Friday, October 18, 2013

Heather Mac Donald on blacks and the criminal justice system

Heather Mac Donald:
The idea that the criminal-justice system discriminates against blacks — and that this bias explains blacks’ disproportionate presence in custody — is a staple of civil-rights activism and of the academic Left. Every effort to prove it empirically, however, has come up short.  
A 1994 Justice Department survey of felony cases from the country’s 75 largest urban areas discovered that blacks actually had a lower chance of prosecution following a felony than whites did and that they were less likely to be found guilty at trial. Alfred Blumstein has found that blacks are underrepresented in prison for homicide compared with their arrest rates. A meta-analysis of charging and sentencing studies showed that “large racial differences in criminal offending,” not racism, explained why more blacks were in prison proportionately than whites and for longer terms, according to criminologists Robert Sampson and Janet Lauritsen. 
Criminal-law professors across the political spectrum agree that the Zimmerman verdict resulted from prosecutorial overkill, not juror bias. . . . Close on the heels of the “biased justice system” conceit, however, is the preposterous implication that the primary homicide threat faced by young black males comes from honorary whites such as George Zimmerman. “Our children are targeted. Our community is targeted,” Martin Luther King III told the NAACP national convention on Wednesday. Protesters at the Orlando, Fla., courthouse this week held signs proclaiming “Endangered species: young black men and boys.” The New York Times ran an article today about the “painful talks” black parents are having with their children about how not to get gunned down by whites. A nurse’s assistant in Missouri told the Times: The whole situation ‘“would just make me skeptical about what crowd of white people I put [my son] around.’” 
In fact, if a black parent wants to radically reduce his son’s chance of getting shot, he should live in a white neighborhood.

The greatest scandal of the past half-century in the United States is the systematic destruction of black culture and the black community. It is a horrendous act, unprecedented in American history. A large segment of our fellow citizens, who were in the past victims of vile racism and even slavery, survived that hell with their families and communities and dignity intact.

But beginning in the 1960's, black families and communities began to disintegrate. The fundamental reason is clear: a host of government programs were enacted with one basic purpose-- to make blacks dependent on government, in exchange for their votes.

President Lyndon Johnson, author of the Great Society programs that destroyed black life in America and a Southern Democrat with a long history of bitter opposition to civil rights (he opposed Truman's efforts to end segregation and he even voted against laws to prevent lynching), explained it quite clearly:

“I’ll have those niggers voting Democratic for the next 200 years.”

32 comments:

  1. I disagree with your statement "The greatest scandal of the past half-century in the United States is the systematic destruction of black culture and the black community."

    I believe that is should read: "The greatest scandal of the past half-century in the United States is the systematic destruction of black family--notably state subsidized/incentivized fatherlessness."

    Kids (of all races and ethnic groups) are many times more likely to engage in dysfunctional behavior (drugs, dropout, crime, etc.) when their dad is not in the home.

    Otherwise, superb article and commentary.

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  2. I believe that “quote” originally appeared in an a book called “Inside the White House” by Ronald Kessler, who apparently got it second hand from someone who claims to have heard it. It’s not well sourced at all, but that hasn’t prevented it from becoming a staple of conservative racist propaganda in the “I know you are but what am I?” vein of childlike conservative arguments. I think Egnor uses it over and over because it gives him an excuse to use the “N word”.


    -KW

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  3. Adm. G Boggs, Glenbeckistan NavyOctober 18, 2013 at 8:51 AM

    Equally disturbing are the public safety implications of the Justice Department's current jihad to intimidate and/or vigorously prosecute local and state governments, companies, and private citizens for actions that result in statistical race disparities. The legal "race disparity" theory is based on the notion that if all races are not proportionally represented (as they would be if individuals were balls drawn from an urn), racism is at work.

    The theory is nothing more than deranged racialism dressed up in legal jargon, of course.

    The first major test of the theory resulted from the Clinton Administration's intimidation of the New Jersey State Police, accusing them of "racial profiling". State police officers had been "guilty" of stopping black drivers for speeding more often than a purely random sampling would have done.

