RACE
Recently,
there have been a number of issues in which race is a principal consideration:
‘Black Lives Matter’ relates to the killing of black men by white police
officers; We have too many people in prisons, disproportionately black; A large
percentage of abortions are performed on black single women.
In reaction
to each of these, I’ve read articles, and received emails, citing hard data
which seems to place most of the responsibility for these problems on the black
community; some hint at black hypocrisy in not dealing with their problems.
It is not my purpose here to refute these articles and emails but to point out
that they are irrelevant. They fix nothing but provide excuses to go no
further, or to flip off a simplistic ‘solution’.
An example:
Last Friday night, I watched the ‘News Hour’ on PBS. One segment dealt with the
court-ordered reduction of our prison population and the efforts to reduce recidivism
(More than 2/3rds are back in prison in less than a year.) Given the problems
faced by ex-convicts, I believe the results will be very disappointing. Our
good intentions, and our resources, will (once again) be spent putting band
aids on a problem that should have been prevented much earlier. Incidentally,
most black prisoners are not incarcerated for non-violent, victimless crimes.
And so it is
with ‘Black Lives Matter’. After we’ve reformed every police department in the
country (not a bad idea for other reasons) will conditions in our inner-cities
for young black men be greatly improved? Will there be meaningful education and
employment? Will the numbers flip? Will it be cool to choose work, marriage and
fatherhood?
Why do black
women have so many unwanted pregnancies? Do the rest of us have any idea (much
less appreciation for) what they’re up against?
It’s long
past the time to accept failure; what we’ve been doing, expending time and
large sums of money, has failed. In my opinion, and in the opinion of many
blacks, we need to stop what we’ve been doing. Multi-generational welfare, and
negative attitudes toward work, education, and women are not what we want. The
incentives in effect are wrong.
Black writers
have written about what to do. No one’s listening. Why? Hint: Follow the money.
Who’s making out with the status quo? And how do we gain in depth
understanding, strong enough to refute feel-good, politically correct
‘solutions’ in favor of those that will work? And, most important, particularly
for any government programs; How do we measure results, and weed out losers?
Joe Bakewell
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