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[AlohaDawg]

I think I need more context before I can let Bill Bennet off the hook here.  The caller was talking about abortion in general and it was Bennet that suddenly started talking about "aborting every black baby."

And as for the "impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible thing to do" i'm not sure he was talking about the obvious and blatant racism in that statement?  Maybe he was saying that it's abortion he finds "morally reprehensible" even for black people.

~Paul

That's the whole call, there really isn't more context. You could get background on Bennett, but that would tell you that he's not a known racist.

The real issue to me is mediamatters.org conveniently leaving off the end of the statement to manipulate opinions. People are easily led.

There's no point is searching around to figure out how to pin the racist tag on Bill Bennett. Even if he is one, which I doubt, there is nothing to point to that in his public life or writings, because the media would have trotted it out by now.

[Imperator Severn]

To say that a randomly-picked young black person in the US is more likely to be a criminal than a randomly-picked young white person is not racist.  

To say that you shouldn't trust black people because they're inherently prone to crime is racist.

The fact of the matter is, a poor person is more likely to turn to street crime than someone with comfortable income.  A person in an urban environment is more likely to become a criminal than someone living in a suburban or rural environment.  Young males are the most likely to be criminals.  I don't think I'll get any argument on that.

Now, can it be agreed that urban poor is the best combination for producing criminals?  I think yes.

Can it be agreed that blacks make up a larger proportion of urban poor in the US than in the population as a whole?  If you don't believe that, look at the census.

So a poor young urban male is the most likely segment to be a criminal.  And someone of that description is more likely to be black than a rich landowner is.

So there's a correlation.  The problem is people mistake correlation for causation.  Why?  People are stupid.


As for the statement?  Well, if we're going to assume aborting fetuses that would later grow into criminals would reduce crime, and since black people constitute at least part of the population of criminals (there need only be one black criminal aborted for this to be logically sound) then yes, it is true that the crime rate would go down.

More effective, of course, would be to send death squads into blighted parts of cities to identify and terminate criminals.

But no one wants to hear that, because we're raised to think the effective thing and the right thing are necessarily connected.  I mean, The Party would be extremely efficient.  It just sort of sucks to live in an Orwellian state.

[arkabee]

A person in an urban environment is more likely to become a criminal than someone living in a suburban or rural environment.  

sorry, can i throw my red flag and call for a coach's review?

[Imperator Severn]

Sure.  I've personally never avoided a small town or middle-class suburb because I thought I might get mugged, but perhaps that's just my own prejudice.

[arkabee]

Sure.  I've personally never avoided a small town or middle-class suburb because I thought I might get mugged, but perhaps that's just my own prejudice.

i'm sorry, i didn't realize that crime==mugging.

[Bozack]

Hmmm.
I'm not going to go into the whole "Bill Bennett" thing, because the only person who knows what he meant is Bill Bennett. What is OBVIOUS is that he said something that one could argue is racist. I think it's pretty obvious that Bennet said something that you just do not say. You do not talk about forced minority abortion, even if you're warning someone not to extrapolate too much, because Jesus Christ, man-  forced minority abortion. I'm betting that the second Bennett finished that sentence, he realized what he had just said, on live national televisions. I kind of wish I could have heard the thoughts inside of his head.

KLAXONS BLARING
Bennett's Consciousness: DIVE! DIVE! DIVE! SOMEHOW JUSTIFY WHAT YOU JUST SAID!

Anyway-
I'm of the belief that, if poverty doesn't directly cause crime, it gives it a warm meal and a hot bath, and, as A'Dawg said, the more important thing is the disparity between the rich and poor. Our economic class system is more stratified than it has been since the Gilded Age, and the more you have a society that worships money and fetishizes luxury objects, quite openly, in front of the very poor, the more crime you are going to have. To give an example that made me extremely angry-
I live in Harlem. Last year, I lived for a time in a much worse apartment in Harlem. We were robbed the first day we moved in- the previous tenants had taken the window gate, the landlord had failed to mention that a window gate was needed, and someone jimmied the fire escape window open. We lived in a very, very cheap apartment. Yet almost every parking spot on our block had an SUV in it.
Last year, Courvoisier ran an ad campaign, in which one saw a bottle of the liquor and a statement. On the subway, it said, "How nice of you to stand."
The ads which dominated the Harlem area read "No, I Don't Have Any Spare Change."
The fact that some fuck*ng white guy in a suit somewhere in Midtown sat down and said, wow, there are a lot of totally impoverished black people in Harlem- we should plaster the area with ads for an expensive and fetishized liquor, just fuck*ng kills me. The fact that 50 Cent, an admitted ex-crack dealer, is having a movie made about his life, fuck*ng kills me. The fact that there are tons of rap artists who, in every video, repeat the importance of luxury items and liquid assets, artists who have, for the most part, completely failed to give back to the communities from whence they came, makes me want to shit and die.
I'm sorry. Living in Harlem sort of makes this stuff very obvious. If a culture values luxury items and wealth above all other things, and if that culture is continually blared at an impoverished and underpriveledged group constantly, the message- that education is not important, that the only way you will succeed is through drug sales, basketball or the entertainment industry, that the rich are, in some intrinsic way, Better Than You- you're going to reap a whole shitstorm of crime.
Our entire culture is like this. Watch VH1 or MTV for a few hours, watch Cribs and that fuck*ng Fabulous Life of... show. The reason this is affecting young urban blacks the most is the disparity that they see is the greatest. Shit, this is a long post. I hope nobody reads this and thinks that I'm racist- I'm sure you can find examples of impoverished white communities where this is happening; hell, there are all of those rural meth labs. And I blame most of this culture on the white entertainment moguls, I blame the impoverishment on Reagan's War on Drugs and the resulting ghettoization.
I don't know how to end this post. I'm sorry.

