William J Bennet
William J. Bennett and the Power of Words
If The Media were an animal, and yes I understand that most people already consider “them” to be vultures, it would most likely be a shark. Now, this shark is no ordinary type of shark. This shark has been injected with 20 vials of testosterone-enhanced adrenaline and infected with a rare sort of rabies only found in Kodiak Bears. At the taste of blood, the media/shark will attack and rip open its prey and attempt to devour it whole.
The prey usually is some poor politico who has made some gaffe or said something off-colour and now lays torn to shreds by the jagged teeth of The Media. While we may tsk-tsk the shark for being so violent, we are fully aware that the only way sharky can survive is by consuming the nearest faux-pas committing public figure.
The latest victim of such an attack is former Regan Education Secretary William J. Bennett, who remarked the moderately publicized words, “you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down.” As you could imagine, the reaction to the commentary was one of shocked and infuriated outcry. People demanded that Bill Bennett’s radio show be cancelled and that he file an official apology and retraction of his statement. The backfire from Bennett’s bold statement required him to resign from his board position of K12Inc., an education support group.
Few people, especially those who were educated of the incident by word of mouth, were aware that the sentence that followed the much maligned comment was a direct negation of his assertion: “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.”
So, why are people going after Bennett if he admitted that the statement was silly to begin with? Understandably, people are very upset with such a harsh comment. However, to be blunt, Bennett is right. If you wanted to reduce the percentage of violent-crime in America, you would eliminate the Black (population. I mean the big dark minorities are just naturally prone to terrorizing the streets, especially the White people, right? The numbers are right in front of us, Blacks are six times more likely to be the perpetrator of a violent crime than white people according to data from the Bureau of Judicial Statistics.
Or maybe, just maybe, there is something much deeper behind Bennett’s “modest proposal” that we should pay attention to. To give Bennett some credit, I do not believe he means to ethnically cleanse those of African decent from America. Bennett was trying to allude to Freakonomics, a New York Times bestseller, which points out that the ability for the lower class to receive abortions may have explained for the reduction of crime 15-20 years post Roe v. Wade.
This leads me to assume, which I despise doing, that Bennett was not equating being Black to being criminal, but being Black to being poor, a critical nuance that makes all the difference.
American society has reached the point where the concept being Black inherently involves being poor. It is scary to think that people have been desensitized to the point where the major mis-distribution of American wealth does not shock people. It is a reality that the average net worth of an African-American is 25% of the average net worth of a White American*, but when we become comfortable with that reality is when things start to get tricky.
As soon as people make being poor an essential part of the identity of being Black, society will lose the enthusiasm to make the gap disappear. It becomes not only acceptable, but inevitable for Blacks to be poor, to be criminal, to be doomed. The deeper and deeper poverty becomes ingrained to Black society the further and further from equality they are pushed.
What can be done though? We have been told that all minorities are equal for the past 10 years. We have tried to eliminate racism from the masses. I propose that maybe we should be teaching the exact opposite. Minorities are NOT equal in this country to Whites, they are economically paralyzed and caught in a cycle that only widens the gap.
And to be quite honest, racism is not the biggest threat to minorities; “racist” policies are. As long as poor minorities (and poor White people as well) are receiving substandard education, lack of housing opportunities, and insufficient ammunition against gangs, drugs, and other plagues that help negatively stereotype them, they will continue to be on the bottom rung on society.
It is a lot to ask of an administration that is in debt beyond its eyeballs, but when being Black means being abortion-worthy maybe it is time to change something.
*From Social Security study by Sharmila Choudhury
If The Media were an animal, and yes I understand that most people already consider “them” to be vultures, it would most likely be a shark. Now, this shark is no ordinary type of shark. This shark has been injected with 20 vials of testosterone-enhanced adrenaline and infected with a rare sort of rabies only found in Kodiak Bears. At the taste of blood, the media/shark will attack and rip open its prey and attempt to devour it whole.
The prey usually is some poor politico who has made some gaffe or said something off-colour and now lays torn to shreds by the jagged teeth of The Media. While we may tsk-tsk the shark for being so violent, we are fully aware that the only way sharky can survive is by consuming the nearest faux-pas committing public figure.
The latest victim of such an attack is former Regan Education Secretary William J. Bennett, who remarked the moderately publicized words, “you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down.” As you could imagine, the reaction to the commentary was one of shocked and infuriated outcry. People demanded that Bill Bennett’s radio show be cancelled and that he file an official apology and retraction of his statement. The backfire from Bennett’s bold statement required him to resign from his board position of K12Inc., an education support group.
Few people, especially those who were educated of the incident by word of mouth, were aware that the sentence that followed the much maligned comment was a direct negation of his assertion: “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.”
So, why are people going after Bennett if he admitted that the statement was silly to begin with? Understandably, people are very upset with such a harsh comment. However, to be blunt, Bennett is right. If you wanted to reduce the percentage of violent-crime in America, you would eliminate the Black (population. I mean the big dark minorities are just naturally prone to terrorizing the streets, especially the White people, right? The numbers are right in front of us, Blacks are six times more likely to be the perpetrator of a violent crime than white people according to data from the Bureau of Judicial Statistics.
Or maybe, just maybe, there is something much deeper behind Bennett’s “modest proposal” that we should pay attention to. To give Bennett some credit, I do not believe he means to ethnically cleanse those of African decent from America. Bennett was trying to allude to Freakonomics, a New York Times bestseller, which points out that the ability for the lower class to receive abortions may have explained for the reduction of crime 15-20 years post Roe v. Wade.
This leads me to assume, which I despise doing, that Bennett was not equating being Black to being criminal, but being Black to being poor, a critical nuance that makes all the difference.
American society has reached the point where the concept being Black inherently involves being poor. It is scary to think that people have been desensitized to the point where the major mis-distribution of American wealth does not shock people. It is a reality that the average net worth of an African-American is 25% of the average net worth of a White American*, but when we become comfortable with that reality is when things start to get tricky.
As soon as people make being poor an essential part of the identity of being Black, society will lose the enthusiasm to make the gap disappear. It becomes not only acceptable, but inevitable for Blacks to be poor, to be criminal, to be doomed. The deeper and deeper poverty becomes ingrained to Black society the further and further from equality they are pushed.
What can be done though? We have been told that all minorities are equal for the past 10 years. We have tried to eliminate racism from the masses. I propose that maybe we should be teaching the exact opposite. Minorities are NOT equal in this country to Whites, they are economically paralyzed and caught in a cycle that only widens the gap.
And to be quite honest, racism is not the biggest threat to minorities; “racist” policies are. As long as poor minorities (and poor White people as well) are receiving substandard education, lack of housing opportunities, and insufficient ammunition against gangs, drugs, and other plagues that help negatively stereotype them, they will continue to be on the bottom rung on society.
It is a lot to ask of an administration that is in debt beyond its eyeballs, but when being Black means being abortion-worthy maybe it is time to change something.
*From Social Security study by Sharmila Choudhury
posted by Varun Lella at 5:28 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home