facts in an emotional debate. When people hear any thing that remotely implicates a non-white, they charge racism. When white people are implicated there is never a charge of racism. The so-called black leaders have made racist remarks for years yet that is tolerated. Bennett made an argument that was based in fact and it created an uproar.

There are many reasons that the percentage of blacks in jail is disproportionate to their composition in society. The main reason is that they commit those crimes. No one is put in jail for being black. The fact they are black does not mean they are predisposed to commit crime. Bad influences (rap and TV) as well as socioeconomic conditions play into this. The fact is though, that people need to take responsibility for their actions. Repeat offenders are going to go to jail. When we have interviews of black children familiar with the rapper 50 cent and his history of being shot tell us that they think it would be cool to get shot to prove they are a man, then we have a problem.

Instead of making Bennett a scapegoat we need to focus on what causes these crime statistics in the first place. We need to develop plans that do not reward teenage-unwed motherhood. We need to have more sound school systems that start expecting children to have morals and values that are instilled in the home. We need to have fewer excuses and more action and we need race baiters like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton to stop making their people victims. They need to stop blaming everything on race and start actively solving the problems that plague the black community.

Bennett was wrong for saying it because the original intent got lost in the furor over the statements. It did not help that all the liberal blogs and the MSM only quoted a part of what he said. I expected as much but wish they would be fair and pay as much attention to the statements made by everyone. Just once I would like to see one of the Civil Rights leaders get taken down for their racist remarks.

People might not like what he said, but he still has the right to say it.

Some of the information came from links at Adam’s site.

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