    After the Clintoons punished the NJ State Police, a study was conducted ("Sentence first - verdict afterwards!" saith the Red Queen) to investigate the problem:

    The study involved photographing tens of thousands of drivers on the [NJ] turnpike last spring while clocking speed with a radar gun. It found that black drivers sped much more than other drivers, according to three people who have reviewed the unreleased report. The racial gap was far wider than officials had expected and, in the politically charged controversies over profiling, the data could be used by defenders of the state police to argue that one reason black drivers are stopped more often than whites is that they are more likely to speed...

    [T]he study [of 26,334 drivers] concluded that blacks make up 16 percent of the drivers on the turnpike and 25 percent of the speeders in the 65 m.p.h. zones, where complaints of profiling have been most common.

    Recent state police figures showed that 23 percent of the traffic stops on the turnpike involve black drivers.

    --- NYT (2002)

    The Clinton Justice Department then attempted to suppress the study because they didn't like the result; the actual data disagreed with their theory.

    One possible explanation for the extreme violence and lawlessness in minority communities was suggested by historian David Courtwright and published as "Violent Land: Single Men and Social Disorder from the Frontier to the Inner City".

    Courtwright himself was no stranger to left-wing pieties and was stunned when his extensive analysis of public records from frontier America revealed that the best predictor for violence in the "old west" was the presence of large proportions of single men. A particularly toxic combination was the presence of single men, a saloon, and whores. Some mining towns with that particular combination had murder rates as high as 30%... that is no typo.

    Egnor correctly points out that the last half-century has witnessed the "wild westification" of minority communities via the systematic destruction of the black family. This destruction has yielded sky-high incarceration rates for young black males, who are more likely to go to prison than college or trade school. Out-of-wedlock pregnancy is so common that many high schools in minority neighborhoods now must staff child care centers for young teenage mothers. Those mothers are likely to be wards of the state for life.

    On a different, but related, subject, according to the Guttmacher Institute (an abortion mill think tank),

    While Black women account for 13 percent of the female population, they accounted for 30 percent of all abortions.
    --- BET (2013)

    It's worth noting that the Justice Department is not pursuing that particular instance of "racial disparity".

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    1. “There’s no racism, black people are just more criminal” is a tough argument to make, and does nothing to explain the racial disparities in convictions and sentencing. We’ve come a long way in the 50 years since blacks and whites in the south where routinely handled differently by law enforcement and judicial authorities, but we still have a long way to go.

      -KW

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    2. Adm. G Boggs, Glenbeckistan NavyOctober 18, 2013 at 11:25 AM

      Popeye: “There’s no racism, black people are just more criminal” is a tough argument to make...

      I agree. Who is making that argument?

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    3. Admiral, My apologies if this is just your alzheimer’s acting up, but you should really read what you cut and paste before you hit the publish button.

      -KW

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    4. Adm. G Boggs, Glenbeckistan NavyOctober 18, 2013 at 12:44 PM

      Oh goodness! I suppose I need your good graces to help me out here and show me explicitly the text you were referring to, Popeye. Thank you so much for your indulgence.

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    5. “…one reason black drivers are stopped more often than whites is that they are more likely to speed...”

      “One possible explanation for the extreme violence and lawlessness in minority communities suggested by historian David Courtwright”

      ” the best predictor for violence in the "old west" was the presence of large proportions of single men….Egnor correctly points out that the last half-century has witnessed the "wild westification" of minority communities via the systematic destruction of the black family. This destruction has yielded sky-high incarceration rates for young black males, who are more likely to go to prison”

      Your whole point seems to be that the perceived racist outcomes are an illusion caused by the greater criminality of those who are allegedly profiled. You site an example, and then provide a theory why the minority populations are more criminal then non-minority populations.

      Paraphrasing your argument as “There’s no racism, black people are just more criminal”, seems fairly accurate to me.

      -KW

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    6. Adm. G Boggs, Glenbeckistan NavyOctober 18, 2013 at 3:01 PM

      Popeye: "Your whole point seems to be that the perceived racist outcomes are an illusion caused by the greater criminality of those who are allegedly profiled..."

      You poor child. I had no idea... Let me help, if I can.

      My first point - actually, the point of the study Clinton commissioned and the New York Times reported - was that an "excess" number of arrests does not necessarily indicate racism. The fact that more NBA players are black and more NHL players are white is not racism. It's preference. And in the NJ Turnpike case, more black men were speeding. Sorry. It's not racism. It's a matter of different driving habits. More women than men probably obey the speed limit (it's well-known men are less risk-averse, even in investing, but those data aren't "sexist"). It's why their auto insurance is cheaper.

