Former Secretary of Education William Bennett was back in the news last week.
YouÂll remember Bennett as the moralist who published the best-selling Book of Virtues. A year or so later he confirmed that he had a personal problem with gambling.
No problem there. I hope he has overcome his addiction.
As an aside, while I am very sympathetic, IÂve noticed across the years that people who push morals with unctuous fervor should be observed carefully.
BennettÂs latest came during this radio program. Referring to the controversial and fascinating new book, Freakonomics (by Steven D. Levitt and co-author, Stephen J. Dubner), Bennett commented that if we wanted to be most efficient in controlling crime, we would abort all of the African American babies conceived in the country.
Levitt and Dubner had observed that one plausible explanation for the dramatic drop in crime during the 1990s likely was related to the increased number of abortions taking place following Roe v. Wade (1973) among low-income women twenty or so years earlier.
Babies who would have been born at that time to very poor women would have had an increased likelihood of falling into criminal activity. Since so many were aborted, the crime rate took an unexpected dip about the time these young people would have entered their late teens and early twenties.
Bennett was speaking in hypothetical terms, but his words proved highly offensive, as one would expect, especially from such a Âmoral authority. No doubt, BennettÂs personal track record on social matters in general didnÂt help him much in this latest controversy.
Even President Bush issued a statement condemning BennettÂs comments as Âhighly inappropriate.Â
But the whole matter has me thinking.
Who is asking serious questions about crime and race in America today?
Incarceration rates for African America males are far out of proportion to their number in the general population. WhatÂs up with this realityÂa reality that negatively affects the health and well-being of inner city communities?
Law enforcement and criminal justice institutions need to take a look at how they relate to persons of color in terms of profiling, apprehension and prosecution.
For example, the consequences for using or trafficking cocaine in its powdered form are far less onerous than using or selling crack cocaine in its rock form.
Interestingly, and not accidentally it seems to me, the powdered form is the choice of whites, while cocaine Ârocks are the form of choice in the African American community. Congress is very aware of this glaring injustice, but continues to refuse corrective legislative action.
Of course, funds for treatment, as an aincarceration incarseration, are almost non-existent for the poor.
Much work and reform needs to take place around this single issue.
While many of the assumptions about black America that orbit around BennettÂs statement are ridiculous to the extreme, his comments should pose a much more important question demanding national attention.
What is life like for children who grow up in poverty? Black, brown, whiteÂwhat does poverty do to a child before his or her eighteenth birthday?
[Lots of people who read this blog and who often post here speak with the authority of persons who really know what poverty does to individuals and families. But frankly, I wonder.]
Of ocurse, Bennett doesnÂt believe that abortion is an answer.
But what are the answers?
The most horrifying reality to be faced here is the fact that our state and national policy makers continue to be incapable of crafting plans to adequately address the important questions forced on all of us by the continuing spread of poverty into more American neighborhoods and families.
No doubt moral clarity should play an important part in challenging poverty.
What Mr. Bennett and his comrades have yet to understand is that public responses to systemic, community challenges such as poverty are matters of morality calling for moral responses of the first order from our public leaders.
Larry,
ReplyDeleteJoel Quile here. One of my associates here at Lake Cities, Stephen Bailey, and I would love to meet with you sometime next week for lunch and discuss how we can better serve those who are often overlooked in our area. Please email when you get a chance.
Thanks.
Joel
c hand, thanks for the good questions. I'll do my best with them!
ReplyDelete"1) what are your thoughts on bolshivism?"
I don't think the Soviet experience is a model we would want to follow and I believe that the history of that experience, its violence, loss of civil liberties, etc. is indicative of what happens when one extreme system is overthrown by another equally extreme system.
"2) Do you think the Soviet model could work?" See my answer to #1.
"3) what nations on earth are currently doing things the way you would like the USA to do them."
I would be much happier today if we were simply following the plan of the Nixon years--1969-1973! I don't think most people understand from a community wellness perspective how far this nation has moved to the right since 1980. One telling evidence of this is that some of my simple, albeit classically liberal--now note here, I said classically liberal--humanitarian views about public health, housing, education, wage and labor ideas begin to sound to people like communism! We are not going to move away from capitalism anytime soon--though if we stay on the present course there may come a day when attempts are made in ways that don't please many of us! However, what I am arguing for is a more moderate, "kinder, gentler" form of capitalism, to quote President Bush the first. What we have now serves the top, pays lip service to the bottom and every indicator of health and wellness is in decline. This is not morally acceptable to me as a follower of Jesus who understands that my charge is to make a difference on the earth. Heaven can wait.
"I hope you don't take offense. I'm not trying to call you a commie. But I've never heard anyone with your views directly talk about these things. They are usually content to just whine about things in this country."
You don't offend me at all. I am sorry if I sound like a whiner. I promise you that is not my intention, nor is it how I spend my days. I do tend to make people uncomfortable or angry. Thanks for the post. I appreciate you.
Crime is something we definately need to change the national dialogue on, especially on the issue of drugs and the "War against Drugs."
ReplyDeleteDrug charges are especially hard on the poor, and because of the relationship of poverty and race in this country, hard on black communities.
If you're a upper- or middle- class kid doing drugs in your or your friends basement, the chances of a police bust are low. If you are discovered, you can afford lawyers. The people most likely to discover you, your parents, aren't going to send you to prison, they'll send you to rehab. And they'll pay for the rehab, more likely than not.
If you're poor, and even more if you're black, and you're involved in drugs, its more likely you're selling them to make ends meet in ways that minimum wage just won't. You're in a category the police are profiling when they look for drugs, and you're not as likely to have the protection of a basement of a suburban home to do or sell your drugs in.
The department of justice admits that poor blacks are less liely to actually be doing drugs than risch and middle class whites, but then you look at the statistcis of arrests and incarcerations...
John, thank you so much for this insightful and very realistic assessment of a terrible situation. Your words should open eyes.
ReplyDeletec hand--First, why is a predominantly black neighborhood referred to as a "hood?" Not every black person is familiar with, follows, or even likes hip hop culture. Call it a black neighborhood, just like you would call it a white neighborhood.
ReplyDeleteSecondly, I don't think that anyone wants drug use to be easier among blacks than whites. I don't think that anyone is advocating for "basements" for inner city youth. However, what I think people are calling for is equality in the punishments recieved for drug crimes. Crack and cocaine are different forms of the same drug. Why are the punishments for possesion, sale, use, etc. so different? The consequences should be the same, no?
I doubt that anyone wants to create a situation where it is "easier for poor black kids to do drugs." What people want is a situation where there is equality...equality of punishment for the same crime.
c hand, until your last comment, I was taking you seriously. The clear point is that racism is alive and well in our criminal justice system, along with privilege for those with money. Your idea about a drug exchange program does however make my point. The punishment for the drug of choice among whites is much less harsh than the same narcotic in a different form that is used among lower income persons, mainly African Americans.
ReplyDeletec hand, it comes from both spiritual and material poverty. My only point in all of this was to say that the poorest people in the US face a system that treats them more harshly than their counterparts in the white world. Just a fact.
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