[AlohaDawg]

.
I don't know how to end this post. I'm sorry.

You're right about the disparity driving crime to a certain extent and certainly correct in your assessment of both targeted advertising and the cult of luxury that exists particularly in impoverished areas.

The question I still wonder about is why the vast percentage of crime that occurs in these areas is black-on-black crime? You would think many of these factors would drive class warfare but that seems not to be the case.

[V-Adore]

The question I still wonder about is why the vast percentage of crime that occurs in these areas is black-on-black crime? You would think many of these factors would drive class warfare but that seems not to be the case.

I suspect it's a matter of opportunity. Assuming that you were a poor person driven to petty crime, who are you going to be able to victimize: rich people, who live in neighborhoods you can't reach easily, can afford extensive home security, and who will definitely attract police attention? Or your fellow poor, who are close by, usually lacking in security, and definitely lacking in police attention? There aren't really any other realistic options.

[Bozack]

...rich people, who live in neighborhoods you can't reach easily, can afford extensive home security, and who will definitely attract police attention?

There was a thing in a Micheal Moore book, I think it's Downsize This, where he talks about the L.A. riots, and how the rioters could have easily moved 4 miles to an extremely affluent, gated community. I concur with V; when I was living in the worse apartment, I would never see a police car. I think they figured that there was nothing going on in those blocks that they could stop- it was a Sacrifice Zone. Now I live 15 blocks down, and not a day goes by that an ambulance or a police car is not parked on my block. It seems to me that the cops have figured out where the communities are too insular and possibly dangerous for them to do anything, and simply patrol around them. I doubt I would do anything different.

[AugustWest]

Bozack: I love you, Man.

[miles]

Anyway-
I'm of the belief that, if poverty doesn't directly cause crime, it gives it a warm meal and a hot bath, and, as A'Dawg said, the more important thing is the disparity between the rich and poor. Our economic class system is more stratified than it has been since the Gilded Age, and the more you have a society that worships money and fetishizes luxury objects, quite openly, in front of the very poor, the more crime you are going to have.

There are countries with much less disparity between the rich and the poor, like the UK and Denmark, that have significantly higher property crime rates than the US.  I think Canada's rates are slightly higher, and Australia's are much higher (though I don't know much about the economy and distribution of wealth there).

[Bozack]

There are countries with much less disparity between the rich and the poor, like the UK and Denmark, that have significantly higher property crime rates than the US.  I think Canada's rates are slightly higher, and Australia's are much higher (though I don't know much about the economy and distribution of wealth there).

Well, there goes my theory. Another casualty of Facts and Science.
So what the fuck is going on? I mean, I think I can attribute most of the crime in the UK, Australia and Canada to "hooliganism," but Denmark? I thought that country was just one big Eero Saarinen building.

[miles]

I imagine economic inequality has something to do with crime, I just don't think that it's the only or main cause like some liberal sociologists have argued.  Also, US culture has at least a small influence in each of those countries.  Maybe your idea-- that "the more you have a society that worships money and fetishizes luxury objects, quite openly, in front of the very poor, the more crime you are going to have"--does not apply, or at least only apply, to the very poor.  Maybe rises in property crime rates aren't as closely linked to desperation as they are to something like envy.

[Imperator Severn]

Well, the thing is, burglars aren't exactly spartan in their life view.  I'd shorten it to "A society that holds material wealth in high regard will have more property crime."

Think about all those white-collar embezzlers.  They aren't desperate; just avaricious.

When you're poor enough to be unhappy, you're more likely to consider crime to get the things you want because you have less to lose.

[CortJstr]

Well, there goes my theory. Another casualty of Facts and Science.
So what the fuck is going on? I mean, I think I can attribute most of the crime in the UK, Australia and Canada to "hooliganism," but Denmark? I thought that country was just one big Eero Saarinen building.

His sole purpose for being was to become a crossword puzzle answer. It just proves the universe has a reason for everything.