Deer In The Headlights on Race – Dialectic Two Step

Estimated reading time: 7 minute(s)

Liberal Friends, as part of the National Democratic Party’s dialog on race, both Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton are being called out on their votes for the 1990’s crime bills. The bills are viewed as having unfairly targeted the black community.

A little history on crime rates in the 1990’s. In what is called the great crime decline, there was a 40 percent drop in all major crime categories from homicides to auto thefts across the country. It produced the longest and deepest crime decline in the United States since World War II.

the longest and deepest crime decline in the United States since World War II.
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While scholars can’t pin down any one cause, there are number of factors most feel contributed

Increased number of police
Increased incarceration rates (yes disproportionately high impact on black people)
Receding crack epidemic (yes disproportionately high impact on black people)

If we think its desirable to decrease crime, especially violent crime, then we would have to agree that the bills Clinton and Sanders voted for were effective and beneficial.  Lives were saved, and it is also probably true that more black lives were saved.

Lives were saved, and it is also probably true that more black lives were saved.
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But, there are some facts here that are uncomfortable to some folks and I want to explore why. Because it is driving some irrational behavior in the liberal world.  When we set the crime decline alongside the fact that the black population was disproportionately affected, amnesia sets in.  Incarceration of black people is being called racist. That’s lazy and sloppy thinking.

Yes, the black population is disproportionately affected by crime.  That is a problem that deserves the attention of the nation.  Yes, Black Lives Matter.  Effectively targeting violent crime is a major component of solving that problem. The symbols of justice are the blindfold, the scales, and the sword.  The sword isn’t just for decoration.

Rejecting policies and candidates because the price of thousands of lives being saved was that criminals, yes a lot of them black, were punished, is a big leap into la la land.  Crime is crime.

Coloring the problem with race is problematic. Especially here in the US, where several hundreds of years of unthinkable atrocities have been brought down upon the black people of our nation.  It stirs strong emotions; draws us into “us against them” tribal behavior. It fuels anxiety and irrationality on all sides.

If liberals are to make good on vanquishing the plague of racism, we’d better stick to the facts and not go deer in the headlights on the issue.  It creates a blind spot that makes us look dumb.

Dialectic Two-Step  is an ongoing series of my thoughts on questions that come my way.

Wisdom lies neither in fixity nor in change, but in the dialectic between the two. - Octavio

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