      The second study had nothing to do with race. It had everything to do with marriage. Most, if not all, those murdering miners in the frontier mining camps were white. And they were single, drunk whites, consorting with whores in towns with limited law enforcement. Surely someone who claims to have been in the Navy knows the result of that combination... Right, sailor?

      Courtwright's theory that I "sited" [sic] has nothing to do with minorities, or race. As it happens, government policy has suppressed marriage in poor minority populations. Single men of any race tend to be more violent than married men. Modern crime statistics bear that out. And why? Wives civilize men. In a different study using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, criminologists have concluded that

      [I]mprovements in a person’s level of self-control are related to changes in their involvement in crime over time. It also shows that marriage is a significant source of those improvements...
      --- Science Alert (2012)

      I hope that put it together in way you can now understand it.

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    7. It's preference. And in the NJ Turnpike case, more black men were speeding.

      Umm, no. More black men were stopped for speeding. There's a difference. As you said, "it's a preference".

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    8. More black men were speeding, and more black men were stopped for speeding.

      No. More black men were stopped for speeding. But you don't seem to understand selection bias, which explains your inability to understand.

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    9. Yeah. I've played the 'Profiling' game myself while driving to and from work. I would observe driving behavior around me and decide who I would stop were I the CHP. And in every case I had NO idea who was driving, because I couldn't see the faces of the drivers.

      Profiling is a myth.

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  4. The greatest scandal of the past half-century in the United States is the systematic destruction of black culture and the black community.

    Ah yes, what a horror. Assuming you don't actually know anything about history. In 1959, the poverty rate among African-Americans was 55%. By 1969, that had declined to 32%. Now it is right around 25%,

    The only "horror" African-Americans have to endure is that of being more than half as likely to live their lives below the poverty line. What a tragedy.

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    1. @Anon:

      Your data makes my point, not yours.

      The fact that poverty (measured as income) has fallen among blacks, while measures of family and social breakdown have shyrocketed, suggests that there is something at work other than poverty to cause the collapse.

      In fact, the poverty rate is down because of massive government benefits for the poor, which economically replace the father in the family. The disintegration of fatherhood makes boys much more likely to be antisocial, which continues the cycle of male abandoment of families.

      Massive welfare programs are the cause of both the reduction in poverty and the disintegration of family and society.

      And the reason for the massive welfare programs was to secure the black vote. It destroyed the black family and black culture in the process.

      One of the great crimes of the 20th century in America.

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    2. Egnor:

      In fact, the poverty rate is down because of massive government benefits for the poor, which economically replace the father in the family. The disintegration of fatherhood makes boys much more likely to be antisocial, which continues the cycle of male abandoment of families.

      Cool story, bro. But, um, where's the evidence to back it up?

      It almost seems you believe women should not be able to financially afford getting rid of abusive husbands.



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    3. Adm. G Boggs, Glenbeckistan NavyOctober 18, 2013 at 4:42 PM

      Troi toots: "where's the evidence to back it up"

      Can't read? Hire a reader.

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    4. Adm. G Boggs, Glenbeckistan NavyOctober 18, 2013 at 4:52 PM

      Egnor: "The fact that poverty (measured as income) has fallen among blacks, while measures of family and social breakdown have shyrocketed, suggests that there is something at work other than poverty to cause the collapse"

      With leftists, it's always about money, all the time. Greed and Envy: the engine of leftism.

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    5. The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.

      -- John Kenneth Galbraith

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    6. Adm. G Boggs, Glenbeckistan NavyOctober 18, 2013 at 5:01 PM

      I met Galbraith at the American Embassy in London. Very boring guy, and one of the most pure-hearted elitists I've ever known.

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    7. Adm draft dodger:

      Troi toots: "where's the evidence to back it up"

      Can't read? Hire a reader.


      I know you're a bit slow, so let me expand a bit: reading an assertion doesn't make that assertion true. Egnor made several assertions, such as government benefits -> economic replacement of father; no father around -> bad sons -> bad grandsons), without supporting evidence.

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    8. Adm. G Boggs, Glenbeckistan NavyOctober 18, 2013 at 5:10 PM

      Where's your supporting evidence he's wrong? You never post a comment of substance, all you do is snipe. Why should anyone feel obliged to satisfy your childish demands? Most of the time you don't even understand the websites you link to.

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    9. Haha. Says the man who copies and pastes conservative boilerplate on a daily basis.

      If you can't support your claims it's fair to assume they are bullshit.

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    10. The fact that poverty (measured as income) has fallen among blacks, while measures of family and social breakdown have shyrocketed

      Except that you haven't provided any evidence that there has been "family and social breakdown". You've provided evidence that society has changed in the last five decades, which is unsurprising, since society changed quite a bit in the five decades before 1959 as well.

      But what you cannot refute is the fact that an African-American child is half as likely to be born into poverty now than he was in 1959. And you somehow think that this is a bad thing.

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    11. And the reason for the massive welfare programs was to secure the black vote.

      Your only evidence for that assertion is an unreliably sourced quote of dubious provenance. On the other hand, the programs you decry have vastly improved the lives of the poor in ways that are easy to measure - and most of the recipients are white. Why have these programs not destroyed the white family and culture?

      It seems to irk you that government assistance has made the lives of so many Americans substantially better. Is there a reason for this? Do you hate people?

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    12. Their lives are not "better". By virtually any measure except $$$, their lives are worse.

      The problem with your argument is that all of the things you cite are correlated not with being black, but with being poor. Pulling people above the poverty line makes all of those elements better. By railing against the programs that cut African-American poverty in half, you are railing against the programs that helped mitigate all of the problems that you claim to be concerned about.

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    13. Black children have the worst educational outcomes of any demographic.

      And yet the black high school graduation rate went from 22% in 1960, to 85% today. The white graduation rate in 1960 was 43%, and now it is 92%. Black children not only now graduate at four times the rate they did in 1960, they made up 14 points on their white counterparts - despite being more likely to be born into poverty. It is hard to see how the last fifty years have been any kind of disaster for the black community when it comes to education. (Oh, the black graduation rate from college went from 4% in 1960, to 22% today, once again, it is hard to see how this represents some sort of calamity for the black community).

      But go ahead, don't focus on the fact that black children are much more likely to graduate from high school now than they did then. Don't focus on the fact that the gap between black and white students has shrunk by two thirds. You know, those pesky facts that show that your puffed up claims about how the last fifty years have been disastrous for the black community are essentially lies.

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    14. Anon,
      I know you like the partisan, talking point thing. All you folks seem to enjoy it to a degree. Like some sort of national sport. But, do you actually believe those statistics have any real value given the quality of the modern graduate and the racial policies in effect at the schools in question?
      Do you actually smoke the PR crack you push, or is it just to score points for the blue team?

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    15. But, do you actually believe those statistics have any real value given the quality of the modern graduate and the racial policies in effect at the schools in question?

      Ah, so now that it has been shown that your claim about how disastrous the last fifty years have been for black children's education is not actually backed by anything substantive, you fall back on saying that the statistics (which you were happy to believe in when you fallaciously thought they supported your bullshit claims) are simply wrong, and you just know in your gut that they are worse off.

      Yeah, that's convincing. I'm sorry that reality is biased against you.

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    16. I also can't help but notice that you have carefully avoided explaining why the programs you rail against have "destroyed the black community", but haven't destroyed the white community. Since the bulk of the benefits that these programs provide go to white recipients, one has to wonder why you think that they are so pernicious for black people, and yet innocuous for white people.

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  5. Adm. G Boggs, Glenbeckistan NavyOctober 18, 2013 at 6:37 PM

    As if you were there.

    So support your claim. Or are you a materialist medium? :-)

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    1. He was channelling 'science', Adm. Not the methodology we would think of, but the pagan god. You know? The one they worship and say 'wants' and 'demands' things. Things like the blood of innocents, dead Africans, and tax revenue.

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  6. The problem with egnor's alleged quote is that it exhibits a complete lack of knowledge about history. The Democrats didn't need to somehow get the black vote. The Democratic Party already had the black vote in the 1960s. Between 1930 and 1960 the Democratic party never had less than 60 percent of the black vote in any Presidential election.

    Claiming that the Great Society (whose benefits have mainly gone to non-black recipients) was some sort of plot to get the black vote is to reveal that you simply don't know actual history. Democrats had the black vote before the 1960s.

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